The Indigenous World Uranium Summit held in Window Rock, Arizona, Nov. 30 to Dec. 2, 2006, was a vindication of the Navajo Nations’ ban on uranium mining in their territory and a regrouping of Indigenous opposition to uranium mining globally. Speakers came from Fiji, and India as well as North America.

Participants issued a declaration to prevent further expansion of the uranium/nuclear industry, to eventually phase it out, to monitor and prevent damage to the environment and people’s health and to win compensation for those suffering past and current abuses.

Nuclear-Free Future Awards were given:

• for resistance: Sun Xiaodi, China to petition an end to mismanagement corrupting Chinese uranium mining and milling
• for education: Dr. Gordon Edwards (Canada) for his work demystifying nuclear technology
• for solutions: Wolfgang Scheffler and Heike Hoedt, Germany, for work on solar reflectors
• for Lifetime Achievement: Ed Grohus, USA, for gadfly peace activism in Los Alamos, home of the bomb

Special Recognition to Phil Harrison, Navajo Nation and Southwest Research and Information Center USA to understand and overcome their radioactive legacy.

In Canada the caribou is threatened by uranium exploration in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories.

Uranium mining has been prohibited since 2000 by the Keewatin Regional Land Use Plan. However Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. has a policy in favour of uranium mining and nuclear power arguing it helps minimize claimate change. It assumes nuclear waste will not be returned to the North (except for the 85% of radioactivity that remains in the mine tailings).

Can/Alaska Uranium Ltd. has signed option agreements with the Fond Du Lac and Black Lake Denesuline First Nations to undertake uranium exploration on their reserve lands.

People who live and work in the Outaouais region of Quebec are facing an onslaught of exploration for uranium. At a meeting Dec. 15, 2006, Natural Resources Canada and Health Canada told them there was nothing to fear from uranium exploration or a mine.

The price of uranium is now over $US 70 per pound and has increased seven-fold in five years.

(Information taken from MiningWatch Canada Newsletter 24: Winter 2006.)