Philámayaye, Niawen'kó:wa, Thank you—I always find myself singing that to the tune of Cabaret's "Willkommen, Bienvenue, Welcome"—I greatly appreciate all the likes, shares, subscriptions, and comments.
If you're traveling in the United States this year, you can support Indigenous peoples and get a great cultural experience through the NativeAmerica.Travel cooperative of Indigenous American, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian organizations.
Apr 25Liked by Amelia Mavis Christnot, The Big Picture
Thank you for this. I have not seen such a succinct and thorough article detailing the issues and the solutions, and I was not aware of all of these efforts.
Apr 26·edited Apr 26Liked by Amelia Mavis Christnot
Thank you for talking about the importance of Native Americans to our conservation. I was so delighted when Biden appointed Deb Haaland to be Secretary of the Interior and appreciate the wisdom she is bringing to the job. My colleague and I have been teaching about Native Americans as leaders in conservation through their knowledge that has been handed down for centuries to our 3rd and 4th grade students. That is to understand that we need Native stewards because as Indigenous people they have the inherited wisdom of the ages. We learned that the Great Dust Bowl took place because people ignorant to the land they had taken from the Indigenous people and ignoring Indigenous ways, killed the Bison and put cattle on instead who ate up the grass cover, and they also mowed up the grass cover to plant wheat. Bison eat the grass in a way that does not pull it up as deeply as cattle do, so they support a groundcover that holds the dirt in place. My friend at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago introduced me to his Native friend and colleague who is an expert in indigenous plants of our region. He learned from his mother and aunts and they from their mother and aunts and that is how the plant knowledge was passed down. He came and taught our students about native plants ecosystems. He looked at what was growing at our school and discussed the ecosystems that the plants were a part of such as where you might have a plant that is a toxin along with the plant that provides the antidote in the same ecosystem. He also talked about what plants in our area are used for medicinally. With the Great Lake Michigan in our neighborhood, we learned about The Great Lake Commons, a group of Indigenous and other local people who want to conserve the lakes together. It seems that slowly there is understanding of the important role that Indigenous people play in stewarding the lands and waters. https://www.greatlakescommons.org/
We endorse this model over the Great Lakes Charter, which gives governors of the Great Lakes states and provinces in Canada stewardship over the lake without Tribal voices whose legal rights for fishing in waters that are healthy are not being enforced by the governors. At least I do not see this happening. Instead governors have allowed money making businesses to endanger the environment. Enron's pipeline in Lake Michigan is a big point of contention. Under the governors it may be too late to save the largest source of freshwater in North America if not the world. So my colleague and I taught about the importance of Indigenous stewardship, and we looked at some projects in our area, like the Gun Lake Pottawatomi tribe who are redeveloping native wild rices, conserving black ash trees traditionally used to make baskets, and lake sturgeon, as well as practicing environmental stewardship of the lake and lands in general.
Our students looked at water struggles in many parts of the country and in Mexico too. Here is a Native water conservation protest song that my students like. https://youtu.be/Onyk7guvHK8?si=3B7tv0Opj1PwA5dE
We need native teachers stewards teaching us how to live in harmony with our planet. Mni Wiconi! Water is life!
As an Australian - yeah, our track record with our First Nations people (up to and including today - witness the Voice referendum 6 months ago) is atrocious, but we are veeeery slowly learning to accept their wisdom when it comes to land management in a giant country that burns regularly. As someone who was finishing primary school when Terra Nullius was overturned, I was just old enough to understand how wrong that whole thing had been, and that the colonials had set up a horrendous system - which we're still working our way out of today. Here's hoping we can...
It just makes sense that native peoples have much to contribute to our understanding of the environment and to our view of planet earth as a whole. That is one of the great benefits of living in a country with a strong aboriginal presence. And that to me is their primary contribution to the country and to our world – or at least it could be. And the move to having native peoples be more involved in the stewardship of our lands, especially those of national parks, makes a whole lot of sense. But that is not happening to the degree it could. And it seems that there is a huge opportunity being missed here – for us all.
For the most part what I see from native environmental activism, is thinly veiled requests to get more land back – which is just not going to happen. For native peoples to be granted a greater role in the stewardship of the planet, one of the things they need to do is show specific examples of what they would do in specific instances, in specific ways, to specific ecosystems. And I just don’t see that.
For example (though I don’t want to get into the details here) there is a lake near where I am from that is in terrible shape. But I see no specific activism on the part of natives in the area. What I see instead are casinos.
Why not use some of the money generated from those casinos, to start environmental study programs to educate young people in the area, and to give them a better and more native-centric view of the environment? Or how about creating specific initiatives about specific problems, like those of the nearby lake – which could come up with specific solutions?
That would be something that would create more support for native issues in general. And it would cause the voters to become more environmentally active in ways that might force governments to act to save the planet.
But that requires native groups to show the rest of us what they can do. That’s how things work in the real world. Vague prescriptions and wish lists are not going to get it done. In order to make something happen and get a project off the ground, you need to be able to articulate your plans in a way that makes others buy into them. And that is just not happening with native activism.
Instead the current methodology appears to be forcing others to support native issues because natives are one of the acceptably oppressed groups progressives love to pretend they care about (until it causes problems for them individually, like raising the cost of their electricity). For truly positive things to happen, native environmentalists need to get out and make their own case. And until they do, they and their issues will be suck in the ghettos of political culture.
First Nations peoples should not have to buy back any land from the federal government! Lands that are available for sale to them should be returned to them with the authorization and funds to administer them.
Furthermore, there should be federal and state grants and funding given directly to the tribes to purchase ancestral lands and in-holdings that are in private ownership by non-indigenous folks. (Full disclosure: I am a non-indigenous folk.)
Philámayaye, Niawen'kó:wa, Thank you—I always find myself singing that to the tune of Cabaret's "Willkommen, Bienvenue, Welcome"—I greatly appreciate all the likes, shares, subscriptions, and comments.
If you're traveling in the United States this year, you can support Indigenous peoples and get a great cultural experience through the NativeAmerica.Travel cooperative of Indigenous American, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian organizations.
https://nativeamerica.travel/
Land! Back!
Thank you!
Thank you so much for keeping this free. I was able to post this important piece in other venues. Mahalo 🤙🏽shaka
No Mystic Sense . .
Thus began the Myth of Manifest Destiny?
Pushing into Reservations primitive Indigenies . .
Sweeping, Owning, a Continent . .. Superiority
clearly Divinely meant . . leading to
Hiroshima and second drop!
Nagasaki Infamy . . .
of Stewardship . . .# Bonding with Nature . .
Thank you for this. I have not seen such a succinct and thorough article detailing the issues and the solutions, and I was not aware of all of these efforts.
Thank you!
What about the idea of handing staffing and management of the NPS to the tribes? Done right, that I think that holds a lot of promise.
Thank you for talking about the importance of Native Americans to our conservation. I was so delighted when Biden appointed Deb Haaland to be Secretary of the Interior and appreciate the wisdom she is bringing to the job. My colleague and I have been teaching about Native Americans as leaders in conservation through their knowledge that has been handed down for centuries to our 3rd and 4th grade students. That is to understand that we need Native stewards because as Indigenous people they have the inherited wisdom of the ages. We learned that the Great Dust Bowl took place because people ignorant to the land they had taken from the Indigenous people and ignoring Indigenous ways, killed the Bison and put cattle on instead who ate up the grass cover, and they also mowed up the grass cover to plant wheat. Bison eat the grass in a way that does not pull it up as deeply as cattle do, so they support a groundcover that holds the dirt in place. My friend at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago introduced me to his Native friend and colleague who is an expert in indigenous plants of our region. He learned from his mother and aunts and they from their mother and aunts and that is how the plant knowledge was passed down. He came and taught our students about native plants ecosystems. He looked at what was growing at our school and discussed the ecosystems that the plants were a part of such as where you might have a plant that is a toxin along with the plant that provides the antidote in the same ecosystem. He also talked about what plants in our area are used for medicinally. With the Great Lake Michigan in our neighborhood, we learned about The Great Lake Commons, a group of Indigenous and other local people who want to conserve the lakes together. It seems that slowly there is understanding of the important role that Indigenous people play in stewarding the lands and waters. https://www.greatlakescommons.org/
We endorse this model over the Great Lakes Charter, which gives governors of the Great Lakes states and provinces in Canada stewardship over the lake without Tribal voices whose legal rights for fishing in waters that are healthy are not being enforced by the governors. At least I do not see this happening. Instead governors have allowed money making businesses to endanger the environment. Enron's pipeline in Lake Michigan is a big point of contention. Under the governors it may be too late to save the largest source of freshwater in North America if not the world. So my colleague and I taught about the importance of Indigenous stewardship, and we looked at some projects in our area, like the Gun Lake Pottawatomi tribe who are redeveloping native wild rices, conserving black ash trees traditionally used to make baskets, and lake sturgeon, as well as practicing environmental stewardship of the lake and lands in general.
https://gunlaketribensn.gov/departments/administration/environmental/environmental-projects/
All of the Native tribes that I know of have extensive conservation departments. Chicago is home to the third largest urban indigenous populations in the USA. The American Indian Center has been involved in local conservation projects. https://www.nps.gov/articles/northwest-portage-walking-museum-connecting-visitors-to-illinois-natural-and-cultural-history.htm
Our students looked at water struggles in many parts of the country and in Mexico too. Here is a Native water conservation protest song that my students like. https://youtu.be/Onyk7guvHK8?si=3B7tv0Opj1PwA5dE
We need native teachers stewards teaching us how to live in harmony with our planet. Mni Wiconi! Water is life!
As an Australian - yeah, our track record with our First Nations people (up to and including today - witness the Voice referendum 6 months ago) is atrocious, but we are veeeery slowly learning to accept their wisdom when it comes to land management in a giant country that burns regularly. As someone who was finishing primary school when Terra Nullius was overturned, I was just old enough to understand how wrong that whole thing had been, and that the colonials had set up a horrendous system - which we're still working our way out of today. Here's hoping we can...
It just makes sense that native peoples have much to contribute to our understanding of the environment and to our view of planet earth as a whole. That is one of the great benefits of living in a country with a strong aboriginal presence. And that to me is their primary contribution to the country and to our world – or at least it could be. And the move to having native peoples be more involved in the stewardship of our lands, especially those of national parks, makes a whole lot of sense. But that is not happening to the degree it could. And it seems that there is a huge opportunity being missed here – for us all.
For the most part what I see from native environmental activism, is thinly veiled requests to get more land back – which is just not going to happen. For native peoples to be granted a greater role in the stewardship of the planet, one of the things they need to do is show specific examples of what they would do in specific instances, in specific ways, to specific ecosystems. And I just don’t see that.
For example (though I don’t want to get into the details here) there is a lake near where I am from that is in terrible shape. But I see no specific activism on the part of natives in the area. What I see instead are casinos.
Why not use some of the money generated from those casinos, to start environmental study programs to educate young people in the area, and to give them a better and more native-centric view of the environment? Or how about creating specific initiatives about specific problems, like those of the nearby lake – which could come up with specific solutions?
That would be something that would create more support for native issues in general. And it would cause the voters to become more environmentally active in ways that might force governments to act to save the planet.
But that requires native groups to show the rest of us what they can do. That’s how things work in the real world. Vague prescriptions and wish lists are not going to get it done. In order to make something happen and get a project off the ground, you need to be able to articulate your plans in a way that makes others buy into them. And that is just not happening with native activism.
Instead the current methodology appears to be forcing others to support native issues because natives are one of the acceptably oppressed groups progressives love to pretend they care about (until it causes problems for them individually, like raising the cost of their electricity). For truly positive things to happen, native environmentalists need to get out and make their own case. And until they do, they and their issues will be suck in the ghettos of political culture.
First Nations peoples should not have to buy back any land from the federal government! Lands that are available for sale to them should be returned to them with the authorization and funds to administer them.
Furthermore, there should be federal and state grants and funding given directly to the tribes to purchase ancestral lands and in-holdings that are in private ownership by non-indigenous folks. (Full disclosure: I am a non-indigenous folk.)