ACFN presents at Royal Dutch Shell AGM

On May 21, members of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation and the Native Village of Point Hope, Alaska, attended the Royal Dutch Shell AGM in The Hague, Netherlands, to confront the chair and board over Shell’s decision to pursue highly risky ‘extreme energy’ projects without adequate consultation and accommodation of Indigenous communities. “The ACFN leadership has made a commitment to protect our lands, rights and people currently being threatened by tar sands development. Our leadership has repeatedly tried exploring amenable agreements and options with Shell regarding their current tar sands proposals for the Jackpine expansion and the Pierre River mine projects. We want to work directly with the company to adequately identify direct impacts and solutions. However, Shell has repeatedly denied our requests and we have been disappointed by their inability to make concessions to work with us,” said Eriel Deranger, member and communications coordinator of the ACFN, in a news release. “If Shell continues to move forward in project development without working directly with our community it will continue to lead toward more delays in project approvals, litigation and severe financial risk for Shell.”