Event Date: September 12, 2012 - 3:00 pm
Location: Social Sciences Building, 120 Universi

A panel discussion with:
LUIS EVELIS ANDRADE CASAMA, leader  of the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia.
ANNE MARIE SAM, founder of First Nations Women Advocating Responsible Mining, Canada.

Presented by Amnesty International, the Assembly of First Nations, Canadian Friends Service Committee, and CIPS.
Free. In English. Registration is not required.

Governments in Canada are promoting intensified resource development – at home and abroad – as the cornerstone to economic growth. At the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP),  the panel will discuss how the pursuit of unrestrained resource extraction without protection of Indigenous peoples’ human rights may threaten their culture, subsistence and in many instances their very survival.

Luis Evelis Andrade is the Chief Counsellor of the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC). The Colombian Constitutional Court has concluded that at least one-third of the 102 distinct Indigenous nations in Colombia face the imminent risk of total annihilation as the consequence of forced displacement from their lands. ONIC is campaigning for enforcement of the protective measures ordered by the Court and respect for the right of free, prior and informed consent as affirmed in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Anne Marie Sam is an Indigenous woman from the Nak’azdli First Nation in central British Colombia. Her family has lost access to their traditional lands because of the construction of a large open pit mine, the first new mine to enter construction in BC in more than a decade. Her community would also be affected by the eventual construction of the proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline. Anne Marie Sam is the founder of First Nations Women Advocating Responsible Mining and a member of the board of Mining Watch Canada.

Video of the event: