Morning Everyone,
Hard to believe that two months have passed since our beautiful Gathering in Moville this year and so much has been happening since.
But just to remind you, I have attached a short video and a synopsis of the day .written by Cedar Monroe, who travelled from the States via Cork to be be with us for his very first Gathering Event.. enjoy the memories or if you weren’t there SEE WHAT YOU MISSED!!
The Gathering started as a community response to The Illegal Landfill Site at Mobuoy on the Faughan River,outside Derry, from where we get our drinking water and on the 5th June, we saw 2 individuals get custodial sentences as a result.( 1st for environmental crime in N>Ireland,we believe.) We know we made a difference by our consistency in highlighting thiis environmental disaster over the last 12 years.
So Congratulations to us all and to all those who have supported us.
There remain many issues including the lack of a Public Inquiry. As a result we are looking at the possibility of a people’s/community Inquiry and have organized a public meeting to share information and discuss this possibility. This will take place on Wednesday 27th August in Holywell Trust Building in Derry.( More details to follow)
NIEA has launched the consultation on the remediation of the Mobuoy Site
https://www.daera-ni.gov.uk/consultations/consultation-draft-remediation-strategy-mobuoy-site
They have planned two PUBLIC DROP-IIN Events,one iin Eglinton Community Centre on September 7th and the other in the Millenium Forum, Derry on the 7th September, both from 12-7pm.
( I have already requested an extension to the time to facilitate workers and also asked them to give a presentation in the evening on the consultation with a question and answer session as most of us won’t have read the consultation and even if we have, we probably don’t understand it!!)
It would be great if some more of you requested this also.
Many of us attended a wonderful SOS Celebration on Monday of this week…recognizing 10 years(though we know its more) of community spirit and determination to stop the mining in the Sperrins.We know .again. that this is not the end with more licences just having being granted by the DEPT of THE ECONOMY, despite huge public objection. BUT for now a massive CONGRATULATIONS .
Slí Éile is happening in the Sperrins on August 23rd, so look out for those details, enjoy your summer and celebrate!!
Ní neart go cur le chéile.
Mary
Sacred Waters
by Cedar Monroe
There is bitter irony in the fact that the Foyle catchment is threatened by large scale gold mining in the Sperrins. In the 19thcentury, a cache of gold was found on the shores of Lough Foylein Broighter. Included in the cache was a tiny, intricately made gold boat with oars, believed by archaeologists to be an offering to the Irish god of the sea: Manannan Mac Lìr, who has a special association with Lough Foyle.
At The Gathering in May, environmental activists from across the Island came together in Moville to begin a conversation around implementing Rights of Nature legislation for Lough Foyle. River Guardians of the Atrato River in Chocó, Colombia, Bernardino Mosquera and Alexander Rodríguez Mena, and other representatives from Colombian organizations, were guests and speakers at the event. They spoke about their successful efforts to secure the legal rights of the Atrato River, and the struggle since to implement those rights. They too were seeking to protect their river from gold mining and logging.
At a ritual to begin the day, the story of Manannan Mac Lìr and the little gold boat was shared. Attendees brought water from their rivers or local holy wells—and from as far away as the Atrato River— to symbolize the sacredness of each of their places. Each person poured their water into a large bowl in the center of the space, saying each time; “I carry [this water], I protect [this water], and I am [this water].”
I felt honoured to visit, as an international American student at University College Cork, where I am studying motivations for environmental action. Mary, one of the organizers of the event, gave me a warm welcome. As the day went on, regional organizations and fishermen shared their struggles. Fidelma O’Kane from Save our Sperrins pointed out that 27% of land in the Republic of Ireland was being prospected for gold, with 385 current prospecting licenses. The global rush for new minerals to feed our technological revolution is pushing multinationals to reinvest in extractive industry, with practices that threaten the soil and water of whole regions, like the Foyle catchment, for generations to come. A local fisherman noted that no one was listening to local people trying to protect their land and water, they were listening instead to multinationals seeking a quick profit.
The organizers of the 20th Gathering called it “From Colonisationto Community through Rights of Nature.” Throughout the day, there were references to the long experience of colonisation in Ireland, including Eamon McCann recounting how the forests around the Lough were felled centuries ago by British colonial powers. This experience of colonisation is shared by Chocó, a region colonised by Spain for several hundred years, and currently facing large scale logging and illegal mining. Presenters from Colombia explained how Afro-Indigenous communities, the most marginalised community in Colombia, have gained legal rights to territorial autonomy and self-rule in 1991, rights that enabled them to obtain court recognition of the legal rights of the Atrato River. From that ruling, they have developed a plan over a long period of community consultation to take concrete action to preserve the river and the support the people who live on it.
As the meeting came to a close, people were asked to sign a document asserting the Rights of Lough Foyle, as a first step in a long process to protect the waterway and the people who make their home on it. It was written in oak gall ink, made that day from the water we had brought and placed in the center of the circle during the opening ritual.
As we had sung, people were fighting to prevent the return of the days when “do dhúiche bhreá i seilbh méirleach” (our fine land was in the possession of thieves). Perhaps the Manannan evoked at the opening ritual will lend a hand to protect the land and waters where he was once gifted a finely crafted little gold boat—one that did not require a mine that will leave a 54 metrehigh toxic waste dump to run into the catchment.
On the gorgeous shores of Lough Foyle, I felt the power of people coming together—from Colombia to Inishowen—to resist new threats to our precious landscapes. We ended the day with a song led by The Henry Girls, in support of Palestine, another colonised people facing the utter destruction of their homeland. The Lough sparkled under the rare Irish sun as we walked out of the meeting hall in song, reminding us that all is not lost if we can keep fighting the powers that seek to destroy us for profit.
