(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department filed a civil lawsuit on Thursday against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
It is seeking $3 million in fines and penalties over Manafort’s alleged failure to file reports disclosing more than 20 offshore bank accounts he controlled in Cyprus, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and the U.K. between 2006 and 2014.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Florida, notes that the Treasury Department previously sent him a notice of its assessment of the penalties in July of 2020.
He was pardoned by former President Donald Trump five months later in December of 2020 for his tax fraud, conspiracy and obstruction convictions stemming from former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
The DOJ’s lawsuit indicates that prosecutors don’t believe Trump’s pardon of Manafort encompasses his failure to file Foreign Bank Account reports in 2013 and 2014.
ABC News has reached out to an attorney for Manafort for comment.
(SPRINGFIELD, Ill.) — A Black woman was finally named valedictorian at her Illinois high school nearly four decades after her graduation.
Tracey Meares, a law professor at Yale University, was a star student at Springfield High School in Springfield, Illinois. But when she graduated in 1984, she was not awarded the title of valedictorian despite having the highest academic ranking in her class, she said. Her story is now the subject of a new documentary, “No Title for Tracey.”
Meares would have been the first Black female valedictorian in the school’s history, but she was not awarded the title. Instead, the school did away with the valedictorian and salutatorian titles that year and Meares was recognized with a group as “top students.” The school went back to official titles in 1992.
“As a 17-year-old, achieving something like being valedictorian is probably the biggest thing…It was incredibly disappointing,” Meares told “Good Morning America.”
Meares said the snub was “very confusing” at first but she later processed the great lengths the school went to to deny her the title.
“I didn’t talk about it ever…Many of my best friends that I have known since I was an adult have asked me why I never told and I didn’t want to talk about it. It was terrible. It was really hard,” she reflected.
Meares went on to study engineering at the University of Illinois and then attended the University of Chicago Law School.
This year, her sister, Dr. Nicole Florence, a first-time filmmaker, turned Meares’ story into a documentary to spotlight the impact of structural racism.
On April 16, after a screening of the documentary in her hometown, Springfield Public Schools District 186 Superintendent Jennifer Gill presented Meares with the valedictorian medal — a surprise to Meares.
“I felt some pride and happiness that my parents who are sitting in the front row could see this happening because they were denied that 30 years ago,” Meares said. “I felt sadness that my grandparents weren’t there.”
Gill said she was “happy” to meet Meares and right this wrong.
“When we know better, we do better. By meeting Tracey and hearing about her lived experience, we know that honoring her with this title means so much more,” Gill told “GMA.” “We want every student to have a feeling of belonging in all aspects of school and a sense of becoming as they leave our schools with a plan for college and career. It is our responsibility to ensure that our system supports students in reaching their full potential. We have seen that high school experiences can have a profound, lifelong impact.”
“It was an honor to have Tracey here and a privilege to learn from such an accomplished alumna,” she added.
The recognition 38 years later is a gesture that Meares says she appreciates.
“Institutionally, there are people who are making an effort to to acknowledge that people are thinking wrong. That was harmful. And it wasn’t harmful, just to me as an individual. It was harmful to the community,” she said. “The thing to take away is for people to understand the ways in which discrimination can operate at a disproportionate rate at a structural level and that its downstream effects are enduring.”
(NEW YORK) — Police arrived at a home in Selkirk, New York, just before 3:30 p.m. on Sept. 29, 2020 to find a husband and wife dead. Bhupinder Saran, 58, killed his wife, Sarbjit Saran, 58, and then took his own life, police said.
It was not the first time police had been to the home. A year earlier, officers were called to a domestic violence incident, and there had been an order of protection against the husband.
On Thursday, New York State Inspector General Lucy Lang revealed that Sarbjit Saran had informed her employer, the state’s information technology office, of the trouble at home, but she received no help — a violation of state domestic violence policies.
“When she reached out for help, it fell on deaf ears,” Lang said during a news conference in Albany.
“This investigation found that despite ITS’ awareness that its employee had reported that she was a victim of domestic violence, ITS did not follow its Domestic Violence and the Workplace Policy in a manner that was responsive to her needs as a victim or that promoted workplace safety,” the inspector general’s report said.
Incidents of violence, sexual violence and stalking increased in New York during the pandemic, when calls to the state’s domestic and sexual violence hotline increased 45%.
Lang called Sarbjit Saran’s death “an utter tragedy” and said she should have been able to count on her employer.
“She gave 30 years of her life to the state,” Lang said. “So much of what happened here is that warning signs were disregarded, and that is a failure of education, a failure of training and a reason why domestic violence has for years existed outside the public sphere.”
Lang announced her office would audit every state agency to make sure they understand their obligations when an employee mentions being the victim of violence by an intimate partner.
(NEW YORK) — Federal agents improperly questioned alleged New York City subway shooter Frank James this week, directed him to sign certain documents and took multiple swabs of his DNA, defense attorneys said in a court filing Thursday.
James, 62, allegedly set off a smoke grenade on a Manhattan-bound N train approaching 36th Street in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, before opening fire and shooting 10 people in what police called the worst disruption to the commute in New York since the Sept. 11 attacks.
On Tuesday, without alerting his lawyers, FBI agents entered his cell at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn “questioned him, took multiple buccal swabs of his DNA, and directed him to sign certain documents,” according to a letter to the court from Mia Eisner-Grynberg and Deirdre von Dornum of the Federal Defenders of New York.
“Contrary to standard practice, the government committed this intrusion absent advance notice to counsel, depriving us of an opportunity to be heard or to be present. Neither did the government provide subsequent notice to counsel. The agents did not provide Mr. James with a copy of the warrant or a receipt, in violation of Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure,” the letter said.
The attorneys said the government failed to explain why it deviated from standard procedure and only provided a copy of a search warrant when the attorneys asked after the fact. They accused the government of violating James’ constitutional rights.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, which has charged James with one terror-related count, declined to comment.
Prosecutors were given until early next week to respond.
The defense attorneys said they would seek to suppress whatever statements James made to the agents this past Tuesday and asked the judge to order the government to turn over a copy of the affidavit that served as the basis for the search.
Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun Sentinel/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
(FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.) — Jury selection in the death penalty case of confessed Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz lapsed into disarray after potential jurors allegedly mouthed expletives and threats to the defendant in the courtroom and the presiding judge admitted committing a legal error that nearly derailed the process.
Just days after Judge Elizabeth Scherer granted a motion by prosecutors to scrap jury selection in the high profile case and start from scratch, she reversed her order on Wednesday upon hearing a counter argument from Cruz’s lawyers. The case began on April 4 in Broward County, Florida.
Scherer admitted that she made an error back on April 5, the second day of jury selection, when she asked would-be jurors if they could follow the law if picked to serve on the case and then dismissed 11 who said they could not.
David Weinstein, a former federal and state prosecutor in Florida, told ABC News on Thursday that Scherer made a mistake by asking the question. He said her inquiries in the initial phase of jury selection should have been limited to questions about whether the potential jurors had a hardship that prevented them from serving on the case, which is expected to last four to six months.
“That was all that they were supposed to be inquiring into,” said Weinstein, who is not involved in the case but is following it closely.
He said the more probing questions like the one the judge asked should have been reserved for the voir dire phase of jury selection, when prosecutors and defense attorneys are given the chance to grill jury candidates on their answers.
“Each side is given the opportunity to rehabilitate you, to ask, ‘When you said you couldn’t follow the law, did you really understand what the judge was asking you? What do you mean you can’t follow the law?'” Weinstein said.
Defense attorneys filed a motion accusing the court of committing double jeopardy and asked that the death penalty phase of the case be declared a mistrial and that Cruz be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
To remedy her mistake, Scherer reversed her earlier ruling and ordered that the 11 jurors she dismissed to be summoned back to court on Monday so lawyers can question them about their answers.
In her earlier ruling, Scherer also said she was dismissing the 243 would-be jurors who had already been qualified for a pool to seat the jury from. That decision has also been reversed.
Scherer said 20 jurors, including eight alternates, will eventually be chosen to recommend whether the 23-year-old Cruz, who has pleaded guilty to 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder, will be sentenced to death or to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The judge’s mistake wasn’t the only controversy to erupt this week in the case.
On Tuesday, a potential juror disrupted the proceedings when he entered the courtroom and allegedly mouthed expletives and threats to Cruz, who was seated at the defense table. The outburst apparently inspired other would-be jurors in the courtroom to make similar threats to Cruz and prompted bailiffs to press Cruz against a wall to protect him.
Scherer described that particular group of jury candidates as “belligerent” and dismissed them all.
Cruz pleaded guilty in October to committing the 2018 Valentine’s Day massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. During the hearing attended by loved ones of the 17 he killed, Cruz said he wished it was up to the survivors of the shooting to determine whether he lived or died.
“I’m very sorry for what I did,” Cruz said at his plea hearing. “I can’t live with myself sometimes.”
(NEW YORK) — A new red flag warning has been issued from Nevada to Oklahoma where 60 mph winds and very dry conditions could create a dangerous fire situation.
The Southwest will continue to be hammered by gusty winds until the end of the week.
The critical fire weather in the Southwest continues with red flag warnings in effect across seven states from Nevada to Texas. Dry airmass remains in place across the region with relative humidity in the single digits and surface winds 20 mph or higher; isolated gusts could reach to 60 mph.
A cold blast brought wind chills in the teens and 20s from the Midwest to the Northeast Thursday morning.
Another cold morning is expected on Friday in the Northeast, with winter-like conditions expected.
The weather will be warmer in the Northeast over the weekend.
Gusty winds and a cold air mass across the Northeast region will make it feel like temps are in the 20s and 30s.
These dry gusty winds are elevating fire danger across parts of the Northeast Friday, with red flag warnings in effect from Delaware to Pennsylvania, including Philadelphia and much of New Jersey.
A new storm system is headed into the Heartland on Friday with severe weather possible, including tornadoes, from Northern Texas to Nebraska, with an enhanced risk in place just north of Oklahoma City, across eastern Kansas and into southeastern Nebraska.
Oklahoma City, Wichita and Tulsa are some of the cities in the bull’s-eye for possible tornadoes and huge hail.
This severe weather threat moves east into the Midwest by Saturday.
Paducah, St. Louis and just south of Chicago are the areas in the bull’s-eye for damaging winds, large hail and isolated tornados on Saturday.
(GILBERT, Ariz.) — The winning ticket for the $473.1 million Powerball jackpot was sold in Arizona, officials said.
Just a single ticket claimed the grand prize — which has a cash value of $271.9 million — after matching all six numbers in Wednesday night’s drawing. The winning white ball numbers were 11, 36, 61, 62 and 68, and the Powerball number was 4.
Lottery officials said that due to strong ticket sales, the jackpot climbed past the estimate of $454 million that was announced after Monday night’s drawing had no winner.
“This is the biggest ever jackpot won on a single ticket in our state and it is a life-changing moment for this winner,” Arizona Lottery Executive Director Gregg Edgar said in a statement. “It also means millions of dollars to our state’s economy, to this winner’s community, and to the vital programs and services funded by Arizona Lottery ticket sales.”
The winning ticket was sold at a QuikTrip in Gilbert, according to the Arizona Lottery. No one has come forward yet to claim the prize, according to Arizona Lottery spokesperson John Turner Gilliland, who noted that people usually take a few days “to get their affairs in order first.” The winner, who can elect to remain anonymous, has 180 days to come forward.
The winner can either accept an estimated annuity of $473.1 million — which is paid in 30 graduated payments over 29 years — or a lump sum payment of $283.3 million. Both values are before federal and state taxes.
Beyond the jackpot, more than 1.4 million tickets won cash prizes in Wednesday night’s drawing, including a $1 million winner in Indiana who matched all five white balls, Powerball officials said.
This marks the third time this year the Powerball jackpot has been won. In January, two tickets sold in California and Wisconsin split a grand prize of $632.6 million — the seventh-largest jackpot ever. In February, a ticket sold in Connecticut won a $185.3 million jackpot.
The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 292.2 million, according to Powerball officials. The overall odds of winning a prize in the game are 1 in 24.9.
(GULFPORT, Miss.) — Four people were gunned down across two neighboring Mississippi cities Wednesday morning, allegedly by the same gunman, according to police.
The first shooting was reported at about 9:11 a.m. Wednesday at a Broadway Inn Express motel in Biloxi, police said.
Three victims — two men and one woman — were found dead at the scene, police said.
They were identified by the coroner’s office as Mohammad Moeini, 51, Chad Green, 55, and Laura Lehman, 61.
The suspect, 32-year-old Jeremy Reynolds, allegedly fled the motel in one of the victim’s cars and drove to nearby Gulfport, police said.
The second shooting — which left 52-year-old William Waltman dead — was reported in Gulfport at about 9:27 a.m. Wednesday, according to Gulfport police and the coroner’s office.
Witnesses said Reynolds fled that scene in a stolen car belonging to the city of Gulfport, police said.
Police tracked down the car and said Reynolds fled on foot to a convenience store. Two employees escaped the store as Reynolds barricaded himself inside, police said.
After multiple attempts to contact him, a SWAT team entered the store where they found Reynolds dead inside “from unknown circumstances,” police said. His autopsy has not been conducted yet, according to the coroner’s office.
(NEW YORK) — In the fall of 2016, under the cover of darkness, Jessica Reznicek had a singular focus: to halt the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. At valve sites across America’s heartland, she snuck through security fences, set fire to equipment, and used chemicals to burn holes in the pipeline itself.
To Reznicek, a veteran climate activist, the damage was justified: a nonviolent act of civil disobedience in pursuit of saving the planet. The Justice Department saw it differently. After Reznicek publicly acknowledged her crimes and entered a guilty plea, federal prosecutors subsequently persuaded a judge to apply a sentencing increase known as the “terrorism enhancement” against her, putting her behind bars for eight years.
The enhancement was applied “even though no person was ever hurt, no person was intended to be hurt, she wasn’t charged with terrorism, and she didn’t plead guilty to terrorism,” said Bill Quigley, Reznicek’s attorney and a professor emeritus at the Loyola University New Orleans Law School. “The terrorism enhancement doubled her amount of time in prison, which is troubling.”
Next month, when a panel of 8th Circuit Court of Appeals judges hears Reznicek’s appeal, the terrorism enhancement will take center stage. Her case has emerged as a potential watershed moment in the eco-extremism movement, galvanizing free-speech advocates and renewing calls for reform. And the outcome could reverberate down through future American protest movements.
Most frequently used against violent extremists or those with ties to foreign terrorist organizations, the terrorism enhancement is praised by national security officials and prosecutors as an effective tool of deterrence — a stiff penalty meant to discourage others from engaging in similar behavior. But critics say the use of the enhancement against Reznicek reflects a broader push from the powerful oil industry to level harsh penalties against activists who target energy infrastructure.
At a time when domestic violent extremism is on the rise, experts say Reznicek’s appeal presents a fresh opportunity to reexamine how terrorism cases are prosecuted — and who deserves to be labeled a terrorist.
Iowa homecoming
Long before Reznicek committed herself to a life of environmental activism, the Iowa native felt a deep connection to nature. In an interview with ABC News’ Iowa affiliate, WOI-TV, shortly after her sentencing, Reznicek described a childhood spent swimming in a local river, which she called her sanctuary.
“I’ve carried that love with me all my life,” she said. “And I’ve also witnessed that desecration and the pollution that has occurred during my lifetime.”
She described a spiritual calling that eventually led her to fight the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, an oil conduit that would eventually run more than 1,000 miles from North Dakota to Illinois. Beginning in April 2016, thousands of Native American and environmental activists gathered to protest the project. Over time, Reznicek’s actions grew increasingly dangerous.
“I entered the valve sites multiple times in multiple locations on multiple days,” Reznicek told WOI. “Each time, there was a process of preparation for that, knowing full well what the legal consequences were.”
In public and in court, Reznicek admitted to her actions — which included setting fire to multiple construction vehicles — and encouraged others to follow suit. She never hurt another person and said she never targeted human life. But her actions led to a delay in the pipeline’s construction and more than $3 million in damages.
“Everybody’s afraid of these environmental groups and fear that it might look bad if you fight back with these people,” said Kelcy Warren, CEO OF Energy Transfer Partners, the company building the Dakota Access Pipeline, during a cable news appearance in August 2017. “But what they did to us is wrong, and they are going to pay for it.”
In February 2021, prosecutors secured a guilty plea from Reznicek on one felony count of conspiracy to damage an energy facility. Reznicek said she was prepared to serve time in prison, but she and her legal team expected “somewhere in the neighborhood of three or four years,” according to Quigley.
Reznicek’s aggressive brand of protest proved legally perilous: in June 2021, a federal judge handed her a hefty prison sentence and a damning new label: domestic terrorist.
Section 3A 1.4: The terrorism enhancement
In the wake of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, Congress enacted tougher penalties to intentionally deter acts of “intimidation or coercion” aimed at the government or civilian population. In the 1990s and early 2000s, multiple individuals associated with groups like the Earth Liberation Front faced terrorism-related sentences in connection with a string of arsons, including one that burned down a planned ski resort in Vail, Colorado.
“When an individual or group of individuals use an explosive device and incendiary device, engage in tight acts of targeted violence, they have crossed the line,” said John Cohen, an ABC News contributor and former senior official in the Department of Homeland Security, describing the intention of the harsher penalties.
“They should expect — regardless of how noble their cause — that they will be investigated, arrested, prosecuted, and, if convicted, incarcerated as terrorists,” Cohen said.
But critics complain that the law is too broad and too inconsistently applied. Terrorism sentences have historically been used against defendants with ties to ISIS or al-Qaida, or to violent domestic extremists like Cesar Sayoc, who was convicted in 2018 for mailing pipe bombs to members of Congress.
Notably, prosecutors did not seek terrorism enhancements in several other high-profile cases. Neither Dylann Roof, who pled guilty to massacring nine people at a Charleston bible study, nor James Fields, who was convicted of killing a Charlottesville demonstrator with his car, were sentenced with the terrorism enhancement.
“While [prosecutors] try to be consistent, they’ll try to be fair, obviously, there’s going to be different jurisdictions, different groups,” DOJ federal prosecutor Joe Moreno told ABC News. “And ultimately, you’re never going to get a system where it’s uniformly applied everywhere.”
More recently, of the 140 defendants sentenced to date in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, none have faced terrorism charges or sentences.
“In the court of common sense, individuals who went into the Capitol to engage in destructive behavior for the purposes of impeding congressional action and certifying the vote are, by its very definition, engaged in terrorism,” Cohen said. “Unfortunately, under our current legal environment, it may not meet the elements of a terrorism offense.”
Civil rights groups say prosecutors and judges have increasingly branded eco-saboteurs as terrorists, even as some resist applying that label in other more violent cases.
“I believe 100% that this is an overreach of power,” said Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass. “And it is absolutely imperative that we put guidelines in place.”
Spotlight on Big Oil
Markey and other climate supporters say the oil and gas industry has spent years trying to silence opposition, lobbying state and federal lawmakers to enact tougher rules for protesters and increasing penalties for trespassing, damage and destruction at critical infrastructure sites.
“What the oil and gas industry wants is for these protesters to be charged as eco-terrorists, so that they are sentenced to longer time in prison as a deterrent against legitimate civil disobedience,” Markey said. “And that’s wrong.”
In the last five years, 17 states have adopted so-called critical infrastructure protection laws that do just that — and 40 additional bills are pending across the country, including a federal one.
“These laws introduced extraordinary penalties,” said Elly Page, a senior legal adviser at the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law. “Protesters who even momentarily cross onto property that contains a pipeline … can now face multiple years in prison.”
“They’re discouraging people from turning out and have making their voices heard about what’s really the crisis of our time — the climate crisis,” Page said.
In 2017, 80 Republican and four Democratic members of Congress — who over the course of their careers received a combined $36 million in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry — pressed the Justice Department to treat all eco-saboteurs as domestic terrorists.
The Department of Homeland Security later grouped some environmental activists — the so-called pipeline “valve turners” — with mass killers and white supremacists in a description of domestic threats, according to internal documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by the nonprofit group Property of the People.
Meanwhile, Reznicek is in her first year behind bars as she prepares for her upcoming appeal of her sentence’s terrorism enhancement. The Justice Department has argued that Reznicek’s full sentence should remain in place, and that the evidence shows her conduct was targeting the government.
Supporters hope that a favorable outcome could set a new precedent for how activists are treated under the law. Quigley said that Reznicek’s case will be watched closely by those involved in other American protest movements.
“Nuclear, civil rights, Black Lives Matter and others … see this as a really hyper criminalization of consequences for people who protest,” he said.
Moreno agreed that there’s a lot on the line beyond Reznicek’s prison term.
“It’s going to be a difficult uphill battle for her” to get the sentencing enhancement removed, Moreno said. “But if she is able to make that distinction, it would be a very significant one in how these cases are approached.”
(NEW YORK) — When the oil tanker Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons of oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound, hundreds of thousands of acres of water were threatened.
The 1989 spill, considered one of the most devastating environmental disasters in U.S. history, destroyed the livelihood of local Indigenous fishermen, local food sources, as well as the natural habitats of local fish, whale and bird species.
“The thing about the oil spill that a lot of people don’t realize is that was like climate change happening to us overnight,” said Dune Lankard, the founder of the Native Conservancy. The organization was born out of the devastation that the spill caused to the local economy and ecosystem.
The group was created by Lankard to protect the region from further devastation by corporate development. He’s just one of the many environmentalists who argue that Indigenous traditions and tools can turn the tide on climate injustice through the Land Back movement.
Indigenous people make up less than 5% of the world population, however, they have protected 80% of the Earth’s biodiversity for centuries, according to the World Wildlife Fund.
However, climate change and environmental injustices continue to threaten vulnerable populations, including Indigenous tribes. To combat this looming threat, Lankard and his team have cultivated rich kelp mariculture farms, which Lankard calls the “waterkeepers” of the ocean.
He says kelp farming not only supplies a valuable food source and business opportunities for tribes, but it has the ability to pull in and remove billions of tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year.
According to a panel by the science research nonprofit Energy Futures Initiative, kelp farms can sequester up to nine billion metric tons of carbon per year, essentially reversing the effects of climate change.
It’s become an exciting tool for climate activists and scientists alike in taking the fight against environmental destruction back into their own hands.
The more land and water Indigenous people can conserve and repair, the more they can implement climate-saving strategies such as kelp farming.
“What people have to do is: they have to organize, we have to direct their energy, their time, money or love in whatever direction they may need to, in order to save the last of the wild places that are not only dear to them, but they need in order to survive,” Lankard said.
What is the Land Back Movement?
The Land Back movement is a widespread, Indigenous-led effort to return land to Indigenous tribes to conserve, restore and revitalize important landscapes and biodiversity.
“We are calling for the return of land and putting it into indigenous land management or governance, so that we can really have indigenous-led conservation,” Jade Begay, the climate justice campaign director at the Indigenous activist group NDN Collective, said.
Ninety-nine percent of Indigenous lands have been taken from tribes over the development of modern-day America, according to 2021 findings in the Science Journal.
The research also found that the lands Indigenous people have been forcibly moved to are more likely to be at high risk to the ongoing effects of climate change.
The decentralized movement demands that tribes be able to manage environmental efforts on ancestral lands, efforts that can halt or reverse negative climate impacts.
Land Back has already begun to be successful. The government has begun to return and repatriate Native and Indigenous land to tribes.
The Rappahannock Tribe recently reacquired roughly 465 acres at Fones Cliffs in Virginia.
Fones Cliffs is not only the ancestral land of the tribe, but also an important region for resident and migratory bald eagles and other birds. It’s home to one of the largest nesting populations of bald eagles on the Atlantic coast.
Now that the land has been reacquired, they hope to create trails and a replica 16th-century village to educate visitors about Rappahannock history and conservation efforts, as well as train tribal youth in traditional river knowledge.
“We look at the Mother Earth as our mother, and what would you do to harm your mother?” said Chief Anne Richardson of the Rappahannock Tribe.
“The work that I’ve done to get land back on the Rappahannock River is to teach the public how to think the way we think, how to utilize the incredible value systems that have kept our people sustaining on this land for 11,000 years,” she said.
The work of the Eyak people, the Rappahannock Tribe and more Indigenous groups seek to align with the goals of climate scientists as they continue the dire fight against a changing climate.
Climate fears grow
The most recent report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that global emissions will need to peak by 2025 at the latest, and steeply reduce thereafter, to prevent worsening impacts on the climate.
Right now, countries are not on track to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the conservative figure established by the Paris Agreement.
The report named a wide range of solutions to reduce global emissions, including reducing fossil fuel use; large-scale renewable energy resourcing; improving energy efficiency; and reducing methane and carbon emissions drastically.
“If we wanted to really expedite and be efficient about decarbonization, honoring indigenous rights, honoring, calls to action for Land Back will really push us to meet those climate targets to meet that target of keeping temperatures from rising above 1.5 degrees,” Begay said.
Some of the efforts of the Land Back movement, which include water filtration, carbon sequestering and wildfire management can tap into the IPCC’s recommendations.
“I love it when tribal values and traditions validate what the professional scientists have found,” Richardson said. “It’s important for the tribes to be in the care of and to be able to train and teach the public on how to really care for the land and all of our natural resources.”
Much like the Eyak and Rappahannock Tribes, Indigenous groups across the country have already begun to do the work on the ground to save the planet — one river, cliff, or forest at a time.
Land Back as a climate justice solution
The impacts of the oil spill into the Copper River have yet to be completely resolved more than 30 years later.
Lankard called the $2 billion cleanup effort by Exxon after the oil spill “a dog and pony show.”
“Once the oil spill — any oil spill — hits the water, the war is over. You’ve lost. There’s no way you can clean it up,” said Lankard.
“The best thing you could possibly do is get environmental laws in place and preventive measures that will actually protect the environment,” he said.
He says efforts like the Land Back movement can prevent such disasters. Following the spill, Alaskan Natives were able to take control of and preserve more than a million acres of wild salmon habitat along the Gulf of Alaska coastline.
In the meantime, kelp farming has helped bolster the local economy thwarted by the oil spill, as well as provided an environmental element.
Kelp farming is just one of many traditional practices used in environmental justice efforts, joining methods like oyster cultivation for natural water filtration or fire management methods of burning land to reduce grass fuel and limit wildfires.
“We want to figure out how we can be a part of this new emerging regenerative industry and we don’t get owned by the corporations in this next 150 years,” Lankard said.
“They’re going to use all the fun words like conservation and restoration and mitigation and say that they’re the ones that are helping save the ocean when they’re the ones who got us into this mess in the first place,” Lankard said.
