CSQ 42.2 Indigenous Youth leading the way...

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Vol. 42, Issue 2 • June 2018 US $4.99/CAN $6.99

J UNE 2018 Vo lum e 42 , Issue 2 Board of Directors president

Duane Champagne (Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa) Vice President

Steven Heim Treasurer

Jason Campbell (Spokane)

Clerk

Nicole Friederichs Evelyn Arce Erickson (Muisca) Kaimana Barcarse (Kanaka Hawai’i) Joseph Goko Mutangah Laura Graham Jean Jackson Ajb’ee Jiménez (Mam Maya) Lesley Kabotie (Crow) John King Stephen Marks Tui Shortland (Ma–ori) Stella Tamang (Tamang)

F e at u r es

D epa r t m en t s

FOUNDERS David & Pia Maybury-Lewis

16 Indigenous Youth Leading the Way

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Executive Director’s Message

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In the News

Indigenous youth delegates strategize at the 17th Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

Photo by Jamie Malcolm-Brown.

Nati Garcia Youth hold the power to shift the dynamics of the world. If we want change, we must provide leadership support for youth in making change possible. Read Indigenous youth voices from panels and interviews with youth conducted by Indigenous Rights Radio producers at the 17th Session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

Cultural Survival Headquarters 2067 Massachusetts Ave. Cambridge, MA 02140 t 617.441.5400 f 617.441.5417 www.cs.org Santa Fe Office Mailing Address 518 Old Santa Fe Trail, Suite 1-641 Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505

• Tuhi Martukaw, Kasavakan Community of the Pinuyumayan Peoples in Taiwan • Tokata Iron Eyes, Hunkpapa and Oglala Lakota from the United States • Sefata Uli, Ibaloi Kankanaey from the Philippines • Alejandra Luis, Zapotec from San Pablo, Oaxaca, Mexico • Brayden Sonny White, Ahkwesáhsne Mohawk Nation from the United States • Indira Vargas, Kichwa from Ecuador • Lithia Philips, Omaha Tribe of Nebraska from the United States

Asociación Sobrevivencia Cultural 6ta Avenida 5-27, Local “C” Zona 1, Sumpango, Sacatepéquez, Guatemala Cultural Survival Quarterly

Copy Editor: Jenn Goodman Designer: NonprofitDesign.com Contributing Arts Editor: Phoebe Farris Managing Editor: Agnes Portalewska Copyright 2018 by Cultural Survival, Inc. Cultural Survival Quarterly (ISSN 0740-3291) is published quarterly by Cultural Survival, Inc. at PO Box 381569, Cambridge, MA 02238. Periodical postage paid at Boston, MA 02205 and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to Cultural Survival, PO Box 381569, Cambridge, MA 02238. Printed on recycled paper in the U.S.A. Please note that the views in this magazine are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of Cultural Survival.

22 Youth Out Front: Conversations with the Global Indigenous Youth Caucus Q’apaj Conde, Qivioq Nivi Løvstrøm, and Victor Lopez-Carmen—Members of the Indigenous Youth Caucus speak about 10 years of activism.

Writers’ Guidelines

View writers’ guidelines at our website (www.cs.org) or send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to: Cultural Survival, Writer’s Guidelines, PO Box 381569, Cambridge, MA 02238.

Cultural Survival recognizes that Indigenous Peoples have long been exploited by photographers and publications. This publication does not pay photographers for images and makes no money from publishing them. We also make a tremendous effort to identify every Indigenous individual in the images that appear here. From time to time, however, such identification is not possible. We apologize to the subjects of those photos and to any reader offended by the omission.

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24 On Air: Cultural Survival Indigenous Community Media Youth Fellows

4 Rights in Action: Securing Hadza Land Titles, Securing Futures in Tanzania

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Indigenous Knowledge Arhuaco Mamos and Cross-Cultural Dialogue – Are We Listening?

10 Indigenous Arts Uplifting Two-Spirits: Xemiyulu Manibusan Tapepechul

12 Two-spirits the world must hear Our Existence Is Resistance: Cecelia Rose LaPointe

14 Climate change Guarding the Earth for Future Generations: Xiuhtezcatl Martinez

26 KOEF Grantee Spotlight San Youth Network

27 Bazaar Artist Leah Hopkins

28 Get Involved High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development

Meet our 2018 Indigenous Community Media Youth Fellows.

On the cover Young Water Protectors at Oceti Sakowin Camp, 1851 treaty land. Standing Rock, ND. Photo by Ryan Begay. Video still from, Born on the Rez. © Eagle Thunder Pictures.

E xecut iv e Di rector’ S messa ge

Indigenous Youth Leading the Way

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ndigenous Peoples live by the understanding that every decision we make today is about the future of the next generations, the Earth, the environment, the ecosystems, and all living things. We live in distressing times, witnessing environmental destruction, climate change, violence against women and children, war and conflict, and human rights abuses.

Indigenous youth are among the most vulnerable groups in the world and are particularly at risk for human trafficking, sexual and labor exploitation, and other forms of human rights abuses. They suffer the impact of armed conflict and civil unrest in many countries, as well as dislocation from their families and communities. They suffer the consequences of climate change through environmental destruction. Youth are our future, and we must take global action to protect their rights, their well being, and their survival. The stories in this issue of the CSQ are heartening and encouraging as youth speak to their futures and remind us of our responsibilities to ensure a world they can inherit. Our children are in a unique position to be the leaders of tomorrow and lead humanity on a good path as they engage our current realities.

Young leaders like Xiuhtezcatl Martinez are inspiring in their call to youth to take action around the world: “Young people are fighting like hell now so that generations down the road will never have to struggle in the way we have…They give me faith that the world we pass on to the next generation will be a planet worth inheriting.” Tuhi Martukaw speaks about the distinctive role of Indigenous youth, who, she says, “are in a position to walk between different worlds and between societies. We can partner with mainstream society, the media, and all relevant actors. The important thing is

decision making and right to self-determination should be in our hands. We shouldn’t be following rules set by others; we should be the ones to make the calls.”

Setafa Uli reminds us of the importance of keeping Indigenous knowledge: “We have the responsibility to carry on this knowledge. . . . It’s what makes our commu-nities resilient.” Alejandra Luis speaks about the sense of responsibility that many youth bring up in this issue: “We are the future. . . . We are the present. We have a great responsibility to get close to our grandparents, our grandmothers, to learn a lot from them. . . . If Pachamama disappears, all life disappears. I invite you to learn what you can from those who are still with you.”

Tokata Iron Eyes encourages youth to be vocal and speak out: “If you know that something’s wrong, if you feel uncomfortable, if you feel within yourself that you need to say something, just say it! Just speak what’s on your mind.” And Xemiyulu Manibusan Tapepechul reminds youth to “believe in your ancestors. Our ancestors protect us every day.... We are the proof that they resisted. You are your ancestor’s dream.

Please know that you are not your body, and that your body is not you. You are a Spirit, and your body is your vessel to communicate with this world.”

Let us stand around our youth, protect them, guide them, support their resistance, and lift them from the center of the circle as our future wisdom and leaders.

In spirit and gratitude for our children,

Donors like you make our work around the world possible. Thanks so much for being part of Cultural Survival.

Cultural Survival Staff Suzanne Benally (Navajo and Santa Clara Tewa), Executive Director Mark Camp, Deputy Executive Director Avexnim Cojtí (Maya K’iche’), Community Media Grant Project Manager & Indigenous Rights Radio Producer Jessie Cherofsky, Bazaar Program Manager Danielle DeLuca, Advocacy Program Manager Shaldon Ferris (Khoisan), Indigenous Rights Radio Producer Maru Chávez Fonseca, Program Manager, Indigenous Rights Radio Sofia Flynn, Accounting & Office Manager Nati Garcia (Maya Mam), Indigenous Community Media Youth Fellowship Coordinator Dev Kumar Sunuwar (Kumar/Sunuwar), Program Associate, Community Media Grants Project Maria del Rosario “Rosy” Sul González (Kaqchikel), Indigenous Rights Radio Producer Bia’ni Madsa’ Juárez, (Mixe/Ayuuk ja’ay & Zapotec/Binnizá), Program Associate, Community Media Program & Indigenous Rights Radio Jamie Malcolm-Brown, Communications & Information Technology Manager Katharine Norris, Program Assistant, Bazaar & Indigenous Rights Radio Teresita Orozco Mendoza, Program Associate, Community Media Program & Indigenous Rights Radio Cesar Gomez Moscut (Pocomam), Community Media Program Coordinator Diana Pastor (Maya K’iche’), Translator Agnes Portalewska, Communications Manager Melissa A. Stevens, Director of Philanthropic Partnerships Jackie Tiller (Tlingit), Keepers of the Earth Fund Project Manager Miranda Vitello, Development Associate

Sobreviviencia Cultural STAFF (Our Sister Organization in Guatemala) Elsa Amandar, Project Coordinator Manuel Burrion, Bookkeeper

INTERNS AND VOLUNTEERS Tobias Berblinger, Jackie Chen, Megan Davis, Brooke Gilder, Alex Glomset, Diego Lopez, Kim Maida, Aine McAlinden, Toni Monge, Allen Perez

Suzanne Benally, Executive Director (Navajo and Santa Clara Tewa)

There are so many ways to

Stay connected www.cs.org Cultural Survival Quarterly

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i n t he new s

Protesters demand a stop to the Kinder Morgan Pipeline in British Columbia, Canada.

Photo courtesy of 350.org.

Papua New Guinea: Traditional Landowners Reject Mining Bid March

The Indigenous government of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea have vetoed the exploitation of their autonomous region’s resources by rejecting a local mining company’s attempt to gain access to an unused copper mine.

Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, to a State terrorist list.

The government has demanded that the leaders and activists prove their “innocence” or face arrest.

International: Indigenous Peoples Recognized by the World’s Largest Climate Fund

March

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has ruled that “a healthy environment is a fundamental right for the existence of humanity.” The statement was issued in response to a petition on behalf of the Razial community over a planned canal project in Nicaragua that threatens the coral reef ecosystem of Colombia’s San Andrés, Providencia, and Santa Catalina archipelago.

Ecuador: Indigenous Women Defend the Amazon, Their Homelands March

On March 8, Women’s Day, Indigenous Women led a march in the Amazonian city of Puyo to speak up against industries that seek to exploit their land.

Following the march, they took their protests to the country’s capital of Quito to demand government action and protection.

Philippines: 600 Indigenous Activists Labeled as “Terrorists” by President Duterte March

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has added 600 Indigenous leaders, including UN Special Rapporteur on the 2 • www. cs. org

Canada: First Nations Halt Kinder Morgan Pipeline Expansion April

The Green Climate Fund, the world’s largest climate fund, which allocates billions of dollars each year to climate projects, has recently approved a “GCF Indigenous Peoples Policy.” The policy will ensure that donations and projects do not adversely affect Indigenous Peoples and that Indigenous peoples can benefit from Green Climate Fund projects.

First Nations elders and volunteers in Burnaby, British Columbia have gathered to build a traditional watch house known as a Kwekwecnewtxw as part of the recent efforts to stop the expansion of the Kinder Morgan Pipeline.

The resistance is part of the larger, Indigenous-led “Protect the Inlet” movement that in April succeeded in getting the company to suspend most work on the Trans Mountain expansion of the pipeline, which would transport crude from Alberta’s oil sands to a facility in British Columbia.

Colombia: Supreme Court Rules for Protection of Amazon Region

Costa Rica: Human Rights Triumph in Costa Rican Election

April

April

The Colombian Supreme Court has ruled that the Amazon region is a legal entity, subject to its own rights to “legal protection, preservation, maintenance and restoration.” With this decision, the court has demanded that the government make significant changes to how the rainforest is protected, specifically in regards to deforestation and climate change.

The recent victory of Carlos Alvarado to the country’s presidency has re-affirmed the rights of minorities, including Indigenous Peoples, and helped preserve the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which is headquartered in San José, Costa Rica.

March

Costa Rica: Inter-American Court Rules that a Healthy Environment is a Fundamental Human Right

biodiversity and the natural resources that they depend on.

Malaysia: Indigenous Peoples Defend Lands from Corporate and Government Abuse April

The Orang Asli of Malaysia have maintained blockades in Malaysia’s Kelantan State for over two months in defense of their land. The land is threatened by exploitation from mining and agriculture, which is threatening the region’s

Nicaragua: Yatama Vindicated by Nicaragua Protests April

The Yatama party of Nicaragua, which has long advocated for Indigenous rights, have affirmed their solidarity with the protesting Nicaraguan students who are calling for President Daniel Ortega to step down. In the past, Yatama members have faced violent persecution, including the attempted murder of Yatama director Brooklyn Rivera.

Campaign Updates Brazil: Xavante Leader Demands Compliance with Free, Prior and Informed Consent Hiparidi Top’tiro of the Xavante Warã Association intervened at the Permanent Forum about the grave problems A’uwã-Xavante people are confronting as a result of massive soy agribusiness in central Brazil. Top’tiro met with various European soy-importing nations to advocate for his people and to explain how soy megacompanies have violated their right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC).

Top’tiro also underscored the importance of Indigenous Peoples of the cerrado (tropical savannah), one of the world’s biological hotspots, and the efforts of the inter-tribal network, Mobilization of Indigenous Peoples of the Cerrado, that works to preserve Indigenous Peoples’ lifeways that protect the endangered biome.

International: Cultural Survival Urges Support for Indigenous Community Media Cultural Survival staff Dev Kumar Sunuwar intervened on the floor of the Permanent Forum to urge governments around the world to acknowledge and support community media outlets operated by and for Indigenous communities. Speaking on behalf of the Indigenous Media and Communications Caucus, Sunuwar noted that community media workers live in fear of violence and criminalization simply for exercising their right to freedom of expression. In light of the upcoming UNESCO International year of Indigenous Languages in 2019, the

In April 2018, Cultural Survival staff and international partners attended the 17th Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York. Below are summaries of our advocacy work conducted while at the United Nations.

Caucus urged states to take real steps to implement policy changes that facilitate Indigenous Peoples’ access to their own forms of media in their own languages. Specifically, the Caucus recommended that states develop legislation ensuring affordable access to radio frequencies by Indigenous communities; protect the safety of Indigenous community journalists; make special accommodations for rural community communicators; and increase funding opportunities for community radio stations that broadcast in Indigenous languages.

Ecuador: Manari Ushigua Speaks to UN on Environmental Protection Manari Ushigua, leader of the Sapara Nation in Ecuador, member of Federación Binacional del Pueblo Zápara del Ecuador y Perú, and a Cultural Survival grantee, intervened at the Permanent Forum to urge humanity to value the spiritual connection with Mother Earth: “The global ecological crisis facing us today is at best a spiritual crisis. It is a threat to the spirit life that sustains our very being, for we cannot live in a world of mere things.” He also advocated for States to recognize the right of Indigenous communities to maintain this spiritual connection to the land by defending against all kinds of extractive activities on Indigenous territory, and instead conceptualize a new form of development focusing on “good living,” or el buen vivir.

Nicaragua: Indigenous and Afro-descendants in Nicaragua Urge Respect for Human Rights Becky McCray, an Indigenous Rama leader from the South Autonomous

Atlantic Region, intervened on behalf of the the Alliance of Indigenous and Afro-descendant Peoples of Nicaragua.

McCray emphasized the importance of the Ramas’ traditional lands for Indigenous and Afro-descendants, which are facing the threat of deforestation. She also denounced the criminalization and violence against those who have defended Indigenous and Afro-descendant territories, many of whom have been murdered with impunity.

Belize: Maya People Call on Belizean Government to Respect Rule of Law Marking the threeyear anniversary since international courts affirmed the Maya Peoples’ authority to legal title over their land, the Maya Leaders Alliance and the Toledo Alcaldes Association of Southern Belize submitted a statement to the Permanent Forum denouncing the Belize government’s consistent failure to implement the rule of law.

In a statement, the Maya Leaders Alliance called upon the international community to show solidarity with the Maya people of Southern Belize in their efforts to uphold established rights to their lands. While a 2015 court ruling affirmed that Maya in Belize have equal rights to their lands, the Belizean government has yet to act upon this ruling in good faith. In March, the Maya Leaders Alliance and Cultural Survival submitted a joint report to the Universal Periodic Review process calling on Belize to recognize the Maya peoples’ title to the land, to refrain from acting on or permitting their parties to act on the land, and to repair environmental damage.

Take action at www.cs.org/ take-action. Read more news at www.cs.org/news.

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Securing Hadza Land Titles, Securing Futures in Tanzania An early morning hunting and foraging expedition.

Katrin Redfern

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any Indigenous Peoples across the world face threats to their traditional ways of life as newly established conservation areas increasingly make their traditional pastoral, migratory, and hunting and gathering ways of life illegal. These parks are being created in response to countries’ commitments to meeting the United Nations goal of protecting 17 percent of land by 2020. But poor planning means the protected areas often omit critical habitats and key species: several studies by the UN Environment Programme and others have found that protected areas include little or no habitat for about 90 percent of threatened or endangered species. In a rush to access funding, some governments are using conservation as a pretext to evict Indigenous Peoples from their lands and limit access to the animals they have co-existed with for generations in order to make room for tourism, industry, and at least notionally, wildlife.

Despite billions of dollars being poured into the creation of protected areas, the projects frequently are found to contribute to human rights abuses, conflict, and a loss of cultural diversity. The “people versus conservation” approach is not working, as Indigenous Peoples have been voicing for decades. Many Indigenous Peoples have managed their lands sustainably for thousands of years, and now a growing body

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of scientific evidence is affirming that well defined land rights for Indigenous Peoples is one of the most effective ways to ensure forest conservation.

Tanzania at a Crossroads

The savannahs and grasslands of Northern Tanzania are one of the world’s most spectacular landscapes, stretching across more than 6 million acres and including the Serengeti, Tarangire National Park, Ngorongoro Crater, and West Kilimanjaro; some of the world’s most iconic natural beauty. Our human origins lie in these landscapes, and today these majestic sites create a wildlife corridor for elephants, lions, giraffes, and many other animals. Each year, migrating wildebeest, zebra, and antelope thunder over the land, moving between wet and dry season ranges in the largest wildlife migration on Earth— populations of large mammals that have disappeared from most other parts of Africa and the world at large.

The region is also a crossroads for different cultures and ethnic groups, all of whom depend on the lands as they have for generations, and for some, thousands of years; the wild, open corridors connecting the region’s renowned conservation areas are essential arteries of life. Economic development and natural resource management are inseparable to the people who inhabit the area, but the last century has been particularly challenging for many rural communities in Tanzania as both pre- and post-independence governments have shifted conAll photos by Katrin Redfern/Andrew Stern.

Despite billions of dollars being poured into the creation of protected areas, the projects frequently are found to contribute to human rights abuses, conflict, and a loss of cultural diversity. The “people versus conservation” approach is not working, as Indigenous Peoples have been voicing for decades. trol over lands and resources from local to national authorities.

Much needed incentives for sustainable use and management have been eroded by this loss of local rights and control.

Tanzania’s history of displacing communities to create national parks in the 20th century underpins a fierce opposition to proposed land preservation efforts in this area. Edward Lekaita is a lawyer for Ujamaa Community Resource Trust, a local organization in northern Tanzania working with Indigenous Peoples. “People believe they have lost lands to conservation because they kept land undisturbed and therefore it was prone to be taken for conservation purposes,” says Lekaita. “For them, the history of land alienation is very well connected to conservation. The best conservation model is to engage local people. Evicting people from their lands to pave way for wildlife is the wrong approach to conservation, especially hunter-gatherers whose practices are very [respectful of] wildlife.”

Driven by an increasing human population and competing land use interests, wildlife corridors are being squeezed. Habitat and traditional homelands are shrinking, and with them, the twin pillars of Tanzania’s economy: tourism and livestock.

Farmland is rapidly replacing and fragmenting rangeland, which in turn is eroding land for wildlife and hunter-gatherers.

And the people who have thrived here the longest, leaving no trace on the landscape, often have no rights to the land.

The Hadza

The Hadza are hunter-gatherers with an egalitarian social structure who have lived in the area for some 80,000 years or more, just south of the section of the Great Rift Valley in which some of the oldest fossil evidence of early humans has been found. Today there are about 1,300 Hadza, with a few hundred continuing to live solely as hunter-gatherers. Until the birth of agriculture just 12,000 years ago, the Hadza way of life as nomadic hunters and gatherers was the norm for all humans. So what might a way of life that’s been sustainable for so long have to teach mainstream culture about conservation?

The Hadza speak a unique language, maintain their history orally through storytelling, and gather and hunt daily, not relying on domesticated animals or crops. Because of this, they say, their culture “has never known the starvation that

Pounding baobab seeds into nutritious flour.

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Hunting for rock hyrax.

comes with crop and cattle failure. There is no record of famine in our oral history at all.” The Hadza have a symbiotic relationship with the honeyguide bird they’ve developed over thousands of years. They call for the wild bird—a special lilting whistle—and the bird flies ahead, leading the Hadza to bees nests so they can collect honey, a key staple of their diet.

In return the bird gains access to its food source, bee’s wax and larvae.

Within the last several decades the Hadza have lost as much as 90 percent of their ancestral lands due to migration by neighboring peoples who themselves are caught in a cycle of population growth, poverty, and land pressure. More and more people have been moving into the Hadza’s traditional homeland, clearing forests for grazing land, planting corn, beans, and onions, and leaving no resources for wildlife. The Yaeda Valley, which as recently as 30 years ago teemed with animals to rival any existing national park, now holds only fragments of past herds. As the Hadza say, when the wildlife is gone, so too will be their culture. It can be difficult for a group of people whose lifeways leave no trace to show land ownership. But in 2011 the Hadza achieved an historic win to hold onto their land.

Communal Land Titles

Small communities without legally defined territories have lived outside Tanzania’s mainstream political and economic systems, making it difficult for them to use conventional methods of securing land. In response, local conservation groups have worked with the Hadza and the Ministry of Lands to pilot a different, stronger approach: one that gives land titles to communities instead of individuals. Called a Certificate of Customary Right of Occupancy, or CCRO, it secures legal tenure to communal lands. Such certificates had previously helped individuals and corporate entities establish land rights, but the Hadza—who do not recognize the concept of private property—were the first to use this mechanism to secure land for a community as a whole.

To apply, village councils and the Hadza, with the help of local organizations, first had to set up a land use plan and agree on defined boundaries with their neighbors. Each certificate would dictate how the community could use and manage a particular piece of land in the future. The plans also set penalties for breaking the agreement, laid out in a set of bylaws decided upon by the community, and specified how 6 • www. cs. org

Bibi's afternoon smoke.

they would be enforced. During the process the Ujamaa team staff and the Hadza held dozens of community meetings with local government. Says Daudi Peterson of the Dorobo Fund, “the Hadza were granted the first ever communal land title issues in Tanzania through a CCRO. This was a huge gain for both Hadza livelihood security and conservation, as it gives them the legal basis to protect and conserve the land and resources they depend on.” The Hadza asserted legal claim to 57,000 acres, a relatively small but critical slice of their original homeland. Since then, additional boundaries have been set up to secure Hadza communal rights to live on, manage, and use their ancestral lands in perpetuity. In 2016, the Tanzanian Minister of Lands traveled to the Lake Eyasi basin to issue 12 communal land titles to Hadza hunter-gatherers and neighboring Datoga pastoralists. While this is only 10 percent of the Hadza’s original land, it’s a start.

Carbon Credits and Community Scouts

“The community scouts and I are paid directly from the forest carbon project. I have since used this money to open a small shop,” says Pili Gudo (Hadza), a Yaeda Valley project officer. Based in Arusha, Carbon Tanzania is one of the first organizations in Tanzania to develop a community-led, forest-based carbon offset project, and is the only organization in Tanzania actually disbursing funds to communities that are derived from carbon offset sales. The Yaeda Valley Project was designed in full partnership with the Hadza community, aiming to strengthen communal land rights and management capacity over roughly 200 square kilometers of land designated as customary land, and to mitigate climate change through the generation of an estimated 360,249 tonnes of carbon offsets over a 20-year period.

“CCRO’s are a very innovative and new element to working towards better conservation,” says Jo Anderson, founder of Carbon Tanzania. “It’s been long recognized that one of the biggest barriers to land management is the lack of legal ownership of the land by its guardians. The ability for a community to own the rights to their resources gives them a really different view. It’s a real game changer when it comes to [enabling] local communities to make better decisions around what they do with land and to resist outside influence to do things with the land that’s not in their interests, the interests of conservation.” For this reason, he says, the most powerful CCRO’s “are those which are created in the name of a community

group because of the shared guardianship of the resources.”

The basis of the Hadzas’ success has been the communitydeveloped land use plans that designate areas for farming, grazing, and full protection, the latter being critical for the Hadza as a hunting area. This area is then managed by the village governments and the Hadza, who employ 33 walinzi wajadi, or community scouts, with revenue from carbon sales—something else made possible once land titles are in place. Their job is to patrol conservation zones for illegal farming or grazing, as well as bushmeat poaching, and to report problems back to village authorities with the assistance of GPS locators. Anderson points out that wildlife will only really be conserved if the people managing the lands are being supported in their efforts in a demonstrable way: “We can say that nature is valuable and we can make statements about the fact that local people should be compensated for their actions to protect local natural resources, but in the end, there does have to be some financial compensation for people who are making those choices.”

“When someone cuts down trees to establish an illegal farm, or boma, we prepare a report using GPS data and submit to the village government to take legal action,” says Ezekiel Phillipo, a community scout. Poachers are often heavily armed, which makes patrolling dangerous work.

Scouts armed with bows and arrows have successfully caught and detained some poachers, but one scout was shot and killed in 2014. “It’s very important work,” affirms Athumani Magandula (Hadza), also a community scout. “We are protecting our life, our livelihood. After clear boundary identification in our village, illegal dwellers returned to their villages. Since then, animals like elephant, kudu, and impala are increasingly seen because there are not houses everywhere like before. There is a big difference in the surrounding forest compared to years back because of reduced livestock grazing.”

According to Moshi Nakunda, a Hadza hunter, “Some animals we have not seen in years are back.”

Since 2011, 8 CCROs have been obtained—the first group CCROs ever issued under Tanzania’s Land and Village Land Acts—totaling more than 200,000 acres. Every year almost 12,000 trees are saved from being cut down through the actions of the community, according to Carbon Tanzania. This amounts to 16,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year being prevented from going into the atmosphere, carbon credits which the Hadza are selling to companies seeking to offset their pollution.

Scaling up this approach of legal land tenure could be key to protecting and strengthening livelihoods and cultures facing growing threats. Neighboring pastoral tribes in Tanzania such as the Datoga and Maasai have been successful in replicating the model. As Anderson points out, in relying on grazing land, pastoralists’ major challenge is trying to de-incentivize a change of lifestyle as farmers move in. “If people are seeing the benefits from keeping the habitats intact as being at least equal to or greater than the benefits they would get from farming,” he says, “then I think we have a chance at longterm conservation success.”

—Katrin Redfern is a journalist and multimedia producer who reports internationally on human rights, anti-trafficking, and corruption. She has co-produced a touring exhibition on the Hadza. Find out more at www.hadzaexhibit.org.

Benja can get a friction fire burning in seconds.

Expert foragers setting off to dig for tubers.

Crafting a nail into an arrowhead before dipping it in neurotoxin from the Desert Rose flower.

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Mamos and Cross-Cultural Dialogue

ARE WE LISTENING? Calixto Suarez Villafañe with children in Colombia from Jane Goodall’s Roots & Shoots.

“We are all part of the ancient Sacred Circle of Life, and therefore we are all Indigenous Peoples of Mother Earth…. To embrace and reclaim our Indigenous relationship to all life is to remember and lovingly celebrate our sacred relationship with our Mother Earth, all relatives of our one human family and our kinship with all life.”

— Chief Phil Lane (Ihanktonwan Dakota and Chickasaw Nations)

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Eva Willmann de Donlea

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alixto Suarez Villafañe, an Arhuaco elder from the Sierra Nevada De Santa Marta, Colombia, is often asked by his elders: “Why does much of the world not comprehend our sacred interrelationship with nature and spirit?” Suarez is an emissary for the Mamos majores, or chief Elders of the Arhuaco and Kogi peoples, who rarely descend from their high mountain sanctuaries and are the spiritual leaders and knowledge keepers of the people of the Sierra. They are the descendants of the Tairona civilization, from which the Inca and Aztec also descended.

Whenever Suarez returns from his travels, he drives three hours up the mountain and walks or rides a horse for another sixteen hours to report back to the Mamos majores and receive his instructions.

The peoples of the Sierra survived the onslaught of the conquistadores by retreating into mountainous sanctuaries in the Sierra. To this day, the Arhuaca, Kogi, and Wiwa do not wish to receive visitors. They have been able to maintain cultural and spiritual coherence through relative isolation, but they do want the world to hear their warning and their deep concerns about the precarious state Photos courtesy of Calixto Suarez Villafañe.

of all life on Mother Earth. “Our ancestors left us in this space, caring for and harmonizing the Earth and humanity.

We live in harmony with all [of] nature’s beings: water, earth, fire, wind, the sun, humans, and also animals and plants, which are essence of the divine,” Suarez says.

As an infant, Suarez was not physically well and his mother left him to his grandmother’s care. He recalls, “It was then that I started being trained with the Mamos, with them I came to understand and comprehend life in general. I learned about the four worlds, about the Earth and the universe. The elders told me about the living beings, nature, and the sacred sites, which today I call energy points, where the Mamos do their spiritual [offerings] in order to harmonize. The Mamos say that the Sierra Nevada in Colombia is like the heart of the Earth. İ began to analyze why it might be the heart, and then I understood: the sacred sites in the Sierra are interconnected with many other sacred points of the planet and form part of a network, which is connected to the universe.”

Suarez speaks of the differences between Western scientific methods and traditional knowledge systems; whereas Western science is defined by analysis by objective separation through dispassionate observation, traditional knowledge systems are founded on an intuitive and spiritual relatedness, where time-honored observations are firmly grounded in the knowing that all is related and interconnected, and the observer is a vital part of the system being observed. “The primary principles we teach our children and our community are to live with, look after, and harmonize with all of life. We believe that all people have the right to a piece of land to care for and cultivate. We believe in equality. Everyone takes part in the community’s decisions, even the young girls and boys.

Our tradition is that of meeting, talking, thinking, and deciding together. We always aim to be connected. This is where our strength lies, and this is how we manage any conflicts that may surface,” says Suarez.

Suarez has served as director of 1Earth Institute, Inc. since its inception as a nonprofit organization in 2016. 1Earth Institute, Inc. is based in the U.S. and Australia, and works globally on the integration of sustainable solutions from a shared knowledge base. Maori elder Pauline Tangiora, who was featured in the March 2018 issue of the Cultural Survival Quarterly, is honorary director. At the heart of the Institute’s educational programs and corporate training is inspiring the reclamation of a wiser consciousness to inform corporate and civil policy decisions. The Institute strives to form the building blocks for a common language that bridges cultural barriers and decolonizes mainstream thinking.

Dialogue circles are integral to the Institute’s programs and are inspired by the way the peoples of the Sierra—as many other Indigenous Peoples around the world—reach consensus. When an evaluation of a conflict is required or fundamental decisions are to be made, the Mamos gather in the ceremonial house, the nuhue, and no one leaves until the issue at hand is resolved collectively and by consensus. Only water and minimal amounts of corn are dispensed during this process, which can take days to conclude.

Dialogue circles are used by many traditional cultures around the world; in Australia, they are often called “yarning circles.” Whatever form they take, their protocols have in common inclusive and collaborative processes where deeply

held assumptions, perspectives, and beliefs can be safely explored to encourage fresh and original insights to emerge.

Defending and challenging assumptions often can give rise to discussions with a high emotional charge. The process is not about convincing one another and being right, but rather to encourage one to see the other’s position and to open a dialogue between the proponents of polarized views.

Dialogue circles are used by many traditional cultures around the world. Whatever form they take, their protocols have in common inclusive and collaborative processes where deeply held assumptions, perspectives, and beliefs can be safely explored to encourage fresh and original insights to emerge.

1Earth Institute held a two-day-long series of three crosscultural dialogue circles at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in October 2017. The circles are always facilitated by an Indigenous and a non-Indigenous dialogue leader, and in New Mexico they were co-led by Suarez and Glenn A. Parry, author of Original Thinking, a book inspired by the “Language of Spirit” conferences from 1999– 2001, which brought together Native and Western scientists.

Santa Clara Pueblo Governor Walter Dasheno welcomed participants and presided over a closing ceremony on the second day when gifts were exchanged. Uqualla James, advisory board member and former long-standing Havasupai Chief, led the circle participants in mind-body exercises. Three dialogue circles were held over two days, with each one building on the previous with questions facilitated by the co-leaders.

Participants understood that the root of our problems must be addressed: our thinking.

“As Mamos, we are harmonizers and guidance counselors,” Suarez says. “The Mamos are calling for a radical change, a transformation. Until now, what human beings have reached for is self-destruction, the destruction of Mother Earth, of mountains, the poisoning of the sea, of rivers, of the lakes, the reduction of the flora and fauna. We are seeing how we are impoverishing the planet and those who live there. Humans have strayed from their path and are accelerating their selfdestruction. The natural law is simple: humility to take from nature, to give back, and to maintain balance spiritually and physically. For us, the Arhuaco, humility is a sign of wisdom.

That is what we want to pass on to future generations. The Mamos invite us to discover again our truthful identity, our ancestors, our roots and taking care of these roots, and of the knowledge of the Mamos. In this way we can arrive into the deepest aspects of this knowledge and transmit it to others.”

— Eva Willmann de Donlea and Calixto Suarez Villafañe are directors of 1Earth Institute, Inc. Contact ew@1earth-institute. net for more information.

Cultural Survival Quarterly

June 2018 • 9

indi geno u s a rts

Xemiyulu Manibusan Tapepechul

Uplifting Two-Spirits

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La Resistencia Poetry Night.

Resisting through bilingual stories and words, Xemiyulu Manibusan Tapepechul second from left in front row.

aja Siwayul ipal Kuskatan.Ninemi ka Tal ipal Tajtakatijwani TalSital. I am a Two-Spirit Trans Womxn from Kuskatan (El Salvador). I live at EarthStar Two-Spirit Nation, a safe homestead for Two-Spirit Nation and our QueerTrans/Interex Black and Indigenous siblings, located on a 65-acre territory in Appalachia on ancestral Shawnee and Cherokee lands. Historically, Two-Spirit people have been excommunicated by their communities, murdered by families, or ignored by society. There were some clans, Tribes, and nations who uplifted their Two-Spirits, but because of colonialism, Two-Spirit sovereignty has been stolen.

My goal is always to uplift Two-Spirit people, especially in spaces where Two-Spirit voices are silenced (such as Latinx/ Latin American and artistic spaces), and so Creator has led me to these wonderful community groups that are proud to uplift Two-Spirits. As my ancestors before, I always had difficulty finding a community as a TransQueer Central American Indigenous Two-Spirit, so when I met the people in these groups, I was able to locate my sovereignty.

I left Kuskatan with my mother and brothers in the mid1990s to reunite with my father, who also was seeking refuge ka kwipka (“towards North”) to the lands known internationally as United States during the Salvadoran Civil War. I grew up in ancestral Piscataway Territory in Northern Virginia and Washington, D.C. I later married a non-Indigenous man and moved to Lenapahoking (ancestral Lunaape territory known as New York City and Jersey City), where I realized that was not the move for me. I am now in a relationship with another Two-Spirit, a Kainai non-binary persxn named Ahanu.

I am the director of Art & Culture at Trans Latin@ Coalition DMV, a branch of the national Trans Latin@ Coalition. I plan art events, fundraising for arts causes, and work with the vulnerable Trans Latinx community of colonized Piscataway territory known as Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia, which includes Two-Spirit and Black Trans folx to ensure our ancestral stories are alive and well, and use my access to the English language, state and federal documents, and public education to represent and advocate for the Coalition. I am also the artistic director of Nelwat Ishkamewe (“Indigenous

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Root”), a Two-Spirit arts collective centering around healing justice through writing, performance, crafting, artistic advocacy, and education. Since 2015, we have been working to uplift Two-Spirit ancestors, youth, and narratives in Washington, D.C. We have had the pleasure of collaborating with various Indigenous communities, including youth and elders, and have presented over a dozen non-funded, community-centric, decolonial theater productions.

Many non-Indigenous folks do not seem to want to comprehend diverse Indigenous cultures, and instead choose to homogenize or erase Indigenous Peoples. For Two-Spirits, this means completely ignoring the diversity in gender found amongst Indigenous Peoples. When colonial governments say there are two genders, that means that legally, Indigenous traditions are not valid or protected. This anti-Indigenous system of power prevents Two-Spirits from engaging fully with the colonized world as our true selves, and forces us into binaries that we must seek for protection. It is important to remember also that binarism is not a product of colonialism, but has been infesting Indigenous communities across the continent for generations. Not all nations, tribes, or clans recognized the solemnity of Two-Spirit people, and instead chose to turn their back on them, creating Two-Spirit Nation —a symbol of resistance, of a people left behind, rejected by their own. There are countless homeless Two-Spirits because our communities give up on them. The belief that only the non-Two-Spirit Man and the non-Two-Spirit Womxn are valid is called binarism, which will continue to harm TwoSpirits until there is healing for Two-Spirit Nation.

Two-Spirit youth in particular face an additional threat because of ageism; many older folx do not value the contributions of the youth because they have not lived as long, and that prevents Two-Spirit youth from being able to advocate for themselves and their communities’ needs.

However, anti-Indigeneity, binarism, and ageism do not need to bring Two-Spirit Nation down. Our non-Two-Spirit families can uplift our bodies, protect our solemnity, defend our rights, and celebrate our lives every single day. Do not gender fetuses and newborn babies simply because of their

genitals, and don’t register them under a colonial binary system. We protect Two-Spirit Nation by protecting babies.

Allow babies to grow into youth, and youth to grow into adults. They will tell you what pronouns to use. They will tell you if they are Two-Spirit, Trans, Queer, Asexual. Let babies live, without imposing anti-Indigeneity or binarism on them.

After I graduated high school, I got into a musical theater program in Santa Fe, New Mexico, but I was unable to attend because I wasn’t able to secure my full tuition. Instead, I went to community college and studied a theater arts career track.

After graduating, I went to an acting school in colonial Washington, D.C., where I graduated from a three-year acting program that focused on classical European theater, film production, and the business of the acting industry. I worked in the so-called D.C. “theater community” for a couple of years, and eventually became traumatized by its anti-Native and transphobic nature. Very few non-Indigenous artists in D.C. advocate for Indigenous artists, and nearly zero non-Trans artists in D.C. advocate for Trans artists. Two-Spirit artists become invisible, despite the fact that Two-Spirit people have been doing art in ancestral Pistcataway territory for much longer that Washington, D.C. has even existed. It was not the place for me to thrive as an artist, or survive as a humxn.

The main challenge I face as a Two-Spirit artist is that of invisibility. In order for me to have work, I have to erase an aspect of my Truth. I either have to identify with a binary, erasing my non-binary identity; or I have to identify with a colonial culture, erasing my Indigenous identity; or I have to identify with a race, erasing my truth as a Nawat Siwayul. It is really unfortunate that the only time a theater will call me in for an audition is when they need an Indigenous or Trans persxn. The simple exclusion of Two-Spirit folx from the arts is a challenge. Having so-called theater professionals tell me that I’m not right for a part because I don’t look like the rest of the actors, or that I need to alter a sacred part of my appearance to fit their mold of what an actor is supposed to look like, prevents Two-Spirits from engaging fully as artists.

I have worked as a camp counselor, band coach, director, and instructor for various art programs and groups, including Nelwat Ishkawewe, GirlsRockDC!, Latin American Youth Center, and various colonial theater companies. Nelwat Ishkamewe has been developing plays for youth, including my plays, “The Cosmic Twns/Lxs Gemelxs Cosmicxs” and “Yultaketzalis,” and working with youth from Grupo Maya Cultural de Centreville and Latin American Youth Center to inspire the uplifting and reclamation of ancestral arts and traditions.

We produced an annual theater festival for Two-Spirit artists and worked with a Two-Spirit artists surviving on ancestral Piscataway territory and Appalachia.

Right now, Nelwat Ishakamewe is raising funds to publish the Anthology of Two-Spirit Healing, a collection of works by over 20 Two-Spirit artists, edited by Tsaitami Duchicela, Dane Figueroa Edidi, Ahanu Tapepechul, and myself. We need everyone’s help to be able to accomplish this historic collection of plays, poems, stories, drawings, photography, and graphics, but we especially need the help of our non-TwoSpirit allies.

My advice to Two-Spirit and non-Two-Spirit Indigenous youth is to believe in your ancestors. Our ancestors protect us every day of our lives. We are the proof that they resisted. You

Xemiyulu Manibusan Tapepechul

Gender Sometimes a Womxn, never a man — bust.

My experience is different than those Call me Femme, Stud, Boi, Gurl, I can adjust “Nan” — call me Mom; whatever you propose My gender is f*cked. I am genderf*cked Presentation- a challenge everyday.

I am Indigenous, I must be lucked.

Creator has control, I must obey.

Cuz my gender ain’t what my gender ain’t Heart of a Womxn — Siwayul — I am.

I honor Sylvia — the transgender Saint.

And We’wha, and Marsha, and all the fam.

My gender in balance with our nation To uplift the Seventh Generation Sonnet from upcoming Womxn Card: A Chapbook of Sonnets about Irreversible Medical and Social Assimilation into White Womxnhood

are your ancestor’s dream. Please know that you are not your body, and that your body is not you. You are a Spirit, and your body is your vessel to communicate with this world.

Creator did not make a mistake with your Spirit. Creator gave you this vessel because they wanted you to experience the beauty of the world they made for us. Creator has put you here to thrive.

All photos courtesy of Xemiyulu Manibusan Tapepechul.

For more information, visit: YouCaring.com/TwoSpiritAnthology.

Cultural Survival Quarterly

June 2018 • 11

two- s pir its th e wo r ld mus t hear

Our Existence Is Resistance “Being in community with other Indigenous people helps to keep our culture alive; it helps to keep our spirits well and whole. It was incredible to be together with so many other Indigenous people to talk about how to decolonize the world around us, and it was beautiful to feel the love and support from everyone.”

— Teiana McGahey (Sault Saint Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians), conference participant

Indigenous women demand to be heard at the March on Washington in January 2017. Photo by Jamie Malcolm-Brown.

Youth panelists from a discussion on racial justice and Keweenaw Bay youth at the Inaugural Anishinaabe Racial Justice Conference.

Cecelia Rose LaPointe

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nishinaabe Aki is our home territory as Anishinaabe people. Anishinaabe includes Ojibway, Odawa, and Potawatomi peoples. It also includes Oji-Cree, Mississauga, and Nipissing peoples. Our home territory is colonially known as Michigan, northern Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ontario, parts of North Dakota, and parts of Manitoba, Canada. Through colonization and the fur trade we have an additional unique identity in our territory: Métis people are a group of Indigenous people who are federally recognized in Canada but not the United States.

This identity is unique to the Great Lakes because of the French and Anishinaabe relationships. My ancestry is Ojibway, Métis, Nippising, and Huron. Our Métis ancestry has been mixing since the late 1700s on Mooniingwanekaaning-minis (Madeline Island, Wisconsin). Not everyone can identify as Métis as it is unique to the Great Lakes and specific settlements such as Red River in Manitoba. Understanding Métis ancestry is key to understanding and moving forward and centering Native people in racial justice work.

To do racial justice work in Anishinaabe Aki is to acknowledge Métis ancestry and how colonization has impacted our people for a very long time; this is what decolonial community work is about. So often in racial justice work,

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First Nations, Native, and Métis people are left at the margins.

Racial justice is more than looking at race through a Black and White lens. This is a colonial concept that is racist against our people, who span every skin tone, eye color, and hair color. There is no one look to Native people. When you are mixed race, you are no longer one race. Blood quantum is a tool of genocide, yet Tribal governments continue to adhere to strict blood quantum standards that were put in place by the U.S. government. These standards are not the way of our people. Our way is about family and community, not what a colonial structure dictates.

The Black and White racial binary defines only Blacks and Whites as key players in the pursuit for racial justice.

This binary produces and promotes the exclusion of Native American and Métis people, and is harmful for the healing of our people across Turtle Island (North America). It is important to move beyond the great harm of the Black and White racial binary in racial justice work. In my work to bring racial justice to northern Michigan and our Anishinaabe communities, I have been disappointed. We are frequently made to be invisible, and when we bring up the harsh realities we face, we tend to be ignored, discredited, or silenced. In racial justice work we are made to be even more invisible—we can use the term “invisible minority” to describe this harsh reality.

If racial justice work fails to address colonization, then the status quo of settler colonialism and violent occupation, and by extension the racial binary, is maintained. The Black/ White paradigm both defines and limits the set of problems when talking about race and racism. The United States is obsessed with this binary to maintain settler colonialism.

Ignoring the lives and voices of Native people is purposeful erasure in the form of statistical genocide in documentation, media, academia, and elsewhere. Excluding our identity and only listing a few races is not “inclusion;” it is common not to be listed and included.

What you won’t hear in the mainstream media is that colonization never ended. If it had, we could properly address historical and generational trauma in our individual lives, families, and communities. Instead we continue to deal with racism, stereotypes, and discrimination from the majority culture in addition to the issues plaguing our own communities, such as youth suicide and physical, sexual, and substance abuse. We have experienced incredible losses of land and culture that isn’t validated by the majority culture. We are supposed to be thankful for the little bit of land we now have, called reservations. Empowering our people and healing our All photos courtesy of Xiuhtezcatl Martinez.

communities in the face of these great injustices is critical.

However, strengthening our communities is not enough when structural racism and oppression exist.

It is beyond time to change the narrative around racial justice and the work that needs to be done. Decolonization is more than a hashtag: it is work. The Native Justice Coalition, along with other non-profit organizations in Michigan, hosted the inaugural Anishinaabe Racial Justice Conference in the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community on April 13-15, 2018.

Other organizations working in collaboration with the conference included Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion, Northern Michigan University Center for Native American Studies, Michigan Technological University, Showing up for Racial Justice Keweenaw Chapter, and the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community. Thirty-two speakers and panelists addressed more than two hundred participants on topics ranging from environmental racism, mascots, youth voices in racial justice, and storytelling in Anishinaabe culture. “Being in the room with such fierce and honest Indigenous leaders, presenting truth and power, was affirming in the most soulful way. It felt easy like the laughter of family reunited after many lost generations,” said Michelle Martinez (Lipan Apache of Texas & Latina Mestiza).

As a form of decolonization, the conference broke free from the standard Western format, by which the Native Justice Coalition elected to not have a keynote speaker and instead weighed the voices of each attendee equally. In Anishinaabe culture, ogemaag (leaders) do not make decisions for their community without a full consensus. “I loved experiencing our people coming together for racial justice, our youth seeing positive representation of Indigenous people working for a better future. We usually come together for powwows, but this meeting brought us together for justice. The protest is happening at home, and we are a movement,” said Kristy Phillips (Bodewadmi ndependages/Potawatomi Nation).

The conference was also unique in its attention to harm reduction, healing, sobriety, and recovery. Four Thunders Drum of the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, a sober drum group in the community, and Anishinaabe singers and songwriters shared their music in relation to recovery and healing. “I was honored to partake in such a significant event.

An array of topics was presented addressing issues that Native people face today. It was a wonderful opportunity to network with professionals of various backgrounds and have a sharing of ideas to take back to our communities,” said Linda R. Cobe (Lac Vieux Desert Band of Lake Superior Chippewa).

To make deep, meaningful, and lasting change, the burden shouldn’t be on Native people alone to address racism. We need to address racial justice with the support of all settlers, whether White or people of color. If our people are centered in this work, then our lives and communities are strengthened.

All daily actions are critical in the face of this tremendous burden we have to bear as Native people. The frontlines are our lives. Our existence is resistance. When we heal, when we choose sobriety, when we speak, when we rise, we are resisting. This is how we reclaim what was rightfully ours and build the beauty of our culture back into our lives.

—Cecelia Rose LaPointe (Ojibway/Métis) is owner of Red Circle Consulting and Waub Ajijaak Press. She is a Two-Spirit author, poet, and writer. For more info: www.anishinaabekwe.com.

Building a larger Anishinaabe Racial Justice Coalition in Anishinaabe Aki, Winter 2017.

Cultural Survival Quarterly

June 2018 • 13

c l i mat e ch a n g e

Xiuhtezcatl Martinez G uarding the E arth for F uture G enerations

Kim Maida

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eventeen-year-old Xiuhtezcatl Martinez has been at the forefront of a youth-led, worldwide environmental movement since the age of six. Motivated by the belief that the Earth must be protected and preserved for future generations, Martinez has delivered his calls for action to world leaders at the Rio+20 United Nations Summit in Rio de Janeiro and the UN General Assembly. For the past 11 years, he has delivered speeches around the world about the urgent need to address climate change for the sake of generations who will inherit the Earth we leave behind. His work has been featured by PBS, CNN, HBO, MTV, National Geographic, Rolling Stone, Vogue, and many other prominent media outlets. His strategy for change not only targets those in power, but also embraces grassroots approaches driven by young activists wanting to address climate change in

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their local communities. In his new book published last year, We Rise: The Earth Guardians Guide to Building a Movement That Restores the Planet, Martinez provides a step by step guide for how to live more sustainably while building a movement that tackles climate change, fossil fuel extraction, and industrial agriculture.

We Rise is an examination of the failure of current world leaders to solve the climate change crisis while positioning the creativity and passion of youth as a solution for the future.

“Everything I’m trying to do is based around inspiring youth to step up as leaders in solving the crisis we’re facing. In my travels, I’ve been blown away by how many incredible things are taking place across the planet. Young people are fighting like hell now so that generations down the road will never have to struggle in the way we have…. They give me faith that the world we pass on to the next generation will be a planet worth inheriting,” Martinez writes. As the youth director of Earth Guardians, an organization of young activists committed to addressing climate change in their local communities, Martinez is building a movement from the ground up. With thousands of youth-led Earth Guardian Crews in more than 35 countries around the world, his movement and message is spreading through the work of young activists. We Rise lays out the steps for people to start Earth Guardian crews in their All photos courtesy of xiuhtezcatl Martinez.

own hometowns and to encourage youth to become leaders in their communities.

Martinez says he wrote the book as a means for reaching out to people, especially youth, who are angered by climate change and want to do something about it. “Writing the book was definitely inspired by the anger and apathy that I saw amongst my generation, especially after the election. A lot of people were very upset, marching in the street without direction or grounding. I wanted to reach out to people to get them involved . . . while helping change the way we see environmental issues.” Martinez adds that the narrow way in which we view climate change needs to be reconstructed, something that can be done through new creative solutions and technology that we have at our disposal in society. He advocates for young innovative minds to embrace their “passions, motivations, and creativity, rather than just adhering to the traditional thinking of those in power.” Disillusioned by the ineffectiveness of world leaders and the complete disregard of U.S. leaders to tackle climate change, Martinez offers a call to action: “Risks to the environment are pulling us in the direction to act now more than ever. . . . We [younger generations] have a different kind of investment in the future because there’s a greater responsibility for us. A lot of the adults in the world aren’t going to be here by the time some climate conditions starts taking effect in the world.”

Martinez and 21 other youth plaintiffs have taken their message for change to the top by filing a lawsuit against the U.S. government for failing to protect them from the adverse impacts of climate change in Juliana v. United States. They are demanding that the Trump Administration uphold their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, all of which are threatened by the country’s rampant destruction of the environment. The federal government and fossil fuel industry have attempted to have the case dismissed, but U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Coffin denied their requests in March 2018; the hearing for this landmark case is set for October 29. On the local level, Martinez, along with other Earth Guardian members, has worked in his home city of Boulder, Colorado to get pesticides out of parks; to contain coal ash; and to impose moratoriums on fracking, reflecting his message that action at the local level can spark broader systemic change.

Martinez credits his environmental activist mother and Mexica (often referred to as Aztec) father with instilling in him a duty to preserve the environment: “My responsibility to protect the planet was never really in respect to being an activist. I felt that just as human beings, we have to protect our lands, our earth, our water. That was always the main driving force behind what I do . . . raising awareness around different environmental issues led to involvement in environmental activism,” he said in an interview with Cultural Survival. Martinez explains that his Mexica heritage and culture has shaped his sense of responsibility to protect the environment and those who will inherit it. “My dad played an influential role in contextualizing my life, my voice, my path, seeing it as a way to leave something beautiful behind in honor of those who came before me; in honor of those who struggled through oppression and genocide, helping me to recognize that we are here now because our ancestors fought for us to be here. Now I carry that responsibility for future generations.”

In addition to being an activist and author, Martinez is a hip hop artist who uses his music as a platform to share his message and stories with the world. “I’ve been writing music since I was seven and writing hip hop since I was twelve. I’ve had the amazing opportunity to share my music worldwide.

I think historically hip hop has played a really important role in being the voice of the voiceless. Now that we see so many issues surrounding our world and our society, the culture of hip hop is a way of influencing the masses, especially young people,” he says. His upcoming album, Break Free, features the singles “One Day” (ft. Isa) and “Blue Ink” with lyrics about the struggles of growing up as an activist in the spotlight.

“For me, it’s therapeutic. I’ve been involved in this role forever, going through different struggles. Hip hop is a way of letting go and telling stories in a way that hopefully other people will connect with. A lot of young people that have passions don’t have an outlet. I am lucky enough to have an outlet and to be able to continue evolving in my community,” he says.

In the face of obstacles and challenges in a society that so often favors corporate interest over protecting the environment, Martinez reminds his readers, supporters, and fellow activists, that “We are not just rising, we are winning.” He ends his book with a passionate call to action, lending a sense of urgency and hope to all who wish to preserve the planet for future generations. “The time has come for us to put aside everything that divides us and rise together like the oceans to turn the tides.”

For more information on Martinez’s music, writing, and activist work, visit xiuhtezcatl.com and earthguardians.org.

Cultural Survival Quarterly

June 2018 • 15

indigenous youth 16 • www. cs. org

indigenous youth Leading the Way Nati Garcia (CS STAFF)

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outh hold the power to shift the dynamics of the world. If we want change, we must provide leadership support for youth in making change possible. Indigenous youth in particular continue to face racism and discrimination and are marginalized in society, but when they have a sense of belonging and a strong cultural identity they become resilient, powerful individuals. They have immersed roots through their ancestral lineage, wisdom, and intelligence. They are the future leaders for their communities. It is critical to restore leadership from the erosion of their traditional knowledge practices and habitat so that they can begin to create a more sustainable interdependent system for the coming generations.

2018 was a special year for the youth at the UN Permanent Forum because it was the 10-year anniversary of the Global Indigenous Youth Caucus. Youth from around the world had a strong presence as they vocalized and defined views The majestic what collective rights to lands, territories, and resources meant to them. Every year since the official recognition ofof west Vancouver Island, the caucus in 2008, there has been an increase of youth participation at the Permanent Forum. The Youth Caucus BritishItColumbia, promotes this participation and is a global platform for youth to collectively address their struggles. is entirely Canada.

volunteer based; for the participants there is a deeper sense of responsibility and no other choice but to continue the work of their ancestors. Part of this work is the development of recommendations to the Forum to implement and translate the UN content into a more accessible language for their communities.

From water protectors, land defenders, and biodiversity conservation leadership; to social arts movements, digital media entrepreneurship, and cultural and language preservationists; to Indigenous agriculture and sustainable food systems development, HIV and health awareness, youth suicide prevention, and child and youth sexual exploitation, these are but a few of the issues youth are advocating for. We as a society hold a responsibility to listen to them.

At Cultural Survival, we are excited to promote youth voices by launching the Indigenous Youth Community Media Fellowship (see page 24).

The following are excerpts from panels and interviews with youth conducted by Indigenous Rights Radio producers.

Indigenous youth show their pride at the 17th session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in April.

Tuhi Martukaw (Jocelyn Ting-Hui Hung Chien) Kasavakan Community of the Pinuyumayan Peoples in Taiwan, Youth Caucus Member For the 12 years I have been participating at the Forum, I have seen tremendous advancement regarding Indigenous youth participation and spaces for them to speak. It is important for us to be confident. The confidence is based on our knowledge and experiences with our own culture; that is the base from where we can speak up. With that confidence we will be able to negotiate with our elders. We do not have to only be followers, but we can make decisions together.

If we are confident enough, we don’t have to be the ones lagging behind.

Since the first session of the Permanent Forum in 2002, there was already a group of youth gathered together trying to negotiate among themselves and to come up with statements with youth positions. In 2006, when I first attended the Permanent Forum, I was asked if I was interested in joining a youth discussion that day. Every year after that I tried to organize the youth, but it was tough. We did not have a conference room, we were not officially recognized as a working group; we were just a group of youth. What we did was just walk around and go to cafes, and if we saw someone who looked young we would invite them to the discussion. In 2008, we were formally recognized as a caucus and it made things much easier. Then we had space and it was easier to get a conference room. It was also easier to attract people to the caucus.

When I first came to the Forum, I was totally shocked.

I did not know that this international process regarding Indigenous movements or treaties existed. I also learned the different histories of Indigenous struggles in different countries. I did not even know the history of Indigenous struggle in Taiwan. I wanted to assist people who want to learn about themselves and this international process that I had to learn myself. That’s why I started this, because I did not have this environment when I was younger and I wanted to create an environment where youth can get access to this information.

We have a traditional worldview but we also live in a modern society. We can be creative to utilize social media or other channels to enhance and bring creativity to the movement. Creativity is important because the Indigenous rights movement is not only a matter for Indigenous peoples, but for all human beings. The youth are in a position to walk between different worlds and between societies. We can partner

with mainstream society, the media, and all relevant actors.

We are also not excluding any possibility to work with governments. If it is something we can cooperate on, we can do it. The important thing is decision making and right to selfdetermination should be in our hands. We shouldn’t be following rules set by others; we should be the ones to make the calls.

In the past, the mainstream media was not Indigenous people talking for ourselves, but someone else telling our story —and a lot of the time it was incorrect. With community or Indigenous media, we can decide what and how we are going to share and what kind of message we are sending with whatever language we want. For youth, it is a good opportunity for us to train ourselves. Communication is important and with this kind of media we can learn how to express our concerns not only to mainstream society, but to our peers.

Tokata Iron Eyes Hunkpapa and Oglala Lakota from the United States I’m a youth advisor to several different organizations, trying to keep up the momentum that Standing Rock created.

In early 2016, I first heard about the Dakota Access Pipeline. It was said to run straight through my home, the Standing Rock Reservation. I just knew I had to do something, and so I just started talking. I look up to my mom so much, and she’s always told me, “as long as you speak your truth, someone’s listening.” I think that’s what gave me the courage really to open my mouth.

During the Standing Rock movement, a huge reason why we got the amount of support that we had was because of the media. In this day and age, media is what can start revolutions.

If we’re using it the right way, we can change everything.

Sharing works with people. Any issue you see in your community, it’s all about not being scared to share your own opinion. If you know that something’s wrong, if you feel uncomfortable, if you feel within yourself that you need to say something, just say it! Just speak what’s on your mind.

The big thing right now I am working on is missing or murdered Indigenous women. My aunt is Olivia Lone Bear, who’s been missing since October of last year. That really put it into reality for me—that it’s a huge possibility in our communities that I could disappear. It’s scary just to walk out the door. I don’t want my children to have the same fear. I never thought I could be scared like that until one of my relatives was the one who got taken.

When I first came to the Forum, I was totally shocked. I did not know that this international process regarding Indigenous movements or treaties existed. I also learned the different histories of Indigenous struggles in different countries.

— Tuhi Martukaw

All photos by Nati Garcia and Jamie Malcolm-Brown.

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June 2018 • 17

So many youth are already educated by modern curriculums or modern education systems. And I think this is something that we can use as well, to integrate with what we know as Indigenous Peoples, to enhance how we live our lives and to keep up with development in the economy.

—Sefata Uli

A lot of the kids on the reservation especially, they don’t even know their own history. I was lucky enough to have parents who were brought up in my cultural ways, and I was blessed to know those ways and to have that knowledge and wisdom of my ancestors. But, through colonization, a lot of that has been lost. We have a lot of parents who are addicts, who are alcoholics, who are on drugs, and those kids will never know their own history. And it’s not in the textbooks at school. They don’t tell you about the Wounded Knee Massacre, they don’t teach you anything about your grandmother’s grandmother. They’ll never teach you about the brutal and terrifying things; they just don’t talk about the genocide that was committed on our people. There’s a huge identity issue also. Just knowing where you came from is a huge part of finding who you are and who you want to be.

The role of Indigenous youth is to get educated. [It’s] going to school, but also finding out about your own history.

I think the role of youth is just to come into that responsibility, to protect the earth, to protect what you have and be thankful for it. As an Indigenous young woman, I’ve known since the day I was born, I was a born protector: protector of this earth, protector of the water. I think that’s a huge thing, acknowledging your own history.

Sefata Uli Ibaloi Kankanaey from the Philippines I am an Indigenous Fellow under the Indigenous Leaders Conservation Fellowship of Conservation International, and I’m also on the research committee of the Cordillera People’s Alliance in the Philippines. My parents are also in the same organization, so I was inspired to do a similar kind of work. In my community, in the Cordillera, they have always stood up for their rights as Indigenous Peoples and put up very good resistance against oppressive regimes.

I’m a scientist currently studying wildlife conservation. My areas of interest as a scientist are ethnobiology, and also using traditional knowledge in conservation and seeing how we can integrate traditional knowledge with scientific knowledge to produce outcomes that are culturally appropriate and just for Indigenous communities. I want to spread awareness on what traditional knowledge has to offer in terms of biodiversity conservation. Traditional knowledge shouldn’t be something that you look at as irrational or superstitious. It has scientific basis and traditional practices are often very sustainable. As 18 • www. cs. org

the inheritors of traditional knowledge, we have the responsibility to carry on this knowledge that we get to future generations as well. It’s what makes our communities resilient.

I think today it’s very appealing to the young generations to leave the community to study abroad or in the cities, and they just leave it at that—they don’t go back to their communities to share whatever they learned, and they stop practicing whatever traditions they have been practicing back home.

As Indigenous youth, we should always think back to the community. Even if we leave, we should always consider that going back to the community is something that is important, that our community needs us. They need what we have learned and they need us as well.

So many youth are already educated by modern curriculums or modern education systems. And I think this is something that we can use as well, to integrate with what we know as Indigenous Peoples, to enhance how we live our lives and to keep up with development in the economy. It’s something that will help us keep grounded to what we know as Indigenous Peoples. Community media is definitely very useful in keeping knowledge, in avoiding the situation where knowledge is monopolized by certain people. It also keeps knowledge collectively held in the community, which allows for fair allocation of all the natural resources. Depending on the situation, documentation can be very useful to avoid erosion of the knowledge that we have. It’s important to join the struggle, to make us as Indigenous Peoples recognized by our states, by our countries, and we should always continue the fight for self-determination.

Alejandra Luis Zapotec from San Pablo, Oaxaca, Mexico My work began about five years ago when I entered university and was the first generation of young leaders in the state of Oaxaca. There I began to realize the problems that so many young Indigenous people face, especially women. From there I knew that I had to do something to make women’s futures better.

I work in stopping plagiarism of textiles, which occurs a lot in Oaxaca by international companies that go and take advantage of our grandparents’ wisdom. We as young people have many responsibilities, but unfortunately many do not know our rights. Many youth no longer have close contact with our grandparents, with our grandmothers. We are losing this continuity. Yesterday, I heard the Minister of Bolivia say:

“We know many of our grandparents and grandmothers, of all the wisdom they bring. But what will our grandchildren say about us?” We have this responsibility. Many young people do not understand and we continue losing wisdom more and more, we keep losing our roles for other issues that we believe are more important. I’m a woman, I’m young, and unfortunately in my town, many people do not believe in me as someone who can achieve. Women are supposed to know how to cook, how to make tortillas, and to get married. It has been quite a challenge to confront [people] and tell them that I am here and no less for being a woman.

We need more spaces where we as youth can raise our voices and offer good strategies. In Mexico, there is no specialized sector for Indigenous youth. We have different aspirations. We know Zapotec, we know different languages.

We live eight, ten hours from the city. We do not have access to necessary technology to be in very good communication. Young Indigenous people have so much wisdom, a deep relationship with nature and our ancestors, with Pachamama.

In our town, community radio stations have been started, and an invitation has been made to young people to get involved. I have been invited to start creating a connection.

There is no internet in the community. So, how do you know what’s going on in the world, how do you know there are spaces like the Permanent Forum that you can talk to and meet people? In my town, nobody knows the Forum. Not only in my town; nobody knows that there is a place where we can see, express knowing, the situation of other peoples.

We are the future of Mexico. We are the present. We have a great responsibility to get close to our grandparents, our grandmothers, to learn a lot from them. Because as Evo Morales said, “We are in extinction.” Unfortunately, the other cities do not understand that we are children of Pachamama.

Because everyone, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, we are brothers and sisters. And if Pachamama disappears, all life disappears. I invite you to learn what you can from those who are still with you. Once they die, this wisdom will be over.

Brayden Sonny White Ahkwesáhsne Mohawk Nation from the United States My traditional name means “he carries the bow and arrow upon his back.” I’m currently a legal studies major at SUNY Canton. I’ve always been involved in leadership; it started back in 2015 with the White Hills tribal youth gathering where I got to meet Michelle Obama and I was asked to be a National Native Youth Ambassador. From there I was granted the opportunity to go to the White House Tribal Nations Conference in Washington, D.C., where I was asked to speak on a panel with President Obama as a Gen-I National Native Youth Network Ambassador. I spoke on how to get Native American First Nations youth to be able to attend college with financial difficulties, as well as suicide prevention [and] how we can curb that epidemic.

From that I got involved with the Center for Native American Youth Champions for Change program. I really enjoyed my time there and I still I work with them currently. I got to work with United National Tribal Youth as a “25 under 25” award recipient. Then to come to the UN was so amazing.

That started last year when we had an event for the 40th anniversary of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights

Cultural Survival Indigenous Community Media Youth Fellowship Coordinator, Nati Garcia, interviews Brayden Sonny White.

Cultural CulturalSurvival SurvivalQuarterly Quarterly June 2018 • 19

Members of the Indigenous Media and Communications Caucus, L-R: Dev Kumar Sunuwar (Sunuwar), Reynaldo Morales, Tuhi Martukaw (Puyuma), Mariano Estrada (Tzeltal), Andrea Ixchiu (Maya K’iche), and David Hernández Palmar (Wayuu).

of Indigenous Peoples; with that I got to meet with elder Kenneth Deer, who currently works with the UN. In my community, I help with roadside cleanup and the environmental division. I am also a SAFE talk facilitator (Suicide Awareness For Everyone). A big thing for me is to get people aware of the signs of suicide and someone in crisis.

Personally I’ve lost someone, one of my close friends, in 2012 to suicide. Suicide is something that can affect anyone from any nationality, any gender, any financial background.

A big thing youth are struggling with is in the higher education sector, because to get a job you need a degree.

Youth are struggling with culture shock and drug and alcohol problems. In my community, it’s very easy to get drugs and alcohol. That’s very hard to see. I’ve never touched drugs or alcohol; you can be the first to break that cycle. Look at the things I’ve been able to achieve—I’ve been able to speak with President Obama and meet Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Michelle Obama.

The youth always inspire me and I’m always there like a big brother showing them a path. A big inspiration is hearing from elders and parents who tell me that they want their children to be like me, making that impact in the community.

I want all youth to have these opportunities and be able to spread their wings. If you had told me five years ago, being a rez kid from a low income family, that I would have the opportunity to meet a prime minister and a first lady, I would have laughed. My passion is what drove me to continue my work. I tell youth that brick by brick, you can get there.

Indira Vargas Kichwa from Ecuador I am part of CONIAE (Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador).

I am here participating in a global school organized by FIMI (International Forum for Indigenous Women) while at the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Nature has inspired me. It inspires me to be an equal woman. We can walk, we can choose the path we want.

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At CONIAE we are promoting youth involvement with political participation, leadership, and also strengthening communication. This work is making our territory visible.

Governments, those in charge who represent us, they do not listen to us. Our goal is to communicate to our bases via true communication. Because we know that the mainstream sectors do not reach our territories, it is important to communicate all the experiences of our communities: what is happening in the territory, about meeting of leaders of the community, what the struggles are. And also promoting the voice of Indigenous women, the work, the roles, what are their concerns, what is needed. Through the women’s march, a group was born. We call ourselves “lanceros digitales” (digital lancers). We have taken this symbol of the struggle, a very sacred symbol that is the lance, the lance that our grandparents used. We throw it and believe it will reach people in this digital way. Why digital? Because we see young people have been empowered by social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other websites.

We do not see results of our demands. We are in this space, but the States do not hear us. We are worried. As a generation, it is important to see, to know the words that our grandparents and grandmothers placed here and what they have built. We have to continue this struggle and follow this collective organizational process. We are very interested in influencing these spaces. We, young people, are capable.

Sometimes they distrust us because we are young. But we are the future; who else is going to give these messages to new generations? What elders are doing with us, we then will pass the messages of identity, culture, language, collective rights, our communities, the life of the jungle, the connection with the Earth, forward.

In Ecuador we are fighting for free access to higher education so that more Indigenous youth and women can influence these spaces. In the public sector it is very difficult to access scholarships. There are many other organizations that are promoting young Indigenous people to access scholarships.

Do not be discouraged, continue learning, do not forget the principles of our communities and institutions. Do not forget that we come from a resistance of our peoples. We have to empower the spaces that we can occupy. Do not forget who you are. We come from a community, we come from the ailu, (family). We come from a broad family full of knowledge.

Lithia Philips Omaha Tribe of Nebraska from the United States I only planned to be in Standing Rock for two weeks, but when I got there and it was time to leave, I told my dad I couldn’t leave and so we stayed until camp was evicted. I got shot at, I got tear gassed in the middle of a prayer song, I got maced. Being at Standing Rock and learning about extractive industries and the pipelines going through sacred burial land and what we are doing here as Indigenous Peoples being caretakers of the land . . . the clean water and clean air, these things do not belong to us, these are meant to be here for future generations. I am here at the United Nations to speak on behalf of the youth, to speak for the seventh generation. This is not only about our children now, but for generations ahead. I want to make sure that the Indigenous youth have a voice in this conversation, that we are taking action to try to change the consciousness of the people and the governments that are representing us.

Standing Rock started as a youth-led movement unifying Indigenous people from all over the world to stand up and say our governments have not been representing us, they have

Members of the Global Indigenous Youth Caucus speak about their communities at the Indigenous Media Zone at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

L-R: Q’apaj Conde (Aymara), Qivioq Nivi Løvstrøm (Inuit), Victor Lopez-Carmen (Yaqui and Crow-Creek Sioux), and Andrea Ixchiu (Maya K’iche).

not been protecting us, they have not been responsible, they have broken their treaties and their promises. We need to reclaim our languages, reclaim our culture, and say this is who we are and that we have a right to exist as we are. Getting youth involved in leadership and culture is really part of what we as Indigenous people need to do for our youth and elders to stay true to our identities.

I work with the Native Youth Alliance. Since Standing Rock we have been traveling to show that the movement is not over. The camps may no longer be there, but what has happened—the unification of Indigenous people—isn’t going anywhere. Extraction industries are in everyone’s backyard all over the world. So moving forward, we would like to unify the Indigenous youth, learn about direct action, and continue to make the planet a better place.

Giving youth a space to voice their concerns and ideas, their creativity and culture, and empowering youth through mentorship...being able to tell our own stories is a big part of that. Media is a huge part of people’s fight for rights. At Standing Rock, people were watching from all over the world.

There are videos of what happened at Standing Rock, of the frontlines. We have to tell our own stories, we have to be the ones to create our own narrative. We as Indigenous youth need to break the cycle of what has happened in the past, break the cycle of the genocide. Go back to your roots. Go back to your culture. Go back to your ceremonies, go back to your language. Know that there is power in your identity, there is power in your ancestors.

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youth out front

Conversations with the Global Indigenous Youth Caucus Members of the Indigenous Youth Caucus were interviewed last April by Andrea Ixchiu (Maya K’iche, Guatemala), representative of the Latin American Council for Communication and Cinema of the Indigenous Communities, at the Indigenous Media Zone of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

The following are excerpts of the interviews.

Q’apaj Conde, Aymara from Bolivia Global Indigenous Youth Caucus Co-Chair

The Global Indigenous Youth Caucus is a global youth platform.

The main objective is to promote the participation of Indigenous youth in international fora. Since the first session Indigenous youth have gathered together, but it was not until 2008 that we were recognized by the UN Permanent Forum. We have since hosted preparatory meetings before the session and capacity building. Lately, we have expanded to the three mechanisms that have direct mandates of Indigenous decisions in the UN. For instance, we have meetings with the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Vicky Tauli-Corpuz.

We meet with her and provide direct information on specific cases in a country. When she visits the country, we organize the youth in the country so they can meet with [her]. We also have expanded our participation in the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Last time we were able to host an afternoon caucus and draft a statement of recommendations.

I am also part of the Red de Jóvenes Indígenas de Latin America, which is a regional network. The focus of the network has been on health, agriculture, and participation. One of the issues in the regions is that we don’t have access to sexual education from an intercultural perspective. Indigenous people begin sexual activity earlier in life, causing earlier motherhood, which has been a problem in particular for women.

I am part of the Red de Jóvenes Indígenas de Latin America, which is a regional network whose focus has been on health, agriculture, and participation.

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This was a great year for the Global Indigenous Youth Caucus—it was our 10-year anniversary as a working group at the Permanent Forum. We face so many challenges at the local level and someone needs to take action. We echo the struggles [of our elders], learn from them, and want to learn from them. This is key for us. We want to overcome the situation, the discrimination, and the poverty we face. Of course, we need funding and we need some jobs. Many of us are students [and] it’s volunteer work. We work late, we make the time, and we have to be connected with locals views at the regional level. We have beenThe ablemajestic to realize the of west Island, challenges of our parents, and once we Vancouver realized that,

Columbia, Canada. we knew we needed to change theBritish situation.

The only way to change it is to be active and that’s what pushes us to move forward.

Our only role at the global level is to facilitate communication. The focal points are the main actors for the region. They do all the work and connect their struggles to the global level. We have a Facebook page, which is the most efficient way to contact people. We receive messages and also Tweet them. Contact your focal point and they’d be happy to engage with any group. We meet Sunday before the session and everyone is welcome.

Qivioq Nivi Løvstrøm Inuit from Greenland, Arctic Focal Point We have had meetings about how Arctic youth should participate when it comes to the Sustainable Development Goals.

We have a vast region where we have brought Inuit and Sami and we have communicated a lot, because we have very different needs with different problems to address.

Mostly we facilitate information that needs to get from our communities to the global Indigenous youth caucus and make sure the voices of our people are heard internationally. We also try to make sure they understand, because UN language is on a different level that can be hard to understand. We translate it, if you will, so that people can understand and exercise their rights.

In my community specifically, it has become taboo to think of yourself as Indigenous. People have been so indoctrinated by our education system and we introduce ourselves as a modern people. We confuse ourselves into thinking that [Indigeneity] and modernity

In my community, it has become taboo to think of yourself as Indigenous. People have been so indoctrinated by our education system and we introduce ourselves as a modern people. are two different things, even though they’re not. That’s a big issue, that people don’t recognize themselves as Indigenous in our country. In the Arctic region we have a lot of different issues, especially when it comes to food insecurity, mostly due to climate change. We have been one of the first people who wanted to do something about climate change for many decades.

When you’re at home in your own community it can be disheartening. You work so hard and sometimes it takes so long to see change. It’s a long process. To get that feeling of hope again, you look to each other. I felt so empowered looking to these young Indigenous people working hard being volunteers. That’s what gets you through, the inspiration from other people; not only youth but from our elders who have been doing this for centuries without giving up.

I know that for young women, we are the ones who are most marginalized. We have an obligation to be the voice of all of the Indigenous young women out there who are struggling and can’t articulate their pain and suffering. We need to translate it into recommendations and statements that can help them. We have experienced many times where we get young people that come to us with stories of things they’ve experienced and we put them into statements. It can be difficult, but we do it because it’s empowering as an Indigenous woman to be able to put it into words in such a way that people have to hear us. We are here and we will always be here. We are the mothers and the ones who will keep our communities alive in the end.

Victor Lopez-Carmen Yaqui and Crow-Creek Sioux from the United States, North American Focal Point I am one of three Focal Points for the North American region. My organization is the International Treaty Council. I have been participating in the Youth Caucus for four or five years. I am one of the coordinators for North America. We had our first regional meeting yesterday and we had more North American youth than we had seen before.

I have participated at the Civil Society Mechanism for Youth, which has 11 groups. I was one of the two Indigenous youth invited to determine the major youth issues around the world. The youth represented were not just Indigenous youth, but small scale farmers and fishers and urban youth. The issue that we determined in that meeting in Rome was that youth

Members of the Global Indigenous Youth Caucus in a celebratory moment.

around the world were facing urban migration. As the world is becoming more modern, our communities are left behind and it can be difficult to find opportunities in our home.

There can be issues in terms of poverty and supporting our family and sending money home. The way to help is to go to the cities. It’s an issue we deal with in our own terms and in our own community. It’s a problem around the world but especially youth in my community; we have over 50 percent of our youth leaving. One of the ways I am trying to keep youth in our community is to develop clinics. It is difficult for people in our communities to attain health care. This is an important aspect. Why would a parent want to raise a child in a community with no health care? We need to safeguard our community and it is something I have been working on.

One of the ways I am trying to keep youth in our community is to develop clinics. It is difficult for people in our communities to attain health care.

The elders are a big part of this. It was inspiring the first time I came to learn everything they had to go through for us to get in this room. In the 1920s during the League of Nations, there were two chiefs who came after they heard about this meeting. They said, “We’re nations too.” But they weren’t even let into the UN building, not even to where the gift shops are.

The fact that we are sitting in this room shows that we have come a long way, but we have a long way to go. That is something that inspires me to get involved in this movement.

We need people on the ground, we need people in our communities. We also need people within these systems. A lot of people say, “don’t participate, we need groundwork movement.” I agree ground movement is important, but these people will make decisions that affect our livelihoods at these meetings and we need a voice here too. That’s one thing the Global Indigenous Youth Caucus has been trying to achieve for youth voices in these discussions. They are often left out of these developing priorities for our nations, but we will inherit these decisions. We need to be here to determine our own priorities to have a stake in these discussions.

Connect with the Youth Caucus on Facebook: facebook.com/GlobalIndigenousYouthCaucus.

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June 2018 • 23

ON AIR

Cultural Survival Indigenous Community Media Youth Fellows

Y

outh are the future of Indigenous communities, and strengthening youth leadership is essential in fostering the next generation of Indigenous leaders. Cultural Survival’s Indigenous Youth Community Media Fellowship Project, a part of the Community Media Grants Project, aims to support Indigenous youth ages 14–25 in building capacity in media, journalism, radio production, advocacy skills, technical abilities, and regional networking through trainings, community radio exchanges, radio production, and conference attendance. This fellowship will enable six fellows to successfully represent the voices of their communities and bring awareness to local and global issues through their proposed projects. We are excited to announce our first six Indigenous Community Media Youth Fellows.

Delia Marisela Maquin Cucul (Q’eqchi’) from Radio Comunitaria Xyaab Tzuul Taq’A in El Estor, Guatemala

Delia Marisela Maquin Cucul, 19, currently works at the Ministry of Culture and Sports as a cultural promoter and is studying law and social studies at the Mariano Gálvez University of Guatemala, in El Estor, Izabal.

Maquin aspires to be the first Maya Q’eqchi’ human rights lawyer in her community. A member of the board of directors and volunteer at Xyaab Community Radio ‘Tzuultaq’a, Maquin has been managing “Reflexionemos con la Molendera,” a program on women’s issues in her community. She also participates in radio production workshops organized by Desensoría Q’eqchi’ with Indigenous journalists, organized by Federación Guatemalteca de Escuelas Radiofónicas and the Asociación Latinoamericana de Educación Radiofónica, as well as in radio production and women’s leadership workshops organized by Cultural Survival. Maguin’s fellowship project is to develop training in radio production for 22 young people between the ages of 14–25 to strengthen youth leadership. She seeks to use radio as a platform to create innovative solutions for the community, and to liberate the voices of the Maya Q’eqchi’ people.

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Ali González Rojas (Boruca) from Boruca Cultural Radio in Boruca, Costa Rica Ali González Rojas, 22, is currently in his third year studying journalism at the University Latina of Costa Rica.

He has one year of experience at Radio Actual leading the radio program “Eventos Nacionales” (National Events), which highlights current events in politics and law in the country. As a Boruca youth, González has struggled in being seen as a minority and feels misrepresented in Costa Rica. As part of his fellowship, he wants to create radio programs that focus on Indigenous issues and share the experiences of Indigenous people in Latin America to promote new social change makers. The programs will be produced in the Boruca language and will air weekly on Boruca Cultural Radio 88.1 FM. The title of his project, Matices, refers to the variety of topics that the radio program will cover, including the environment, education, rural planning, agriculture, water, and politics, all promoting the rights of Indigenous Peoples.

He hopes that people will lose their fear of being in front of the microphone in order to make their voices heard.

Joaquín Yescas Martínez (Zapoteco Xhidza) from Radio Bue Xhidza in Oaxaca, México Since the age of 9, Joaquín Yescas Martínez, 17, has been volunteering at Radio Bue Xhidza Aire Zapoteco, an independent radio station that airs social, cultural, and educational programming in the community of Santa María Yaviche in Oaxaca. In addition to being a digital activist, Yescas is fluent in Ditza Xhidza Zapotec and loves to play chirimia (Xhidza music). Since 2015, Yescas has been working on a project, the Penguin School of Xhidza, which provides free learning and knowledge of the Ditza Xhidza Zapotec language to communities in Zapoteco Rincón. As one of the youngest digital activists in Oaxaca, his dream is to create a Linux

Xhidza, a free, independent operating system by the community, for the community. With the increasing misuses and abuses of personal data, Yescas recognizes the need to inform young people about privacy and security issues concerning their internet use. He aspires to share his knowledge of digital media to defend Indigenous cultures in a new era of technology, and aims to provide explanations and solutions so that Indigenous people will know how to secure the data they use and share. Yescas’ fellowship project is a bilingual radio program in Spanish and Ditza Xhidza Zapotec focused on the defense of ancestral lands and security of internet privacy rights for Indigenous youth. He will also create a website where the radio programs will be hosted and will distribute weekly digital bulletins, expanding Radio Bue Xhidza’s reach in local communities.

Ignacio Contreras Diego (Nahuatl) from Community Radio Tzinaca in Tzinacapan, Cuetzalan, México Ignacio Contreras Diego, 23, has been part of the Radio Tzinaca team for 5 years as a programmer, producer, and broadcaster, contributing to the station’s stance against corruption and impunity in Mexico. In 2015, he produced the acclaimed program “Ojtokalis,” (“adventures” in Nahuatl), which led to an initiative collecting the stories, language documents, and customs in the Cuetzalan region. In 2017, he produced another radio program, “Ininixpetanilis Totatajuan/El Sabor de Mi Pueblo,” mainly focused on the knowledge of Nahuatl worldview. Contreras fellowship project is to organize three training sessions in 10 months for youth in radio production and to develop weekly radio bulletins, blogs, and podcasts on topics related to identity, cultural revitalization, language maintenance, and self-determination. He will also hold public discussions that will be aired live on the radio and online, discussing agricultural issues facing the community such as consumerism and increasing use of pesticides and herbicides. All of the training sessions will take place in Nahua and Totonac-speaking communities. He hopes that these training sessions will encourage young people to use technology as a medium to promote dialogue within the community in their native language.

Zyania Roxana Santiago Aguilar (Zapotec) from Radio Calenda, La Voz de Valle in Oaxaca, México Zyania Roxana Santiago Aguilar, 17, was born in Oaxaca and grew up in the community of San Antonino.

She was only three years old when she began participating at

Radio Calenda, leading the creation of children’s programming until she was 12. Santiago participated in “Apantallados” (Shielded), a children’s event where participants from all over Mexico working in different audiovisual media gather to raise awareness among legislators to advocate for the legalization of community media. In 2007, she won second place in the AMARC-60 anniversary contest. She was also the youngest participant in the youth program “Poder Joven Radio” (Power Young Radio) in 2015 and 2016. Since 2015, Santiago has run the program “Nueva Forma de Vida” (A New Way of Life) focused on an alcohol recovery group in the district of Ocotlán. Santiago’s fellowship project stems from the poverty in her community experienced by Indigenous women who regularly face discrimination, racism, and misogyny. She will produce a radio series on Indigenous women’s rights to educate the radio audience and local communities. She will also hold a training session with the University of Oaxaca and aspires to collaborate with the other Indigenous Community Media Fellows.

Ñusta Sánchez (Kichwa) from Radio Publica in Cotacachi, Ecuador “Wambrakuna, Kuitsakuna, shinllimikanchi, ñukanchik muskuyta ushanchikmi.” (Girls and boys, we are strong and we have the power to dream.) Ñusta Sánchez, 20, is a youth leader in her community of Cotacachi, Ecuador. She is an artist at heart singing traditional Kichwa songs, and is part of the Waruntzy dance group that represents threatened Abagos traditions.

She recently completed her Bachelor’s degree in science at the University of Technology in the province of Loja, Ecuador. Fluent in Kichwa and Spanish, Sánchez manages the radio programs “Don Dolon, Dolon” and “Wawas” at Radio Publica. Her fellowship project is to share ancestral knowledge in Kichwa with children, youth, and the participation of elders. She will create a radio series on leading cultural workshops based in experiential methodology, participatory action, and archiving documentation. She will also organize six trainings in radio production for children and youth in 18 Indigenous communities in her region. The trainings will be recorded in order to document the sessions and archive the content so ancestral knowledge can be exchanged. Her goal is for the cosmovision of her community to be represented in this process so people will listen to, and appreciate, the stories shared, and for the children of the Kichwa community to become engaged and proud of their culture.

For more information about the Fellowship, please contact Nati Garcia, Indigenous Community Media Youth Fellowship Coordinator, at ngarcia@cs.org.

Cultural Survival Quarterly

June 2018 • 25

Keeper s o f th e E a r t h Fund G rantee Spotl i ght

San Youth Network

Empowering, Educating, and Advocating for the San Youth of Southern Africa Job Morris

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he San people of Botswana have long faced issues of marginalization and poverty. Government pressure on the San risks the loss of our culture as we are pressured to assimilate into the mainstream Tswana lifestyle. San Youth Network, familiarly known as SYNet, is an Indigenous-based organization in Botswana that focuses on the issues specifically concerning Indigenous San youth, as well as San issues in general. SYNet strives to work through networking with San youth from across South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, and Botswana in an effort to mobilize them to make change that matters. It is a growing organization working for San youth development, environmental conservation, traditional knowledge, promotion of human rights and Indigenous Peoples’ rights, Indigeneity, right to self-determination, and access to quality education.

We in SYNet are witnessing rapidly changing societal trends and the implications of these changes on the environment. We advocate for the proper usage of environmental resources and voicing Indigenous knowledge to shed light on the importance of protecting the environment. We are attuned to the knowledge that our culture is diminishing as we continue to face a flood of challenges, such as acculturation and assimilation from mainstream society in Botswana.

Cultural maintenance and reclaiming Indigenous land is one of the central themes that SYNet strives to implement.

We, the San peoples, have from time immemorial taken custodianship of the Earth because we have a relationship and respect to all living things. We know that development that does not recognize relationships of respect with creation and that does not touch the souls of people is simply killing the Earth and all human beings with it.

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Being relatives of all creation, we have no choice but to make our voices heard so that the destruction of the planet and the destruction of our ways of life and diversity can stop.

This includes protection of historical sites; education of the youth on Indigenous knowledge systems of conservation; cultural maintenance; documentation of traditional knowledge on hunting and gathering; and facilitation of access to ancestral lands. We face a plethora of challenges ranging from social, economic, political, environmental, and educational inequalities. These challenges cannot be isolated, as their interface is a source of the San’s current struggle to self- determination and Indigeneity in southern Africa.

While elders are concerned about this cultural deterioration, San Youth Network is working to reconnect young San people with our culture and to encourage the practices of San arts. Our newest project, funded by a Keepers of the Earth Fund grant, is a workshop that teaches young San people cultural activities such as tracking, healing dances, and San games and songs. This will improve the San sense of community, cultural sensitivity, and values. This partnership with Cultural Survival is a gateway to assist us in establishing creative measures of maintaining our culture, developing a strong reference to San values in defining leadership, reestablishing a synergy between nature and the San youth, conserving our environment in culturally sophisticated ways, and perhaps, in the future, creating community environmental protocols and sustainable resource utilization through better understanding of traditional and scientific conser- vation techniques.

—Job Morris is founder and executive director of San Youth Network.

B a zaa r a rt ist:

WE ARE sTILL HERE

Leah Hopkins

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cultural ambassador from a young age, Leah Hopkins (Narragansett) is passionate about educating the public about Eastern Woodlands Native peoples and fostering cultural competency for Native youth.

“Growing up, I was the only Native student in my school system and in many of my college courses, and I naturally fell into a role of teaching my peers and teachers about Indigenous Peoples and cultures and debunking myths and stereotypes. My whole life I have been working towards making our peoples of the Northeast visible and clearing up misconceptions that we have lost our culture, our language, our spirituality. We are here despite 400 years of colonization, land dispossession, and trauma. We have maintained our cultures and traditions and are a living, breathing, vibrant community.”

Hopkins says she grew up deeply involved in Native culture by being on the land and exercising subsistence practices, singing and dancing, ceremonies, and community events. She credits her participation to her father, Don Eagle Hopkins Sr., “My father would go beyond our Tribal community, participating across the country and Canada in Native activism and ceremonies, and always welcomed people into our home for meals and hospitality. He had such a passion to connect with other communities. Today, my husband and I try to continue that tradition of welcoming Native people and students who are away from their communities by hosting them here and making them feel welcome and introducing them to our communities.”

Hopkins speaks passionately about the connection to land that motivates her.

“I love the feeling of being on the land, doing what we are supposed to: fishing, harvesting, growing, hunting, and ceremonies. You feel so much more connection when you butcher a deer, rather than going to the store to pick up a steak. It just feels right. There is a relationship, a sense of continuity, and things are done in ceremony. These are practices that we are passing on to our son.” Hopkins is also a skilled seamstress, beadwork artist, and an acclaimed Eastern Woodlands singer and dancer. She has performed both in the U.S. and internationally; her deep cultural roots contribute to her passion for educating Native Peoples and building cultural competency.

Hopkins also runs a cultural consultation business and has extensive experience with curriculum and program development for her community and Eastern Woodlands peoples. As a former educator at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center, and as the Aquinnah Wampanoag Tribal Education Planning coordinator, she says she cherished her time working with the public, but particularly with Native youth: “It was very rewarding to teach them about the land, to harvest beach plums, cranberries, and clay; traditional gardening techniques making their own toys; singing and participating in programs that sparked their love for their culture.”

Hopkins credits her work at the Public Program department at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum for fortifying her ability to present herself as a professional and her people on the world stage. “Native cultures have long been looked down upon as primitive and less complex than other cultures. Promoting the complexity of Native communities from our cultures and promoting our visibility is what drives me,” she says, adding, “Eastern Woodlands peoples, our cultures, our histories, and our arts are undervalued. We are invisible in the mainstream here in New England, unlike in other parts of the country where Native art is part of the aesthetic and infrastructure—where larger populations of Native people cannot be ignored. Education is a tool to make people aware of our communities and stop the stereotyping. I find opportunities to interact with the public very rewarding. This is why I love doing events like the Cultural Survival Bazaar, because it is fun to be singing and sharing our culture at a family friendly event.”

To have Leah provide cultural consultation or educational programming, contact: eleahhopkins@gmail.com.

Photo by Ryann Monterio (Aquinnah Wampanoag).

Cultural CulturalSurvival SurvivalQuarterly Quarterly March June 2018 2018 •• 27 27

get i nvo lve d

The High-Level Political Forum and Voluntary National Reviews Joshua Cooper

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dopted in September 2015, the UN Sustainable Development Goals are a framework for fundamental change in environmental protection and for promotion of human rights for future generations. The 2030 Development Agenda of 17 global goals and 169 transformational targets are significant to the realization of Indigenous Peoples’ rights in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Voluntary National Reviews conducted at the UN High Level Political Forum are the reporting procedure and review process that stakeholders can use to ensure governments create policies and practices that leave no one behind. In 2013, the High Level Political Forum replaced the UN Commission on Sustainable Development to ensure effective followup of the Earth Summit UN Conference on Environment and Development in 1992 and Rio+20 in 2012. The first three sessions of the Forum in 2013–2015 shaped the creation of Sustainable Development Goals and charted a path to achieve the 2030 Agenda with partnerships for action and accountability procedures to keep course for social change. In subsequent years, the Forum has included focus on specific goals and actual reviews of States.

The High Level Political Forum happens annually at the UN Headquarters in New York in July. This year’s theme is transformation towards sustainable and resilient societies with a focus on Sustainable Development Goals, and will host 47 Voluntary National Reviews. The Voluntary National Reviews take place during the second week of the Forum under the auspices of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

There are four steps for a full and effective review, which must include stakeholders from the initial preparation stage to implementation.

28 www.cs. cs.org org 28 •• www.

Step One: Preparation (July–January) The first step begins with a State volunteering to report at the Forum. At the community level, stakeholders should educate and encourage civil society to share about challenges relating to rights enshrined in each development goal. It is imperative to prepare first drafts of spotlight reports covering the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. At the country level, stakeholders should mobilize to create a national network and should remind their government that this is a national report rooted in inclusivity. The multistakeholder coordination must encourage wide participation, and the first draft should be prepared after an initial set of consultations. There should also be coordination with the UN Country Team and UN Development Programme.

While the majority of activism in the Preparation step is at the community and country level, it is important to begin work at UN headquarters in New York and the UN regional offices. Connecting with major NGOs based in New York that are focused on human rights and sustainable development will be valuable closer to the actual review. It is important to research and review which states raise issues, questions, and recommendations related to your priorities. Webcasts of prior reviews are available for viewing on UN Web TV; these will provide a basis for conversations with country, as will the website of the Danish Commission on Human Rights website where the Universal Periodic Reviews recommendations are linked to the Sustainable Development Goals. You can also utilize the UPR-INFO database to identify which states champion which rights.

Step Two: Interaction (January–July) The second step is a shift from community to country, and at the United Nations, global and regional levels. There are

deadlines for reports regarding the national reviews, so it is important to regularly check the UN Sustainable Development Goals website. At the community level, the focus is on advocacy and reporting. Spotlight reports and summary rights statements with issues, questions, and recommendations in a simple 1–2 page format are drafted and submitted. At the country level, the national movement should propose policy coherence among all actors as well as methodology for the preparation process. More institutional inclusion in the national multistakeholder mechanism is imperative, with a focus on implementation of economic, social, and environmental aspects of sustainable development rooted in a human rights approach.

Civil society should meet with national agencies responsible for the achievement of the 2030 Agenda. Civil society should also work with parliamentarians and engage with committees responsible for the 2030 Agenda, while also encouraging creation of a Parliamentary Advisory Council on Sustainable Development to coordinate post-review at the country level. Civil society can also meet with UN Country Teams and partner with UN agencies. After drafting the spotlight reports and summary rights statements, it is important to host meetings in capitals with embassies and invite them to attend fora where people directly impacted will speak about their recommendations to realize human rights and reach the global goals. At the global and regional level, it is important to follow the global preparatory workshops. These take place from December to the weekend in July prior to the national reviews. The regional preparatory workshop, as well as the Regional Forums for Sustainable Development, also take place in March and April.

There are two documents due with deadlines prior to the review: Main Messages and Final Reviews. Main messages include principal findings and emerging conclusions, should be submitted in mid-May, and should not exceed 700 words.

These will be posted online for the public to prepare for the review. The Final Reviews are submitted a month prior to the Forum in mid-June, are posted online, and have no word limit. Civil society can also submit a consolidated report on the theme and goals under review at the Forum. During the Interaction step, it is essential to share the spotlight reports and summary rights statements with member states so they can better understand the situation and raise questions and recommendations during the review. This can occur in direct meetings with missions at panels, briefings, side events, and other fora.

Step Three: Consideration (July) The third step is the actual review of the State regarding the Sustainable Development Goals. Community members can view the country consideration and hear the national report and various member states’ comments. During and immediately after the review, the community can coordinate social media strategy to raise awareness for the review of the development goals and commitments agreed to by the State.

At the country level, a viewing party can be hosted in the capital, bringing together all actors that participated in the creation of the national report. Following the review, it is important to have a national forum for those not participating in New York. The forum can bring together national agencies, members of parliament, civil society, and academia

to have a National Review that assesses the voluntary review and propose new initiatives for national campaigns around the development goals.

The Forum is an intensive 8-day opportunity to organize at the highest level for human rights and sustainable development, so it is important to connect on every level with major actors. One should continue the conversation with the Global Policy Forum and present during the Spotlight Reports side event. It is also essential to engage with national networks and participate in national side events. When possible, one should have followup meetings based on earlier discussions with diplomats of the UN member states and provide updates regarding the progress of the development goals. The days during the Forum require early morning meetings to discuss priorities and participation in the review. Upon conclusion of the review, civil society should request to host a joint press conference with all stakeholders sharing perspectives and potential paths forward.

Step Four: Implementation The final step is returning back to home to local communities. At the community level, reporting back results allows for reconnecting with stakeholders and also recruits new rights defenders that have become aware of the goals and review process. New campaigns can be launched to implement the issues raised during the review. Coordination of committees or working groups to support engagement at the local level are essential to implement what was decided at the national review. A new innovation are Voluntary Local Reviews, with the first one to take place in New York City in 2018.

At the country level, coordinate followup meetings with national multistakeholders and agencies to continue the conversation inspired by the review process. It is crucial to schedule consultations to propose improvements to the National Sustainable Development Council structures. Policy dialogue and participatory decision-making are key to citizen-led initiatives to realize human rights. At the global level, maintaining connections with peoples’ movements and coordinating campaigns to achieve each development goal is important. Stakeholders should continue to participate in civil society meetings to share their stories to assist stakeholders in future reviews.

The results of the Voluntary National Review create a roadmap for all participants to continue to advance and achieve the 2030 Agenda. To realize the human rights reinforced in the language of the Sustainable Development Goals, we must refine the procedures, generating guidelines for governments and the major groups to enhance participation based on the first cycle of reviews. The Sustainable Development Goals can be linked directly to articles in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The 2030 Agenda must reinforce the Declaration to respect land rights; realize cultural understanding of nature into national policy; and reinforce an environmental priority rooted in Indigenous cosmology, taking care of all people and our common planet.

To find out more about the High Level Political Forum and Voluntary National reviews, visit: sustainabledevelopment.un.org/hlpf.

CulturalSurvival SurvivalQuarterly Quarterly Cultural

June 2018 • 29

CS50: 1972-2022

Celebrating Five Decades of Indigenous Rights and Resilience!

1970s: Founding | 1980s: Defending 1990s: Revitalizing | 2000s: Protecting | 2010s: Amplifying You are part of our legacy and we cannot thank you enough for your ongoing support! Over the next four years as we approach 50, we will continue our work amplifying Indigenous voices and working towards the full implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. But none of this can happen without you! Stay tuned for inspiring stories and how you can give to Cultural Survival through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and our weekly emails.

Donate online at cs.org/donate Call us at 617.441.5400 x18 Thank you! #culturalsurvival50 #1972 #CS50