Each One of Us Has a Duty To Protect Our Resources

Three weeks ago my brother Davey George confronted two non-Native men who were engaged in criminal trespass on our lands. They were also committing another crime: fishing without a permit.

My brother did what each one of us must do when we see these criminal acts by non-Natives: confront the criminals and demand they leave our territory. It does not require a police officer as our lands are held collectively which means we all have a vested interest in protecting what is ours.

The criminals threatened and assaulted my brother then went to the Akwesasne Mohawk Police to file a complaint against him. In a shocking decision, which displays a lack of common sense, the cops charged my brother rather than the criminals.

Anyone with any knowledge of the law, Native or not, knows that a person who is committing a crime and is caught doing so cannot go to the police and complain that during their criminal act they were confronted by a person who then tried to stop the crime. This is particularly true when the criminals are in the act of causing harm to our resources and justify their actions by arguing that the waters which flow through Akwesasne are not part of the Mohawk territory and they can do as they please as long as they don’t step on land.

This is stupid. Our territory consists of land and water. Our water rights go from shore to shore-from River Road to Glen Walter, from the Sugar Bush to Lancaster, from Racquette to Cornwall. It is not simply the surface of the river which belongs to us but everything beneath it as well.

But the problem is that none of our three councils can be bothered to enforce our rights. The St. Regis Tribe, the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne, the Mohawk Nation Council does nothing to patrol the rivers and require non-Natives to abide by our laws. Sure, we do the usual and talk about it in our “Thanksgiving Address” and our propaganda citing our relationship to the natural world but when it comes down to actually protecting the earth, the waters and the animals and plants our leadership fails to take action.

I tried to get some kind of response to my brother’s situation and why a badly trained officer would take the word of a couple of trespassers from Cornwall over that of a community member. I call the MCA and the Conservation Department. No response. Like many other Akwesasronon I have also travelled the waters and have never seen any Conservation Officer, Tribal cop or MCA police official on the rivers enforcing our traditional environmental rules-not US or Canadian statutes but actual Mohawk laws.

Instead, we have the Tribe and MCA use alien laws against their own people and when the Tribe or MCA is asked why they cite restrictions imposed upon them by officials in Ottawa and Washington which directly contradicts their claim to self determination.

These decisions create ambiguity and doubt-and they can place at serious risk any Mohawk who has the courage to defend our territory. We now know the police on both sides of that imaginary border will arrest their own whenever a non-Native raises a complaint. This shows a disturbing lack of confidence, a defensiveness rooted in a sense of ethnic insecurity by cops and officials on both sides.

Take a ride on the river and see for yourself. Every dock protruding into the rivers built by non-Native affects our resources. Every gill net placed into the water by non-Natives affects our fish. Every sturgeon gutted by non-Natives, every eagle shot at by non-Natives, every load of trash affects our resources. Every wharf built by the Port of Cornwall into our waters intrudes upon us, every marina from Cornwall to Lancaster is an act of trespass into our waters. Drive from Cornwall to Lancaster and see the homes being built with landfill poured into our waters or take a look at the waterfront restaurants and the elaborate boathouses-all have been constructed on our territory, not to mention the outlflow pipes, the farm runoffs with raw sewage.

Yet none of our leaders is ready to take action. They will not confront the St. Lawrence Seaway and the massive damages it causes to our islands and the dumping of bilge wastes from the ship holds. Look at the invasive species forced upon us: cormorants taking over from the herons, zebra mussels, carp, gobi minnows-and nothing is done. Removing the cormorants is simple: offer a couple of our fishermen rewards for each one of those nasty birds brought down.

Sending my brother, or any other Mohawk, to Valleyfield to appear before a provincial court is a bad decision which must be reversed. The MCA has to protect its members rather than punish them for defending our resources when there is no other recourse given that the police and conservation officers refuse to take care of this problem. I hope other Mohawks will act as my brother has and fulfill our collective obligations to act in defense of our lands, our waters and those species with whom we share Akwesasne.