Last November a Vancouver Mining company, Diamond Field Resources, announced the discovery of what could be the most significant metal discovery in Canada in decades. Since then a flurry of activity has left nearly one half of the Labrador peninsula "claimed" by hundreds of multi-national mining companies.

The site of the rich ore body, containing at last count at least $20 billion worth of nickel, cobalt and copper, is indicated on the map as Voisey's Bay, approximately 40 km from the Inuit village of Nain on the Labrador coast. The Innu call the area Eimish, after one of the three pristine, wild rivers that filters through the wide delta and empties into the Labrador coasts' most unique and significant estuary. Eimish is visited annually by significant populations of migratory waterfowl, arctic char, minke whales, harp and ringed seals, wolves, and the occasional polar bear, as well as by the George River Caribou Herd. Estimated at nearly one million, the George River Herd is the largest herd of freely roaming ungulates in the world.

Very few areas have been left intact from the industrial onslaught of the last two centuries. Eimish is one of those rare gems left in North America -- the only roadless, untouched wilderness area of its size in eastern North America is at stake, and the only part of the Innu people's homeland that has been left intact for the pursuit of their traditional practices.

"Life as we know it will be gone forever once we see a lot of development in the area of Voisey Bay." --Katie Rich, Davis Inlet Chief Although the Innu have demonstrated their opposition to the mine, and the government has recognized the overlapping claims of both the Innu and the Inuit to Voisey's Bay, as well as the other areas that are currently being explored by mining companies, the Newfoundland/Labrador government is leasing aboriginal land for exploitation.

"We aren't able to control these things that are happening on our land. These companies are making a lot of money from our land and what do we get -- nothing. Three or four jobs, that's it." -- Katie Rich

Diamond Fields' biggest shareholder is Robert Friedland, associated with the United State's worst mining disaster in the Colorado Rocky mountains, a superfund site estimated to cost $120 million. Already Friedland has made $350 million off of Voisey Bay, while the Innu community that will be most impacted by the mine is the most indigent village in Canada, with no running water or sewage.

Write letters to the Canadian Minister of the Environment, (House of Commons 509-S, Ottawa ON, K1A 0A6 Canada) and insist upon respect for the Innu and Inuit as well as a full federal-provincial environmental review. Demand that the process be conducted fairly and that it be observed by an independent body.

Write to Diamond Fields (1900, 355 Burrard St., Vancouver B.C., V6C 2G8 Canada) and remind them that they are exploiting the land of the Innu and Inuit; that their presence at Voisey Bay is illegal in the eyes of international law; and that they are destroying one of the last places left on earth that has not been encroached upon by industry, contributing to the global biological meltdown.

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