Today, community members in Grassy Narrows undertake a “Walk to Protect Grassy Narrows Traditional Land Use Area from Destruction.” The event is a display of ongoing resistance to industrial logging in their Territory by people in Grassy Narrows.

Today also, the Grassy Narrows Youth Group publicly released a position statement against logging signed by more than fifty young people. The statement is a reminder that the current generation of Youth is as committed to protecting the Territory as earlier generations from the community have been.

Full Statement from Grassy Narrows Youth Group

We say No Logging because our identity is based on the land and our history, and so we can still use our traditional land in a good way. We want to be able to continue such things as hunting and fishing.

We say No because logging would affect the environment. Our land is still healing from the mercury and logging does not help.

If we say yes to logging, mercury will rise, people may get sick, and there will be more poisonous chemicals that can harm animals and our traditional medicines. If we choose logging, the government will use that ‘yes’ to abuse our rights. They did it before and we don’t believe they’ve changed. If we let them cut it will affect the next generations.

We say No Logging because we’ve lost too many trees in the past, and animals that live almost like humans have had to move to safer places.

What we mean by No Logging is that the trees should be only for the people of Grassy Narrows, for their use only, such as for cabins for our community.

We say No Logging, for our future generations, so they can still enjoy the beauty of our homeland.

*-written by the Grassy Narrows Youth Group, April 20 2015*

 

*More information*: https://FreeGrassy.net