13 | January | 2021 | Water is Life

You may recall the #NestlePledge we launched a couple years back — asking you to denounce the company’s practices by refusing to buy Nestlé products. As water protectors, we follow generations of our fellow organizers in this opposition, from child rights activists in the ‘70s to rainforest defenders. I’ve personally been boycotting Nestlé for seven years now, and we hear from folks who’ve done so for 40-plus. Maybe it can offer some comfort that, even amid the mayhem in D.C. and all the other things we can’t control, we can still support the right companies to help make things better for future generations.

To keep you up to date, we have a new dispatch from LPLP’s blog with the latest happenings at everyone’s least favorite transnational food conglomerate.

Water protectors in 2019 at a “Protect Ginnie Springs” action. Photo by Sum of Us.

Recently, Nestlé made headlines in a court case brought forth by former child slaves who allege that Nestlé, along with Cargill, knowingly allowed and enabled slavery in cocoa supply chains. A brief from Nestlé’s defense hideously argues it should not be held liable for the use of forced labor in chocolate manufacturing — just like the companies that made gas for concentration camps weren’t punished at the Nuremberg trials.

Meanwhile, down in Florida, environmentalists have mounted a separate fight against Nestlé after it requested a permit to pump more than one million gallons of fresh water per day out of the state’s sensitive and already overexploited Ginnie Springs. In true water protector fashion, “kayaktivists” have taken the protest straight to the spring for floating sit-ins, paraphrasing our Lakota saying by chanting, “Water for life! No to Nestlé!”

We know here on Standing Rock that extractive billion-dollar corporations are not friends to the people or the planet. Our many struggles against Nestlé’s deplorable behavior exemplify how interrelated we are and demonstrate how we can build power across generations, distance, and demographics to resist assaults on our common home. It is our hope that the courts and the regulators will hold Nestlé accountable, and that you’ll feel empowered to join us on the Boycott Nestle bus.

Mni Wiconi — water is life!

Honorata Defender
Standing Rock Organizer
Lakota People’s Law Project

P.S. Spread the word and help your friends vote with their dollar. Inspire others to #BoycottNestle by sharing our blog with your networks!