A Secretive Network Is Fighting Indigenous Rights in Australia and Canada, Expert Says

It’s all part of a global playbook from the U.S.-based Atlas Network to protect the profits of fossil fuel and mining companies, argues a Sydney researcher.

A campaign to deny Indigenous peoples a voice in Australia’s national Parliament is using tactics similar to an earlier conservative legal battle against First Nations communities in Canada, a new research paper argues.

In addition to Australia and dozens of other countries, several Atlas Network members are based in Canada. And they too have led efforts attempting to undermine greater recognition of Indigenous legal rights. An Ottawa-based think tank and Atlas member called the MacDonald Laurier Institute spent years advocating against Canada’s federal government adopting the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, otherwise known as UNDRIP.

That’s because UNDRIP contained clauses that could potentially give Canada’s Indigenous peoples greater say over fossil fuel and natural resource projects on their territories. “It is difficult to overstate the legal and economic disruptions that may have followed from such a step,” read documents produced by the Atlas Network and the Macdonald Laurier Institute that were obtained by DeSmog.

The think tank has actively cultivated pro-industry Indigenous representatives as the face of its advocacy efforts on this and other natural resources issues in order to provide “a shield against opponents that is hard to undermine,” according to the documents. First Nations critics refer to such strategies as “redwashing.”

“It’s a way of [industry] making their claims about their relationship with Indigenous peoples sound better than they actually are in reality,” Kris Statnyk, a Gwich’in First Nation lawyer based in British Columbia, told Drilled this summer. Read more https://www.desmog.com/2023/10/10/a-secretive-network-is-fighting-indigenous-rights-in-australia-and-canada-expert-says/ www.desmog.com/2023/10/10/a-se…

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