Last Updated on April 10, 2025
From cradle to grave, indigenous peoples worldwide have born the brunt of nuclear contamination and the lethal diseases that accompany the nuclear power industry. From mining uranium to dumping nuclear waste, tribal communities in North America, Southern Africa and Australia have suffered most from radioactive land, air and water, while nuclear promoters on Wall Street bask in the sunshine of government-subsidized financing.
Yet, while nuclear power has never produced a single sustainable watt of energy, the US and Canada continue to pursue this boondoggle as though Chernobyl, Fukushima and Three Mile Island never happened. Never mind that the largest Superfund site at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation remains uncontainable with no viable waste repository on the horizon; when there’s free money from the US Treasury on the table, why worry about the next billion years of carcinogenic crisis?
In 2008, the state of the art nuclear reactors in France — the poster child for a nuclear power renaissance in the US — started leaking. Then, a few years later, Fukushima melted down. Now, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the US has started fast-tracking nuclear plants in Georgia, Florida, North and South Carolina.
When we defeated the nuclear power industry in Washington state in the 1970s, the well-documented cancers from living near nuclear plants was a strong argument against this madness, but the most interesting fact unearthed was after partially built plants were already in mothballs. Contractors were shown to have falsified records to conceal the fact that they had omitted reinforcing steel in order to cut costs and increase profits.
No matter how you cut it, human greed and nuclear power are a disastrous combination–now, and for the next four and a half billion years.
Across the world right now, Indigenous peoples are facing a renewed assault on their lands, rights, and ways of life.
From extractive industries pushing deeper into ancestral territories, to governments rolling back hard-won protections,
the threat is global—and it is growing.
What makes this moment especially dangerous is how little attention it receives.
Stories like this are disappearing in real time. Mainstream media
barely covers it and the coverage is fragmented. The public is left without the context
needed to understand what is truly at stake.
That is exactly why IC Magazine exists..
For more than 20 years, IC has reported on Indigenous struggles worldwide — consistently, independently, and without compromise.
We don’t follow news cycles; we trace patterns. We don’t sensationalize; we provide context.
And when the world looks away, we stay focused.
But this work is increasingly difficult to sustain.
We refuse to lock our reporting behind a paywall. We don’t sell access through subscriptions.
And we don’t answer to advertisers. IC Magazine survives solely because readers like you choose to
support independent Indigenous journalism.
Please donate today if you can. Every contribution helps us to continue this crucial work.
Thank you,
John Ahni Schertow
Founder and Editor in Chief
