Intertribal Life Newspaper -

A Wikwemikong First Nation girl from Manitoulin Island in Northern Ontario has been nominated for the International Children's Peace Prize. Thirteen-year-old Autumn Peltier is the only Canadian being considered for the prestigious award.

The public eye is not new to this young teen, who has been speaking on her passion for the environment, especially Canada's water, for years.

Her advocacy began when she entered a community writing contest with an essay on water at eight years old and won an Odawa/Ojibwe language native speaking contest. She kept entering writing contests with essays on environmental issues and protecting national water resources. She also worked toward the treaty signing against the expansion of Alberta's bitumen field and was invited to the Children's Climate Conference in Sweden where she lobbied world leaders for water protection.

One of the world leaders she has talked with is Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Assembly of First Nations.

"I was only supposed to present him with the water bundle as a gift," said Autumn of her meeting with Trudeau. "But at that moment when I met him, I took the opportunity to tell him that I was very unhappy about the broken promises he has made towards our people and discouraged about the pipeline and how unsafe they are towards our environment," she said of his decision to approve the Kinder Morgan pipeline in British Columbia. "When I think about what I said, I am just trying to help my people and help my environment and it makes me feel proud."

Autumn said the Prime Minister told her that he understood and would protect the water.

"I like to speak for the water because the water doesn't have a voice," said Peltier. "If nobody speaks up, what will the water and environment be like in 10 to 20 years? What if we don't have clean drinking water anywhere? We would all die if we didn't have clean drinking water."