How we’re building the movement to stop Green Colonialism

The current administration has declared a national energy emergency, making clear its intention to unlock new powers that will expedite the permitting process for energy and mining projects. In the process of fast-tracking projects on a mass scale, this administration is cutting out public input and subverting tribal sovereignty by presuming consent through a directive for agencies to fall in line with executive orders, regardless of whether or not there is widespread opposition.

By attacking the National Environmental Policy Act, cutting out the Council on Environmental Quality, and decentralizing regulation among federal agencies, this administration is setting us onto a destructive path, wherein industry reigns supreme and the voice of the people and tribal sovereignty are ignored, censored, and even punished. The “green energy transition” is the perfect vehicle to achieve this goal - it appeals to settler-colonial systems by advancing capitalistic solutions to the climate crisis that require additional harms to the land, air, water, and Indigenous Peoples to create these industry-led technologies. Projects that are deemed necessary for a so-called “green energy transition” include nickel, copper, lithium, cobalt, and other “critical minerals.” 

Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who works in direct partnership with the administration, emphasized the importance of lithium batteries, calling them "the new oil" and a "money printer," while investing heavily in the company’s lithium refining and battery production.

But this “green energy transition” is not being pursued to benefit the people or the planet; its purpose is to perpetuate capitalism, imperialism, the military industrial complex, and war.

Across Turtle Island and the globe, Green Colonialism is on the rise. 

Coined in international Indigenous spaces, “Green Colonialism” describes the harmful impacts extraction, refining, and production of “green” energy alternatives have on Indigenous Peoples and Indigenous lands.

Among the key “green energy-transition” metals, 97% of nickel, 89% of copper, 79% of lithium and 68% of cobalt reserves and resources in the U.S. are located within 35 miles of Native American reservations. Worldwide, 54% of green energy transition minerals are located on or near Indigenous lands.

Green Colonialism is a new form of settler-colonialism, rooted in so-called “green extraction,” which impacts the lands and lives of Indigenous communities globally. Green Colonialism includes false solutions to the climate crisis, which are inherently anti-Indigenous and non-consensually deadlock communities globally into a relationship with industry, violating Indigenous Peoples’ relationship with the land and their sovereignty.

The movement to stop green colonialism is growing in various communities around the world, as Indigenous Peoples resist harmful false solutions to the climate crisis. 

In that tradition, Honor the Earth is offering our first-ever No Green Colonialism School from May 27-31.

Participants will gain information, connections, and a seedling grant supporting direct resistance to “green energy transition” metal/mineral extraction on their ancestral lands. Our key objective is to build the movement to stop green colonialism – together. 

Participants of the school will continue working on the ground to resist green colonialism projects in their own communities. These projects include, but are not limited to, the prospecting, planning, mining, refining, or shipping of “green energy transition” metals and minerals such as lithium, nickel, cobalt, copper, and uranium. 

Learn more here and apply now!

The truth is, we cannot mine our way out of climate chaos. Together we can work toward real solutions, including Indigenous Sovereignty, Land Back, free prior and informed consent, and living in right relationship with Mother Earth.