This November a new global movement will be born as communities across the world unite in their resistance to the extractive industries and together say “Yes to Life, No to Mining”.This is about standing together and standing up for the Earth community. We invite you to be part of this movement, joining in solidarity and sharing your inspiring stories and messages of resistance. Here’s how you can be a part of it…Post a photo and tweet #yestolifenotomining or #sialavidanoalamineriaTake a photo of yourself, a friend, your community, or something altogether more imaginative, with a sign featuring your words of action or support. Your message could read Yes to Life, No to Mining or it could be more personal to you and your resistance efforts: No to Coal! Leave the oil in the soil! Frack off. In Solidarity. Here are some examples to inspire creativity…Email us your photo (to info@gaianet.org) or, better still, upload it directly onto Twitter. Use the hashtags #yestolifenotomining or #sialavidanoalamineria. This means your photo automatically appears on the homepage of the website and is beamed around the world on social media. We want as many people as possible to use the #yestolifenotomining hashtag so we can make a real noise around this radical but critical stance.Connect with Others
Our short film, In Solidarity, shows how one community resisting a gold mine in Colombia reached out by way of letter to a community resisting fracking in the UK. It reinforced our vision; the power of togetherness. To continue in this spirit, we encourage both the general public and mining affected communities to connect with one another through the website. This is possible in a number of ways:- Leave a message of support underneath stories of resistance (start a conversation, give advice or simply leave words of encouragement), or contribute your own story.
- Dialogue on twitter #yestolifenotomining
- Contact us directly using the contact form on the website
Pledge
On the homepage of the website and on numerous other pages across the site you’ll see a bold Pledge function. Here you can sign up your name and email and become part of the Yes to Life, No to Mining movement by pledging your support. yes to lifeNO TO MININGwww.yestolifenotomining.orgEmail your photo to info@gaianet.org or, upload it directly onto Twitter.The Yes to Life, No to Mining movement was conceived by a group of individuals, organisations and networks – from Africa, Europe, North and South America – all concerned with the wellbeing of our planet in the face of the exponential growth of mining over the last decade.We were moved to take action against the increasingly devastating impact of the extractives industries.The expansion and increasing aggression of mining and the extractive industries threaten the health and integrity of Earth, our only source of life. The plundering of our living planet in the pursuit of profit, and the myths of progress and eternal economic growth, must stop.We want to encourage communities saying NO to mining to connect across the planet, to collaborate and build their confidence through mutual solidarity, and support one another to stand firm.We stand for Life on our Planet – because it is increasingly threatened. We stand in Solidarity – with human communities, with all the living beings with whom we share the Earth, and future generations of all species. We stand with You – the millions of people around the world who are standing up to say “Yes to life, No to mining!”, defending ancestral territories, farmlands, pastoral lands, wild lands, sacred lands, water systems, villages and homes.Yes to Life, No to Mining resolves to:- Stand in solidarity with communities who choose to resist mining, however it affects them, and to defend their ancestral rights and responsibilities to future generations of all species.
- Support indigenous and local communities who choose to maintain and strengthen their traditional knowledge, practices and governance systems, and to secure recognition for their territories, customary laws and ways of governing their lives.
- Support, encourage and develop initiatives – such as agroecology and reforestation – that protect and enhance living systems as alternatives to mining.
- Encourage initiatives attempting to move industrial society away from consumption, waste, growth and towards a circular economic system. We support those empowering communities and society at large to reclaim their brains, change their attitudes to ‘stuff’ and create an ecological and meaningful materialism; those designing and creating products to last; those that minimize the use, or encourage the re-use, of minerals and metals; those that implement a zero waste policy; further investment in ecologically and socially just innovations for an end to throwaway consumer culture.
- Support advocacy strategies and initiatives to withdraw subsidies from the fossil fuel industry and invest in energy justice instead – in the form of reduced and more equitable consumption of energy, produced by small-scale, renewable and decentralised technologies, developed within principles of a circular, zero-waste economic system.
- Encourage initiatives that (re)establish legal strategies and precedents that build a body of law rooted in the laws of the Earth. These would enforce the recognition of the Rights of Nature, deter Ecocide and allow ecologically and socially just societies to emerge.yes to life NO TO MINING
