Scroll Down for a Full List of Past Events and Recordings
Upcoming Events
April 6th, 6pm, Pembroke Town Hall - Informational Meeting on Town Ordinance to stop mining in Pembroke
Join us as we push forward to stop the Wolfden mining proposal at the local level. Pembroke residents can give testimony and Wolfden will also be able to speak.
April 11th, 8:30 am Augusta - Rally for Clean Drinking Water for Passamaquoddy Citizens
Join us to support our Passamaquoddy neighbors in fighting for their right to access clean water. For more information, check out the Wabanaki Alliance website and register to join.
May 4th, Pembroke - Pembroke vote on Town Ordinance to stop mining in Pembroke
Stay tuned for more event announcements.
Past Events
Sunday, February 20, 3pm
John Banks, Penobscot Nation
Winona Laduke, Honor the Earth, introduced by Wayne Tomah, Passamaquoddy
Moderated by Dwayne Tomah, Passmaquoddy cultural historian and Dawn Neptune Adams of Sunlight Media
Learning from communities where mining has occurred in other states.
Learning from the Penobscot experience of environmental contamination of the Penobscot river.
Sharing an indigenous perspective on building a movement to regulate mining in Maine
About the Speakers
John Banks was the Director of the Department of Natural Resources for the Penobscot Indian Nation, a federally recognized Indian Tribe in Maine from 1980 through 2021 Mr. Banks has served the Penobscot Nation in this capacity since 1980, following the enactment of the Maine Indian Land Claims settlement Act of 1980. As Natural Resources Director, Mr. Banks has developed and administered a comprehensive Natural Resources management program for his tribe, which advances an integrated management approach, in recognition of the inter- connectedness of all things in the natural world.
Mr. Banks has served on many local, regional, and national organization boards including the National Tribal Environmental Council, Native American Fish and Wildlife Society, National Indian Policy Center, and the Tribal Operations Committee with USEPA.
Mr. Banks has a BS degree in Forest Protection from the University of Maine, where he was awarded an Indian Fellowship from the Office of Indian Education in Washington DC.
Mr. Banks was awarded the 2019 Distinguished Alumnus from the University of Maine School of Forest Resources.
Winona LaDuke, a Native American activist, economist, and author, has devoted her life to advocating for Indigenous control of their homelands, natural resources, and cultural practices. She combines economic and environmental approaches in her efforts to create a thriving and sustainable community for her own White Earth reservation and Indigenous populations across the country.
LaDuke attended Harvard University and graduated in 1982 with a degree in rural economic development. While at Harvard, LaDuke’s interest in Native issues grew. She spent a summer working on a campaign to stop uranium mining on Navajo land in Nevada, and testified before the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland about the exploitation of Indian lands.
After Harvard, LaDuke took a position as principal of the reservation high school at the White Earth Ojibwe reservation in Minnesota. She soon became involved in a lawsuit filed by the Anishinaabeg people to recover lands promised to them by an 1867 federal treaty. At the time of the treaty, the White Earth Reservation included 837,000 acres, but government policies allowed lumber companies and other non-Native groups to take over more than 90 percent of the land by 1934. After four years of litigation, however, the lawsuit was dismissed.
The lawsuit’s failure motivated LaDuke’s ensuing efforts to protect Native lands. In 1985, she helped establish and co-chaired the Indigenous Women’s Network (IWN), a coalition of 400 Native women activists and groups dedicated to bolstering the visibility of Native women and empowering them to take active roles in tribal politics and culture. The coalition strives both to preserve Indigenous religious and cultural practices and to recover Indigenous lands and conserve their natural resources.
Sunday, Jan 2 — Virtual Event
Stacy Caulk, Drummond Woodsum
Ralph Chapman, former legislator
Learning what happened at Callahan mine in Blue Hill Maine
Learning about DEP Rule Change
Learning from other communities where mining has occurred
Watch the recording here!
Sunday, January 30, 3pm
Andrew Stancioff, retired Geologist
Jan Morrill, Earthworks mine tailing specialist
Bruce Taylor, Board certified Pediatrician and Anesthesiologist
Focus for this session is on the underlying geological context for this mine site, the contamination risks posed by the drilling, tailings, grinding and processing proposed by the company
Watch the recording here!
About the Speakers
Andrew Stancioff is a geologist, natural resource planner, analyst, and manager with 35 years of experience in geology, hydrology, agriculture, fisheries, forestry, climatology, and oceanography. He has 40 years of experience in developing countries and 25 years in Africa. During the last ten years, Stancioff has worked to develop methods and models to monitor and evaluate poverty and conflict in areas under stress from overpopulation and overuse of natural resources and other forms of degradation. He is presently working on finding financing to plant trees in Africa to create natural CO2 sinks and sources of food. He has been involved in modeling, demographic health and environmental data in support of famine and conflict early warning systems. Mr. Stancioff has lived in Spruce Head, Maine for the last 10 years where he has been active in supporting the Camden Conference on various committees.
As the Tailings Campaign Manager at Earthworks, Jan Morrill's work focuses on mine waste, called tailings, and the social, environmental and cultural disasters that result when mining companies put profits over safety.
She works with communities around the world directly affected by dangerous tailings storage facilities, including in Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Peru, and beyond. Additionally, she seeks to elevate best practices in tailings storage on a local, regional and international level. In June of 2020, Jan co-authored Safety First: Guidelines for Responsible Mine Tailings Management a set of guidelines endorsed by 150 frontline community groups and civil society organizations from 24 countries that aims to protect communities, workers and the environment from the risks posed by the thousands of tailings facilities across the globe.
Jan believes that the communities most impacted by mining practices must have a voice in decisions made by mining companies and governments that affect their lives. This must include the right to say no to mines they deem too dangerous. Before coming to Earthworks Jan spent five years in El Salvador supporting the community-based and national organizations worried about the impacts mining would have on the country’s scarce water sources. The social movement in El Salvador eventually pushed the government to pass the first of its kind ban on all metallic mining. During that time, Jan also coordinated with dozens of international organizations that supported the Salvadoran anti-mining movement.
Bruce Taylor is board certified in Pediatrics and Anesthesiology, who is concerned about environmental effects on health. Throughout his career, both in civilian and military practice, this has been a major focus. Mining is a vital industry, yet has detrimental effects. The process of bringing metals locked under the ground to the surface and processing them releases toxic metals such as lead, arsenic and mercury. Fine particulate matter generated by mining and the metal processing is also a major health threat. These toxics can contaminate our air, water and soil, and then enter our bodies. The pathways and potential effects, especially on the fetus and developing child, will be discussed.
December 12, 2021
Watch the recording of Sierra Club Maine's Community Conversation— Wrong for Maine, Wrong for Cobscook Bay: The Dangerous Downsides of Large-Scale Polymetallic Sulfide Mining