EDITED VERSION FOR WFTE SCRANTON, PENNSYLVANIA

SKYWAVES:Indigenous News Worldwide broadcasts within the first 15 minutes.

The Ramapough/Lunaape Nation is calling on all humans of good conscience to join a prayer rally/vigil on our Ceremonial Land: Where: Mahwah, New Jersey 95 Halifax Road Date: Saturday, May 5th, 2012 Time: 12 noon, Rain or Shine Why? This is the time, this is the hour to speak out for the protection of all US Watersheds that supply everyone with fresh drinking water, preserve Native traditions, and for the healing of the Earth.

CHIEF VINCENT MANN contact: 201.529.1171 The Ramapough’s traditional land has met with imprudence from numerous outside groups, including Ford Motor Company - which used our land as a “toxic dumping ground”, and now gas/oil corporations want to endanger our vital watersheds by creating underground storage facilitiesto house fracked gas for export to foreign markets. To create this supply and storage route would involve blasting and clearing of public and private lands, creating hazards for communities in the Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York regions which includes the beautiful Long Island Sound.Fracking fluid contaminates water sources, poisons ecosystems [animal & plant], and is currently suspect to have caused earthquakes in Ohio.

The Ramapough believe that callous disregard for humans and the Earth cannot go unanswered. The Ramapough assert: it is the civic duty of all people of good conscience everywhere to ensurechange be just and prudent rather than a reinforcement of financial inequities which continue to divide us at the cost of our environment. To that end, we are asking everyone to join us in making their voices heard to help stop the atrocities committed on our families, communities, ourwatersheds, and the Earth.

CALEEN SISK Tribal Chief- www.winnememwintu.us/ - The Winnemem Wintu Tribe, a band of indigenous people located in Northern California, have appealed to the United States Forest Service’s Regional Forester to temporarily close of part of McCloud River, located in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest. Forty to 60 tribal members and supporters gathered at Pacific Southwest Regional Forester Randy Moore’s Vallejo office at about 9 a.m. Monday to picket, said Caleen Sisk, the Winnemem Wintu tribal chair. John Heil, a press officer for the regional forester, confirmed that range of protesters. After an hour of picketing, Regional Forester Moore came out and addressed the group, said Sisk. She said Moore was receptive and that he did "the respectful thing" by listening to protesters’ concerns. The Forest Service's Heil said Moore will work with the Shasta-Trinity National Forest supervisor in making a decision on the river closure request. The four-day mandatory closure would allow the tribe to carry out a traditional coming-of-age ceremony, Balas Chonas, in which teenage girls spend four days in prayer and communion with elder women before swimming across the lake and symbolically entering adulthood. This is the not the first time the Winnemem Tribe has appealed to have the area shut down during Balas Chonas. Since 2005 they have sought to have the area temporarily closed to the public for the religious ceremony, but have only been granted "voluntary closure," in which the area is not physically closed off.

Listen to all Skywaves episodes