Earth is our Mother
by Sonam VelaniHappy Indigenous People’s Day! Last year President Biden issued the first Presidential Proclamation declaring the second Monday in October a day to celebrate and honor the invaluable contributions and resilience of Native Americans.
Indigenous communities across the United States and globally have stewarded our planet and its ecosystems for millenia. Yet these lands have been forcibly taken from them for generations. Native tribes are experiencing environmental peril exacerbated by formal policies - first by white settlers and then by the US government - forcing them into some of the country’s most vulnerable lands. And now, climate change is quickly making that land uninhabitable, and Natives face the loss of home, yet again.
Through generations of close interactions with the environment, indigenous peoples protect 80% of the world’s remaining biodiversity. From building oyster reefs on New York’s Long Island shore to conserving some of the last redwood forests in California to halting oil drilling in Alaska’s arctic circle, the participation and knowledge of Indigenous tribes is key to bringing solutions to the climate crisis.
Fawn Sharp, former president of the Quinault Nation and president of the National Congress of American Indians. “The stakes are very, very high,” she said. Photo by Josué Rivas / The New York Times
Indigenous peoples and local communities have gained international recognition under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) with the establishment of the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform (LCIPP) in 2015 in Paris. The LCIPP aids in amplifying indigenous voices and facilitates their active and much-needed participation in the UN climate negotiations.
Indigenous demonstrators from numerous tribes step out at the head of the People’s Climate March in Washington, D.C. Photo by Stephanie Woodard / In These Time
Indigenous demonstrators from numerous tribes step out at the head of the People’s Climate March in Washington, D.C. Photo by Stephanie Woodard / In These Times
This Indigenous People’s Day, we encourage you to take the time to learn about our local tribes (find yours here!) Join the effort to utilize the deep, generational knowledge indigenous tribes possess to develop diverse and sustainable communities:
Support Indigenous Activism: Indigenous tribes across the world have joined forces and established the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities. They work together to protect over 3.5 million square miles of land across the planet. You can support their 5 priorities: land rights, free prior and informed consent before any intervention into their territories, direct access to climate funding, protection of people from violence and prosecution, and the recognition of traditional knowledge in the fight to defend the planet.
Invest in Nature Based Solutions: Nature-based solutions - efforts like reforestation and ecosystem restoration - pay for themselves with a triple dividend, as they sequester carbon, boost biodiversity, and support human well-being. Nature-based solutions are estimated to have the potential to lift a billion people out of poverty, create 80 million jobs, add an additional $2.3 trillion of growth to the global economy, and also prevent $3.7 trillion of climate change damages. The stats don’t do it justice - green, bio-diverse ecosystems have existed for millenia and it’s our job to keep it that way.
Celebrate the Iconography of Native Peoples: You don’t know what you don’t see. Indigenous representation in media, politics, literature, and education is paramount to understanding and incorporating native traditions in our everyday lives. Some of my favorite films and books celebrating native communities: Dances with Wolves, Songs My Brothers Taught Me, Gather, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus, by Charles C. Mann, Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, by Dee Brown, or Black Elk Speaks, by John Gneisenau Neihardt. NY Climate Tech movie club, anyone?
The Great Spirit is our Father, but the Earth is our Mother. She nourishes us.....That which we put into the ground she returns to us. -Big Thunder Wabanaki, Algonquin
by Sonam Velani