RAVEN (Respecting Aboriginal Values & Environmental Needs)

R.A.V.E.N. Respecting Aboriginal Values & Environmental Needs is a charitable organization that provides financial resources to assist Aboriginal Nations within Canada in lawfully forcing industrial development to be reconciled with their traditional ways of life, and in a manner that addresses global warming or other ecological sustainability challenges.

RAVEN’s mission is to assist Aboriginal peoples in Canada in protecting or restoring their traditional lands and resources and addressing critical environmental challenges such as global warming by strategically enforcing their Constitutional rights through the courts in response to unsustainable settlement or industrial exploitation supported by the State.

RAVEN is a registered Canadian non-profit organization with charitable tax status. RAVEN's registration number is 85484 0147 RR0001. The organization also has applied for and received approval of U.S. 501(c)(3) status and is in the final stages of formalizing that.

RAVEN currently campaigns for the Beaver Lake Cree Nation in support of its legal fight to stop the destruction of their traditional hunting, trapping and fishing lands from exploitation by Alberta tar sands industries. RAVEN's position is that assisting the Beaver Lake Cree Nation in its efforts to stop the bitumen oil sands development is a chance to reverse a trend toward destroying the natural systems of the planet. The destruction of the boreal forest and the wasteful use of energy for the extraction of oil combine to make expansion of the bitumen oil sands one of the greatest threats to the future of our planet.

RAVEN also supports the Tsilhqot’in National Government and Xeni Gwet'in First Nation in their legal action against Taseko Mines' Prosperity Project which proposes to turn a pristine lake that is part of the Fraser River watershed into a dump site for mine waste. RAVEN claims that assisting the Tsilhqot’in Nation is a chance to prevent ecological disaster before it takes place. Teztan Biny (known as Fish Lake by settler communities) is being reviewed to become an industrial dump site for the Taseko Mines Prosperity Project.

RAVEN works in close alliance with the growing movement of eNGOs (environmental non-governmental organizations). The Tsilhqot'in fight to preserve Teztan Biny (Fish Lake) is now a national issue also on the agenda of NGOs such as MiningWatch Canada and the Council of Canadians. The practice of turning fresh water lakes into toxic waste dump is a matter that concerns everyone. The Canadian federal government is not only allowing for this practice through the recent amendment to Schedule 2 of the Metal, Mining and Effluent Regulations (MMER), but also there are 20 more lakes across Canada facing the same fate as Teztan Biny.

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