see schedule of events.

Larson Bill, Western Shoshone
Nevada, U.S.A 

Larson Bill is Western Shoshone and lives in the Northeastern part of the Western Shoshone Treaty territory, along the Ruby Mountains. Larson is  the Community Planner for the Western Shoshone Defense Project.  In that capacity, he serves as the lead organizer for community meetings and dialogues with corporate and government entities.   Larson has been active in the defense of Western Shoshone rights for many years and has been a lead delegate on numerous National and International Summits in the U.S., Canada and Central America, the United Nations in New York, and to the U.S. Congress.   Mr. Bill recently returned from a five country indigenous leadership strategy session in Bue�os Aires, Argentina where representatives from Peru, Argentina, Ecuador, Chile and Bolivia extended a special invitation to Mr. Bill to bring word from the movement in the South to the peoples here in the North.  He, along with Indigenous Environmental Network Director, Tom Goldtooth are coordinating the upcoming 15^th Protecting Mother Earth Conference to be hosted  by the Shoshone at the South Fork community.

Mr.Bill also currently sits as Vice-Chairman for the Southfork Shoshone community and a Board member of the Rural Nevada Development Corporation and Great Basin Resource Watch.  He is a long time leader and has served consecutively for over 25 years in an elected capacity in Elko, TeMoak, and South Fork as council member, chairman and vice-chairman.  He has also served on the Inter-Tribal Council of Nevada, representing all 26 tribes in Nevada, in a Council position and as ITCN Secretary. 

Neville �Chappy� Williams, Wiradjuri
Australia

Uncle Chappy is a Wiradjuri Traditional Owner of Lake Cowal and the surrounding lands in central New South Wales, Australia. The Canadian Barrick Gold mine is desecrating our ancient sacred lake, handed down from generation to generation to be cared for, for the children of the future.

Lake Cowal is located in the Kalara (Lachlan) River Valley, which is part of Australia�s largest river system, the Murray-Darling Basin. Lake Cowal is one of the oldest lakes in the world, an ephemeral lake with a twenty-year wet/dry cycle and wetlands of international significance.

Lake Cowal is part of the sacred heartland of the Wiradjuri Nation. Its identity has been kept secret throughout the ongoing invasion of our country. At this time, we are forced under duress, to disclose some of our inside knowledge, in order to protect what is most sacred to us.

The Wiradjuri have waged a protracted and bitter legal battle in the Australian courts against Barrick Gold, in order to try and stop the desecration of our sacred lake, the destruction of our cultural objects and to protect our waters. But the mine went ahead in 2006 and now the pit wall in the lakebed has collapsed and buried many blast holes full of explosives.


Jethro Tulin, Ipili
Papua New Guinea

Jethro Tulin is the Chief Executive Officer of the AKALI TANGE ASSOCIATION INC. Jethro is a founding member and was instrumental in establishing the Akali Tange Association, a Human Rights organization that deals with issues surrounding the Porgera mine in Enga province, Papua New Guinea.

Jethro Columbo Tulin was born in Mamale village, Laiagam Enga Province, in 1967. He went to the local high school and then to Ruskin College Oxford UK majoring in Industrial Relations. He was also the founding trade union General Secretary for the Porgera Mining & Allied Workers Union for the Porgera mine employees and various other national trade unions in Papua New Guinea.

Sergio Campusano, Diaguita Huascolatino
Chile 

Sergio Campusano is the president of the Diaguita Descent Community Los Huasco Altinos. He has been fighting against the greed of the mining corporations, such as Barrick Gold, and also against the local agriculture companies, in order to mantain the rights of his People. He has participated pressing charges in countless times even against the Chilean State itself, including a notice to appeal before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. He's conscious they're fighting not only to represent the alives ones, but the ancestral idea upholding preservation of the ecosystem for the entire world.

Carrie Dann, Western Shoshone (for NY tour)
Nevada, U.S.A.

Carrie Dann is a Western Shoshone elder who, together with her sister, has been at the forefront of the battle to save the Shoshone ancestral lands in Nevada and bordering states. Despite a treaty signed by the US government in 1868 guaranteeing the Shoshone rights to their territory, more than 90% of their lands have been taken away since then. Gold mining has destroyed some of the land and more than 950 nuclear bombs were tested on Shoshone land in Nevada against the wishes of the Shoshone. In 1973, sisters Carrie and Mary Dann were fined for allowing their livestock to graze near their ranch in the Crescent Valley, Nevada; they argued that they were grazing on Shoshone land, which was a right guaranteed under the 1868 treaty. They have been fighting with the US government, the nuclear industry and international gold mining corporations through legal action and nonviolent civil disobedience ever since for their right and the rights of the Western Shoshone to maintain their way of life on their ancestral lands. After her sister died in an accident in 2005, Carrie continues this struggle for her people. Carrie and Mary Dann received the 1993 Right Livelihood Award, also referred to as the Alternative Nobel Prize, "...for exemplary courage and perseverance in asserting the rights of indigenous people to their land."