The Rosehip Medic Collective is co-sponsoring a film screening and presentation covering the resistance of the Unist’ot’en Clan in Northern British Columbia to exploitative industries, including tar sands, shale gas, the Pacific Trails and other pipelines. Following the film Portland Rising Tide will host speakers from the region in person and via Skype to speak about their experiences. The screening happens at a time of critical need as the Unist’ot’en Camp is under threat of eviction by the Canadian state. Please come join us for a fundraiser to support them! It will be a suggested sliding scale $10 donation with nobody turned away for lack of funds. .
The Unist’oten’s Call to the Land is a short documentary that was filmed in the summer of 2013 on unceded Wet’suwet’en territory, 1000 km north of Vancouver in northern BC (western Canada) over the duration of the fourth annual Environmental Action Camp, hosted by the Unist’ot’en (C’ihlts’ehkhyu/Big Frog) Clan.
The focus of the film is on the Camp as a year-round resistance to exploitative industry, and what it represents in relation to indigenous sovereignty and the environmental, legal, and social issues surrounding pipeline projects in British Columbia. The short film documents one of the most important resistance camps in North America at this time.
WHY WE SUPPORT THIS:
The Rosehips desire to continue expanding our focus with support for communities preparing and surviving both chronic and acute disasters. As resilient First Nations peoples, the Unist’ot’en exist at the juncture of hundreds of years of colonization and the prospect of multiple new energy extraction and export projects—continuing a pattern of environmental racism that destroys communal identity, raises incidence of chronic illness like asthma and cancer, and poisons collective resources. Use of these fuels will contribute massively to climate change—bringing more intense and frequent disasters to people around the globe.
By supporting this event, the Rosehips hope to learn more about and substantively support this kind of resistance and continue building relationships with climate and environmental justice campaigns in our region.