Images

Canada - Trans Mountain Pipeline Resistance - Tiny House Warriors & Protect the Inlet 2018

Kiribati 2014-2016

Banaba Island 2016

Fiji 2014-2016

The MMIW Drone Search Team organizes rallies, search parties, and candlelight vigils for missing women in the Secwepemc Nation area. Indigenous women go missing at rates 12 times higher than any other women in Canada. This team of volunteers hopes to change that, and to bring back answers for the families of those who’ve already gone missing. You can read more at the link in my bio!
This is Caitlin Potts. She went missing on February 21, 2016 near Enderby, British Columbia. Her family members, along with the MMIW Drone Search Team, have been using drones to search for clues that could help bring answers to her family and the families of three other women who have gone missing in the area in the past few years. Indigenous women have been going missing or facing violence at rates far higher than other women in North America. The institutions meant to protect basic human rights and safety often fail Indigenous women. I wrote this story to address this issue but also shed light on the ways that Indigenous communities have been responding to this—across North America, families have been putting on and funding their own search efforts. Their resilience in the face of such high rates of violence is often missed in mainstream coverage. read more at the link in my bio! ❤️
This is (finally!) published! Indigenous communities have been using drones to conduct their own searches for missing women. Indigenous women go missing or are murdered at rates 12 times higher than any other women in Canada. In the US, they face violence rates 10 times the national average. . . . Instead of waiting for answers from police, the MMIW Drone Search Team has been conducting its own searches for four women who’ve gone missing in the unceded Secwepemc Nation territory. These searches are entirely volunteer-led, with local drone companies donating their equipment and expertise. They’ve found disturbed land, bones, and women’s clothing on searches. . . . But, perhaps most importantly, the search team has created a way for families of the missing women to come together, share their experiences, and feel less alone as they continue searching for their sisters and daughters. Read more at the link in my bio. @janice.cantieri published in @yesmagazine_ as part of @solutionsjournalism #MeToo #SolutionsToo series.
Banaban dancers performing at the 70th commemoration of the Banaban displacement on December 15, 2015. The British Phosphate Commission displaced the Banabans on this day in 1945 to facilitate further strip mining of Banaba’s phosphate. The Banabans gather on this day to commemorate their displacement, spend time together, dance, and pray. Though they’ve made a new home in Fiji, many Banabans still wish to return to Banaba, which has yet to be rehabilitated and is covered in toxic waste and asbestos that the BPC left behind in 1979.
The Banaban people continue to live with the impacts of nearly a century of strip-mining by the British Phosphate Commission, who left toxic debris, asbestos housing, and destroyed, unrehabilitated land when they left the central Pacific island in 1979. Banaba, one of the most remote islands in the central Pacific, can only be reached by a four-day cargo ship journey. The BPC displaced the entire population to Fiji in 1945 to continue mining. . . . The mining ended in 1979 after the Banabans returned to reclaim their homeland, but those living on Banaba today continue to live in the toxic, asbestos-ridden colonial housing structures left behind by the company. The land is almost completely unusable, because the fertile phosphate soil was taken and spread over New Zealand and Australia to create farmland. The resilient, resourceful Banabans survive by fishing and growing what they can on the land. Some salvage the scrap metal left behind by the mining company. But because the island is so remote, it’s hard to get the metal off the island, let alone remove the toxic asbestos sheeting used in the roofing. And because the BPC mined all but a tiny strip of land, the Banabans had no choice but to make their homes inside the crumbing mining buildings, garages, and old worker housing structures. Many Banabans have been developing lung problems, likely from breathing in asbestos dust. You can read more on the “Stories” tab of my website. . . . #pacific #Banaba #colonialism #Indigenous #Micronesia #decolonize #extractiveindustry #stripmining #environmentaljournalism #storytelling #natgeo #fulbright #kiribati #environment #mines #phosphate #environmentaljustice #asbestos #toxic #injustice #resilience
The i-Kiribati are some of the best fishermen (and women) in the world. Etekia caught this right off the back of the canoe 🛶
In Kiribati, climate change is compounding existing challenges to meet people’s basic needs—the sea levels are rising, and extreme king tides are killing off many of the staple food crops people eat along with their fish-based diet. People have been developing their own solutions to adapt to the changes, like growing vegetables with hydroponic units that can be raised above the salt water. . . . For decades, the people of Kiribati have been consuming more and more Australian imports, especially white rice and flour, the cheapest available staples that can survive a long boat journey. This is a result of several factors. The ongoing shift from a primarily subsistence-based economy to a cash-based economy has been happening for the past half-century. But climate change has sped up this shift-breadfruit trees are dying, and community gardens have been washed out to sea in king tides, leading to more dependence on expensive, unhealthy imports. Kiribati now has some of the world’s highest obesity and diabetes rates. . . . But people have developed innovative ways to adapt to these changes and grow more vegetables as a community. Eritai Kateibwi, a young i-Kiribati entrepreneur, has been teaching communities how to grow veggies in low-cost hydroponic units that can be raised up when a high tide is coming in. This allows families to grow their own, inexpensive vegetables. You can read more about Eritai’s hydroponic units and other innovations in my story, Adapting to the Anthropocene, published in the first issue of @atmos Magazine. @willwarasila took beautiful photos for this part of the story! (His is the third image here. I took the first two.🌻) . . #kiribati #sealevelrise #innovation #solutions #pacific #development #environment #sustainabilty #storytelling #magazine #climatechange #internationaldevelopment #atmos #solutionsjournalism
Kiribati, from the sky. These coral atolls are super narrow and not more than 3 meters above sea level. They actually can “grow” a little bit as the sea level rises and erodes more of what once was coral, but in the next century it’s expected that the sea level will rise dramatically and at a faster rate than it has in the past. The combination of extreme high tides and man-made alterations to the shoreline will create significant challenges for the Kiribati people, primarily accessing clean drinking water. . . . But these islands are not “sinking,” and the people of Kiribati see migration as a last resort. Instead of being “climate refugees,” they have developed their own innovative solutions to try and address the main problems of flooding, salt water in their drinking wells, and staple food crops dying after king tides. They’re starting to grow vegetables with affordable hydroponic units that can be raised up over the high tides. . . . They’re doing a lot to adapt to a changing climate they aren’t responsible for, with very few resources. . . . #kiribati #climate #adaptation #resilience #Indigenous #pacific #risingtides #natgeo #fulbright #environment #innovation #socialenterprise #changemakers #journalism #islands
My story, Adapting to the Anthropocene, in the first issue of @atmos - a new magazine about climate and culture. The story focuses on communities around the world who have been adapting to extreme environmental changes and developing their own innovative ways to survive...check it out at atmos.earth ! Beautiful photos by @willwarasila
My story, Adapting to the Anthropocene, is in the first issue of @atmos - a new magazine about climate and culture. Volume 01: #NeoNatural is available on stands and online today. www.atmos.earth. The first issue has contributions from artists including @yokoonoofficial @anohni and more! . . Thanks to Will Warasila, Rishabh Malik, and Ryan Shorosky for taking beautiful photos for the story!! Cover photo here by @rishabh_malik04 photo of Kiribati by @willwarasila and photo of a Tiny House Warrior by @ryshorosky Link in bio or at @atmos
From @thenarwhalca : Very few Albertans have ever heard of the Mountain Cree-Smallboy camp, an Indigenous cultural settlement along the Cardinal River, a few hours east of Jasper National Park. Fewer still will have seen this place for themselves. • • • For the last five decades the people here have quietly lived far, far off the beaten track, outside the bluster of the modern world. Using buckets, community members draw water directly from the Cardinal River for drinking and washing and chop wood for heat. Children attend a small school and enjoy a local ice rink. The houses are hand-crafted, set just back from a solitary road. • • • The camp is widely understood by the people of the community as a place of healing. • • • But just upstream, a threat to the camp and its way of life looms. Teck Resources plans to expand a major metallurgical coal mine in the nearby Rocky Mountains. The expansion would bring mining activities across the Cardinal Divide and into the camp’s watershed. • • • Journalist Janice Cantieri — a former Fulbright National Geographic Storytelling Fellow — was afforded a rare welcome into the community, to hear the concerns of individuals who fear pollution of the Cardinal River would end their way of life. • • • Traveling to the remote community, Cantieri spent hours on unmarked roads, driving well past cell service zones. • • • “You definitely feel like you’re outside of the rest of Canada,” Cantieri said, after two winter visits to the camp. • • • As she conducted research for her piece, Cantieri said she found very little written about the proposed expansion of the Cheviot mine. “There was really nothing on this expansion at all. It was a little concerning because Teck is pushing through basically a whole new set of mines under an old permit that doesn’t require them to go through a new environmental assessment.” • • • “They’re using an environmental assessment from the '90s.”🏔 • • • Read our in-depth feature, up now on The Narwhal. Link in bio🌱@thenarwhalca • • • 📸 @janice.cantieri  #water  #cardinalriver  #documentaryphotography  #rockies #mountains  #indigenous
The glacier-fed Cardinal River is where the Mountain Cree community collects their drinking water. I tried this water right from the river, it was some of the purest water I’d tasted. This camp was created so that the community could live according to their natural laws, with the elements, and have a place away from the reserve system to maintain their language and spiritual practices. They collect water from the glacier-fed Cardinal River, hunt wild game and harvest medicines, chop wood to heat their homes, and choose to live in a way that's connected to the water and the land. A coal mine expansion near the camp could extend the risks of selenium and nitrate contamination to the Cardinal River. The camp does not engage in political fights, nor do they normally appear in the press. They are not opposed to all mining, but they asked that the company keep their mining to an area that won't affect their drinking water. You can read more at the link in my bio.
My story about a coal mine expansion near Jasper National Park that threatens an Indigenous community’s drinking water supply is published with @thenarwhalca ! Read about the Mountain Cree community, who’ve been living off the land and away from the reserve system since 1968, but who are now being threatened by a coal mine expansion. https://thenarwhal.ca/just-outside-jasper-national-park-a-coal-mine-threatens-an-indigenous-communitys-water-supply/
A little late with this post (and I look like an idiot in this photo) but I just learned that Dr. Wally Broecker passed away. Dr. Broecker coined the phrase "global warming" in 1975 and warned us of the dangers of climate change but also recommended looking into solutions for the problem. He sat down with Kelly and I for hours at the Comer Climate Conference a few years ago and was so kind. I'm sad that he didn't live to see us turn this mess around!
Families of missing people experience what’s called “ambiguous loss,” a type of grief that’s often harder to cope with because there is no closure or knowing what happened to the person. Dr. Pauline Boss, who coined the term “ambiguous loss,” says that human connection, especially with others experiencing the same thing, is the best antidote for dealing with this type of loss. The MMIW Drone Search Team, in addition to carrying out searches for missing Indigenous women using drones, provides a sense of connection for the parents of missing women-they are able to share their experiences and connect with others going through the same thing. While they haven’t located any of the women, they have created this support network.