Shell No: Indigenous Activists To Confront Shell Over Arctic Drilling (Picture, Video)

• The delegation will attend the Shell Annual General Meeting at the Hague on Tuesday, May 19th, 9:00am GMT at the Circustheater, Circusstraat 4, 2586 CW The Hague.
• Mae and Faith will also be in London and participate in a non-violent direct action outside the Shell London Investors meeting on Thursday 21st May, 10:00am GMT Central Hall Westminster, Storey’s Gate, Westminster, London SW1H 9NH, United Kingdom.

Monday, May 18 2015. A delegation of female indigenous activists are making their way to the Shell Annual General Meeting in the Hague to call for an end to Arctic offshore development. Mae Hank and Faith Gemmill-Fredson were part of a mass “flotilla” action in Seattle on Saturday which saw hundreds of people take action next to Shell’s Polar Pioneer drilling rig, docked at the Port of Seattle’s Terminal 5 [1].
 
“Our culture and livelihood is dependent on the bowhead, the walrus, the seal and the fish. How can Shell go ahead with such a risky operation when peoples lives are at stake?” asks Mae Hank “Shell has a 75% chance of a spill in the region if it moves forward with drilling. Shell simply cannot
be trusted with such operations.”
 
The delegation is being hosted by UK Tar Sands Network who will also attend the meeting to call for Shell to permanently pull out of the tar sands, despite putting major projects on hold [2].
 
“Shell is playing risk with the global climate by keeping tar sands projects on ice,” said Suzanne Dhaliwal director of the UK Tar Sands Network [3] “Shell insists that it can take leadership on climate change while committing the global community to a ticking climate bomb, with projects such as the Alberta tar sands. We need to immediately transition away from highly polluting energy sources towards a low carbon economy and not play dice with the climate [4].”
 

Faith Gemmill-Fredson (Neets’aii Gwich’in, Pit River and Wintu) of Arctic Village, Alaska is the founder and current Executive Director of REDOIL (Resisting Environmental Destruction On Indigenous Lands) REDOIL is a grassroots network that was created by Alaska Natives to share knowledge, experience and strategies to address the detrimental impacts of fossil fuel, mining and climate change in Alaska. Faith is a board member of the International Indian Treaty Council (IITC) Faith also currently serves as the Vice-President of the California Indian Environmental Alliance.
 
Mae R. Hank, Inupiat from Point Hope (AKA – Tikigaq), Alaska. Mae is a resident and tribal member of Native Village of Point Hope. Mae previously served as a Native Village of Point Hope Tribal Council member for ten years. Mae is a former employee of the North Slope Borough, and the City of Point Hope, as well as the former Executive Director of the Native Village of Point Hope Tribal Council office. Among her many accomplishments, she also served on the Point Hope Search and Rescue committee. Mae is a mother, and most importantly a grandmother of 17 grandchildren. Mae has been an active and vocal advocate in opposition to offshore development for 38 years. Her primary desire is to ensure the rights of the Inupiat to continue to live their traditional way of life by securing a clean and pure ocean so that the Inupiat whaling culture can continue to thrive in the Arctic. Threats now imposed upon the Inupiat people by Royal Dutch Shell and other multi-national oil companies’ efforts to drill in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas of the Arctic Ocean. This is a direct threat to the Inupiat and their rights to continue to live their traditional whaling culture which the Iñupiat have done for thousands of years.

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