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BY BRANDON BARELA - NAVAJO NATION, AIGC MAJOR GIFTS OFFICER
Prior to westernization, native communities lived harmoniously with the land. This was due to accumulated knowledge and understandings that were refined over hundreds or thousands of years of experience with the land. Today, AIGCS Alumni Brett Isaac (Navajo Nation) and Tyson Jeannotte (Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indian) are incorporating that knowledge and Indigenous tradition in their business practices in an effort to respect and preserve the land while empowering their communities. Now, more than ever, it is pertinent for companies in the energy and resource preservation industries to apply Tribal Ecological Knowledge (TEK) to rebuild the relationship with the land and integrate knowledge that will benefit the environment and population. Irresponsible energy production has impacted the world in a negative way and now industries are looking to backtrack on generations of destruction to restore balance to the environment. Both Isaac and Jeannotte agree traditional practices that 24
have been known in Native communities are now being acknowledged by industries that have exploited or altered our land. Jeannotte has seen it through the alteration of natural rivers that polluted the water while Brett has noticed BRETT ISAAC NAVAJO NATION, AIGCS ALUMNI
Jeannotte’s work focuses on water quality projects and designing mechanisms to trap destructive contaminants, so they won’t have a negative impact on other water sources. He aims to promote solutions to water issues such as the exporting of nutrients and how it affects water quality. Jeannotte shared that nutrients have been exported for agricultural fields and are currently affecting water quality by developing algae. His plan is to restore the water sources back to the natural setting to halt the spread of harmful nutrients, as well possibly preventing natural disasters.
it by the extraction of natural resources on Navajo land and the destruction it has left behind. As a water resource engineer,
the american indian graduate | fall 2021 | aigcs.org
“If farmers never dredged the rivers in the early 1900’s we might not have had the devastating flood of 1997 in Fargo and Grand Forks,” he explained. “Those dredged rivers forced water rapidly into the flooding basin.”
TO SEE MORE OF DAVID ANDERSON’S AMAZING WORK PLEASE VISIT INSTAGRAM: @EYE.OF.DAVID.
