CSQ 46-1 Indigenous Climate Change Solutions: Ensuring the Future of Our Planet

Cultural Survival Q

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indigenous climate change solutions Ensuring the future of our planet

Vol. 46, Issue 1 • March 2022 US $4.99/CAN $6.99

M arc h 2022 V ol ume 4 6, Issu e 1

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Board of Directors

Features

Kaimana Barcarse (Kanaka Hawai’i)

12 ​ States Fail to Adequately Address Climate Change at COP26 CS Staff Indigenous Peoples analyze COP26 decisions and what needs to come next to combat climate change.

president

Vice President

John King

Treasurer

Steven Heim Clerk

Nicole Friederichs

Valine Brown (Haida) Evelyn Arce Erickson (Muisca) Kate R. Finn (Osage) Laura Graham Stephen Marks Tui Shortland (Māori) Jannie Staffansson (Saami) Stella Tamang (Tamang) FOUNDERS David & Pia Maybury-Lewis Cultural Survival Headquarters 2067 Massachusetts Ave. Cambridge, MA 02140 t 617.441.5400 f 617.441.5417 www.cs.org Cultural Survival Quarterly Executive Editor: Daisee Francour (Oneida) Managing Editor: Agnes Portalewska Contributing Arts Editor: Phoebe Farris (Powhatan-Pamunkey) Copy Editor: Jenn Goodman Designer: NonprofitDesign.com Copyright 2022 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.

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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14 Indigenous Voices from COP26 • They Are Starting to Listen to Us— Andrea Carmen (Yaqui) • It’s Up to Us to Define a Just Transition—Victoria Tauli-Corpuz (Igorot) • If We Don’t Reduce Emissions, We’ve Made No Progress— Frank Ettawageshik (Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians) • We Can’t Solve This Crisis Without Indigenous Peoples— Fawn Sharp (Quinault) • Calling for Urgent Action to Address the Devastating Impacts of Climate Change—Graeme Reed (Anishinaabe) 18 Nature-Based Solutions are False Climate Change Solutions Daisee Francour (Oneida) Nature-based solutions are a ploy to “greenwash” climate change solutions that co-opt and commodify Indigenous lands.

20 A Pacific Island Nation Is Being Subsumed by the Sea Suhra Nahib The Tuvalu Climate Action Network is racing against the tide to protect their lands and livelihoods.

22 Joining Together for a Just Transition Transitions Minerals Coalition Indigenous leadership is essential in emerging green economies.

24 Impacts of Climate Change Among the Endorois Peoples in Kenya Carson Kiburo (Endorois) The Endorois are taking action locally to mitigate climate change on their lands.

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Departments 1 Executive Director’s Message 2 In the News 4 Indigenous Arts Pocahontas Reframed Film Festival Returns 6 Rights in Action Historic Win: Inter-American Court of Human Rights Rules in Favor of Indigenous Peoples 8 Indigenous Languages The Troubled State of the Buryat Language Today 10 Women the World Must Hear Kandi White (Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara) and Simone Senogles (Anishinaabe) 26 Keepers of the Earth Fund Grant Partner Spotlight Indigenous Stewardship Brings Restoration of Mangroves 28 Board Spotlight Kate Finn (Osage) 29 Bazaar Artist Everest Wings Cover photo: Indigenous Peoples represented the second-

largest civil society delegation at COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland (see page 12). L-R: Roxana Borda Mamani (Quechua); Thaline Karajá (Iny Karajá); Luciene Saw Munduruku (Murunduku), Tarcila Rivera Zea (Quechua), CHIRAPAQ; Galina Angarova (Buryat), Cultural Survival; and Chanchana Chakma (Chakma), Bangladesh Indigenous Women Network. Banners by International Indigenous Peoples Movement. Photo by Avenim Cojti.

E x ec u tive D irect o r ’ S message

Indigenous Knowledge is the Key to Combating Climate Change

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

Dear Cultural Survival Community,

Cultural Survival Staff

his past Fall, the 26th Conference of Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26) took place in Glasgow, Scotland. Five of my Cultural Survival colleagues and I attended the conference and participated in various dialogues and presentations pertaining to the proposed solutions to address climate change mitigation and adaptation, loss, and damages of our ecosystems as well as climate finance. Alongside many other Indigenous leaders present at COP26 and others who took to the streets to protest the climate conference, Cultural Survival’s Indigenous women-led delegation denounced the so-called “nature-based” and scalable solutions as false solutions that continue to displace and criminalize Indigenous Peoples on their own lands and territories while commodifying, extracting, and exploiting our environments. Our delegation centered and uplifted Indigenous Peoples’ rights, solutions, and Traditional Knowledge in tackling climate change, advocating for direct funding to support Indigenous Peoples’ land titling, tenure, stewardship, and self-determination, and amplifying the voices of Indigenous Peoples.

Cultural Survival is dedicating this issue of the Cultural Survival Quarterly to uplifting the voices and work of Indigenous community leaders working to mitigate and combat climate change at local, national, and international levels. They are the ones taking action and creating change with little to no government support. We report on some of the small wins at COP26, such as the adoption of the second three-year work plan of the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform and securing one seat to represent Indigenous Peoples in the Climate Technology Centre and Network Advisory Body. We also highlight new fronts of the struggle for Indigenous rights in the Just Transition with the need to monitor human rights commitments of companies working in the green economy to source transition minerals. The rapid increase of mining for these minerals impacts Indigenous communities through displacement

Mark Camp, Deputy Executive Director

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Galina Angarova (Buryat), Executive Director Avexnim Cojtí (Maya K’iche’), Director of Programs Daisee Francour (Oneida), Director of Strategic Partnerships and Communications Monica Coc Magnusson (Q’eqchi Maya), Director of Advocacy and Policy

Verónica Aguilar (Mixtec), Program Assistant, Keepers of the Earth Fund

Bryan Bixcul (Maya Tz’utujil), Executive Assistant

Jessie Cherofsky, Advocacy Program Researcher Danielle DeLuca, Advocacy & Development Manager Shaldon Ferris (Khoisan), Indigenous Radio Program Coordinator Sofia Flynn, Accounting & Office Manager

and dispossession. Due to the lack of government action, Indigenous leaders are directly engaging companies in the supply chain to ensure they are aware of the risks posed to Indigenous Peoples. We also report on how centering Indigenous knowledge enables the regeneration of local ecosystems and biodiversity. This crucial, on-the-ground work by Indigenous communities needs to be resourced and funded directly to ensure we have a healthy and sustainable planet for future generations.

We hope you will join us in supporting Indigenous climate solutions. Our 50-year legacy of advocating for Indigenous Peoples’ rights is thanks to you, our community, who help make our work possible. Join us in shifting the narrative and resources to support Indigenous languages, solutions, and leadership to build a better world for us all. For our 50th anniversary, we have an ambitious goal to raise $500,000 by June 1, 2022 for our #CS50 campaign.

Support Indigenous rights and donate at cs.org/donate!

Nati Garcia (Maya Mam), Acting Community Media Grants Manager Adriana Hernández (Maya K'iche'), Emerging Strategies Coordinator

Dev Kumar Sunuwar (Kumar/Sunuwar), Community Media Program Coordinator Danae Laura, Bazaar Program Manager

Maria del Rosario “Rosy” Sul González (Kaqchikel), Indigenous Rights Radio Program Manager

Bia’ni Madsa’ Juárez López, (Mixe/Ayuuk ja’ay & Zapotec/Binnizá), Keepers of the Earth Fund Program Manager Jamie Malcolm-Brown, Communications & Information Technology Manager

Amparo Monzón (Maya K’iche), Program Assistant, Community Media & Indigenous Rights Radio Programs Cat Monzón (Maya K’iche’), Indigenous Community Media Youth Fellowship Coordinator

Cesar Gomez Moscut (Pocomam), Community Media Program Coordinator

Edson Krenak Naknanuk (Krenak), Lead on Brazil Diana Pastor (Maya K’iche’), Media Coordinator Guadalupe Pastrana (Nahua), Indigenous Rights Radio Producer

Agnes Portalewska, Communications Manager Sócrates Vásquez (Ayuujk), Program Manager, Community Media Miranda Vitello, Development Coordinator

Candy Williams, Human Resources Manager

Galina Angarova (Buryat) Executive Director

INTERNS AND VOLUNTEERS Dorothea Bauer, Sarah Hume, Rebecca Kirkpatrick, Mariana Navarrete, Lauren Nolan, Kathryn Sullivan

Stay connected www.cs.org Cultural Survival Quarterly March 2022

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in the news broadband coverage, and access to running water in Indigenous areas.

U.S. | Trust Status of Mashpee Wampanoag Reservation Confirmed (December)

Mashpee Wampanoag Powwow.

Photo by Agnes Portalewska

Chile | Inter-American Commission Allows Rapa Nui Lawsuit (August)

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has deemed the 2015 Rapa Nui lawsuit against the State of Chile for ownership of Easter Island admissible. Seventy percent of Rapa Nui territory is managed and owned by the Chilean government despite more than 125 years of requests for recognition and autonomy. The Rapa Nui are demanding that the State return the land to the people to protect what is rightfully theirs, as well as their right to self-determination.

Peru | Indigenous Communities Sue to Recover Ancestral Lands (December)

Three Secoya communities have sued the government of Peru to recover ownership over 300,000 acres of their ancestral lands and catalyze national reforms to ensure formal Indigenous ownership of more than 10 million acres in the Peruvian Amazon.

U.S. | Federal Infrastructure Bill Includes $2.5 billion for Indigenous Water Rights Settlements (December)

A new federal infrastructure bill signed into law in November includes $2.5 billion for Indigenous water rights settlements, which could help fund projects that would provide long-awaited access to reliable, clean water and basic sanitation facilities on Indigenous lands. The money for settlements is part of a larger infrastructure law that will provide $11 billion for road improvements, better 2

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The Assistant Secretary of the InteriorIndian Affairs confirmed the Department of Interior’s decision to reverse the Trump administration’s bid to strip the Mashpee Wampanoag Peoples of their 321 acres of land in 2020.

U.S. | Penobscot Nation Asks Supreme Court to Decide on Ownership of their Namesake River (December)

The Penobscot Nation has asked the Supreme Court to determine whether their reservation boundaries include the river from which the Tribe got its name.

The courts have previously ruled that the Penobscot Nation have a right to sustenance fishing in the river and authority over their islands in the river, but do not own the river’s waters.

New Zealand | Oriini Kaipara Becomes First Woman with Moko Kauae to Present Primetime News (December)

Oriini Kaipara continued to make history in December when she filled in on Newshub’s 6:00 p.m. program, becoming the first woman with a moko kauae (traditional tattoo) to present the news on primetime television.

Canada | Canadian Government to Compensate Indigenous Children Harmed

by Child Welfare System (January)

The Canadian government has reached a $31 billion settlement—the largest in the country’s history—with First Nations, agreeing to give more than $15 billion to Indigenous children who have been affected by the country’s child welfare system. These include the tens of thousands of children who were stolen from their families and forced into the system.

U.S. | Supreme Court Rejects Request to Overturn Landmark McGirt Ruling (January)

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the State of Oklahoma’s request to overturn its McGirt ruling, upholding its 2020 decision to recognize that the Muscogee Nation reservation had never been disestablished by Congress. This ruling means that jurisdiction to try cases within the reservation lies with the Tribal government or federal government, not with the state.

Guatemala | Five Sentenced to 30 Years in Prison for Violence Against Maya Achi Women (January)

Thirty-six Maya Achi women suceeded in obtaining a conviction against five civil self-defense patrollers who committed sexual violence and domestic slavery against them in the 1980s. Bernardo Ruiz Aquino, Benvenuto Ruiz Aquino, Damián Cuxum Alvarado, Gabriel Cuxum Alvarado, and Francisco Cuxum Alvarado were each sentenced to 30 years in prison for crimes against humanity.

U.S. | Land Returned to Tribes in California (January)

Save the Redwoods League is returning more than 500 acres of historic redwood groves on the Lost Coast in northern California to the InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council, a group of 10 Tribes who have lived in the area for thousands of years and will be responsible for protecting the land, Tc’ih-Léh-Dûñ, or “Fish Run Place,” in the Sinkyone language.

U.S. | Tribal Communities Win $665 Million Opioid Settlement (February)

In the largest opioid settlement to date for Native Americans, McKesson, Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen, and Johnson & Johnson will pay a total of $665 million to Tribal communities devastated by the opioid crisis that has killed them at a disproportionate rate compared with non-Natives. More than 400 Tribes sued the companies.

Advocacy Updates Nepal | Communities Organize In the Face of Hydropower Projects on Likhu River Seven hydropower projects along the Likhu River in eastern Nepal failed to obtain the consent of the local Indigenous communities before beginning construction. The companies overseeing the projects claim that information hearings were held. However, local communities say they were not informed about these alleged hearings, nor were they consulted during the building of access roads, and most received no compensation for the damages incurred.

Much of the information that has been provided is in Nepali, though many of the people affected speak Sunuwar or Sherpa as their first language. On December 21–23, 2021, led by Cultural Survival staff member Dev Kumar Sunuwar (KoĩtsSunuwar) and partner organization, Sunuwar Welfare Council, public hearings were carried out in three locations as well as site visits with Indigenous human rights lawyers. During the dialogues, covered by Indigenous community radio and television stations for broadcast to local communities, community members denounced that the hydroelectric investors failed to obtain their Free, Prior and Informed Consent and that no compensation had been paid to those whose private lands have been destroyed by infrastructure construction. They also stated that the only option now is to close down the project area and obstruct the ongoing work.

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Guatemala | President Suspends Civil Rights to Facilitate Nickel Mining

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On June 18, 2020, Guatemala’s highest court found that the Fenix Nickel Mine in the municipality of El Estor, Izabal had failed to consult Indigenous communities and ordered the mine to close. The mine, owned

by Swiss-registered Solway Group, has continued to operate illegally. In protest, Maya Q’eqchi community members peacefully blockaded a road starting October 4, 2021 to prevent ongoing activities of the mine. The blockade is led by traditional Q’eqchi authorities of the Ancestral Council and has only blocked the passage of cargo trucks related to mining activity.

On October 24, the president of Guatemala declared a State of Siege, suspending civil rights and allowing interrogations and detention without a warrant. Many local journalists, activists, and organizations were harassed and their homes were raided by the military. Radio Xyaab ‘Tzuultaq’a, a Cultural Survival grant partner, was targeted for covering the peaceful protests.

Cultural Survival’s Advocacy Program launches international campaigns in support of grassroots Indigenous movements as they put pressure on governments and corporations to respect, protect, and fulfill the rights of their communities.

Suriname | Suriname’s Human Rights Record Reviewed In November 2021, Suriname’s human rights record was reviewed as part of the Universal Periodic Review.

Recommendations by Costa Rica and the United States focused on the importance of mitigating the negative impact of mining on Indigenous Peoples and implementing a law that protects their right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent regarding the extraction of natural resources on their lands. A Suriname government minister responded, saying that a national action plan on natural resources is being drafted to phase out the use of mercury and ensure that Indigenous Peoples’ right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent is respected. Germany and Ireland’s recommendations were centered around the implementation of judgments made by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights regarding Indigenous land rights and the Moiwana and Saramaka communities, specifically. Indigenous issues were brought to the attention of States participating review through a joint submission by Cultural Survival and partner Mulokot Foundation, and the Association of Indigenous Village Leaders in Suriname.

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Russia | UN Committee Makes Recommendations Related to Indigenous Women In its 80th session from October 18 to November 12, 2021, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women reviewed the human rights record of Russia in compliance with its treaty on women’s rights. The Committee recommended that Russia improve Indigenous women’s access to justice by providing “a comprehensive legal aid scheme for women at the federal and regional levels, with sustainable and sufficient resources.” The Committee also pushed for increased and effective involvement of Indigenous women in decision-making bodies; better gender perspective when drafting policies and action plans regarding climate change and natural disasters; and, crucially, the Committee demanded that the State “ensure and protect Indigenous women’s collective rights to traditional land and resources.”

Violations of Indigenous women’s rights were brought to the attention of the Committee through a joint submission by Cultural Survival along with partners Batani Foundation and the American Indian Law Clinic of the University of Colorado.

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__________________ Read more news at www.cs.org/latest.

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indigenous arts

Pocahontas Reframed film festival returns

Festival Poster.

Image courtesy of Pocahontas Reframed.

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Phoebe Farris (Powhatan-Pamunkey) he 5th Pocahontas Reframed Film Festival was held November 19–21, 2021 at the Virginia Fine Arts Museum, offering live and virtual options. Continuing tradition, the festival showcased documentary and feature films, live performances, and panel discussions.

As clarified by board members and emcees Assistant Pamunkey Chief Bradby Brown (Pamunkey) and Chief Lynette Allston (Nottoway), the festival raises awareness about language, cultures, and societies through films that highlight Native American perspectives, bringing together artists, actors, and directors who dialogue with the audience after screenings. Pocahontas Reframed raises “visibility around the need for more diversity in films” and elevates Native American perspectives.

A common theme running throughout the three days of live screenings was climate change and the environment, evident in films such as “Ophir,” written and directed by Alexandre Berman and Olivier Pollet, the Papua New Guinea film winner of the 2020 Grand Jury Prize at the FIFO International Film Festival; “One Word Sawalmen,” directed

by Michael “Pom” Preston (Winnemem Wintu) and Natasha Deganello Giraudie; “Pamunkey River: Lifeblood of Our People,” directed by Kevin Krigsvold (Pamunkey) and Michael Bibbo; “Family,” directed by Rain and narrated by Crystle Lightning; “Tsenacommacah,” a short experimental film directed by Ethan Brown, Caleb Hendrickson, and Frederico Cuatlacuatl; “However Wide the Sky: Places of Power,” produced by Silver Bullet Productions and narrated

by Tantoo Cardinal (Cree and Métis); “Standing Rock on

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Native Ground,” directed by Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie (Seminole/Muscogee/Navajo); “Conscience Point,” directed

by Treva Wurmfeld and produced by Julianna Brannum (Comanche); “Lake of Betrayal,” directed by Paul Lamont and Scott Sackett; and “VIMS 75th Anniversary Video,” produced by the Virginia Institute for Marine Science.

In keeping with the national resurgence of land acknowledgment, it is fitting that two environmental-themed films concerned Virginia Tribes. “Pamunkey River: Lifeblood of Our People” featured scenes of the beautiful river located in Virginia’s tidewater area with Chief Robert Gray and other Tribal members discussing how the river is under pressure from invasive species and pollution. They highlighted the work that the members and scientists are doing to “bring the river and the fish population back to a healthy place.”

The 12-minute short also stresses how the river connects the people to a place that has sustained generations for thousands of years. “Tsenacommacah,” another film about Tidewater, Virginia, is named after the Powhatan name for their territory, translated as “densely inhabited land.”

It focuses on the spiritual symbology of Ahone, the Creator, whose origin is the rising sun, and Okee, the trickster of chaos.

The Pacific Ocean is the setting for “Ophir” and its Indigenous population’s revolution for land, life, and culture and the necessity to create a new nation in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea because of coastal erosion. Their plight is considered by many as the biggest conflict of the Pacific since World War II. Shifting back to the U.S. is “Conscience Point,” filmed on the Shinnecock Reservation where Tribal members have lived in harmony with the sea life of the Atlantic Ocean.

Activist Rebecca Hill-Genia (Shinnecock) and her allies are protesting to protect their sacred burial grounds which were plowed to make room for mansions and the construction of the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club. Located within one of the wealthiest zip codes in the U.S., the recognized Shinnecock Tribe is constantly under siege by developers who want to privatize beaches which are home and sacred spaces to the Shinnecock.

Filmmaker and festival board member Shelley Niro (Mohawk) moderated the panel, “Desert and Sky: Rock and Ice,” which featured filmmakers Darlene Naponse (Anishinabe) and Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie discussing how the territories they grew up in and their experiences as Indigenous women affects their work. Tsinhnahjinnie screened diary videos, some featuring her father describing his childhood in a boarding school and its harsh punishments

Film posters for “Conscience Point,” “However Wide the Sky: Places of Power,” and “Ophir.”

such as having his ankles chained while carrying heavy logs and being forced to dress in girls’ clothing. Playing the guitar, Andrew V. Tsinhnahjinnie (Diné), also known as Yazhi Bahe (1916–2000), reflected how his life that led him to become a curriculum developer for Native American schools and a legendary painter of Southwestern Indian life and ceremonies.

Other excerpts from Tsinhnahjinnie’s filmography included “NTV,” a spoof on MTV, soap operas, and TV commercials, and a documentary about a 2018 San Francisco protest that culminated in the removal of an offensive statue of a downtrodden Indian man. Her Standing Rock Video focused on about 2,000 veterans of all races who came to Standing Rock to protect the Water Keepers activists and got snowed-in at a casino for three days. It documented the casino housekeepers, university students, and veterans as they were crowded together, forced to sleep in the halls and work together. Although the veterans showed up wanting to fight, Tsinhnahjinnie and others talked them down, reassuring them that “Your presence is all we need, not fighting.” Attributing the snowed-in experience to spiritual intervention, it ended with a forgiveness ceremony that involved the gifting of eagle feathers.

Listening to Andrew Tsinhnahjinnie play the guitar and sing while narrating his boarding school experiences in the afternoon video series was the perfect sequel to the Saturday morning viewing of “Home From School: The Children of Carlisle,” written, directed, and produced by Geoff O’Gara.

Also shown on PBS, “Home From School” chronicles the Northern Arapaho Tribe’s activism and success in having the remains of three children who died at Carlisle Indian School returned to them and the subsequent return of remains to other Tribes. In all, 238 Native children were buried at Carlisle into the late 1920s. Forced boarding schools for Indigenous children in settler colonies like the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are described as cultural genocide by the filmmaker.

Not all of the films were documentaries. “Intrepidus,” a horror fantasy directed by undergraduate student Alex

Greenlee and produced by “On Native Ground,” was one of the five films nominated for the 21st Annual Student Heritage Awards presented by the American Society of Cinematographers. “Beans” by Tracey Deer (Mohawk) is a coming-of-age story of a young girl living through the 1990 Oka Crisis in Canada and how the charged political protest events radically changed her perspective on life. “A Winter Love,” written and directed by Rihanna Yazzie (Navajo), with cinematographer Ryan Eddleston and editor Farrah Drabu, revolves around the love affair between a female Navajo songwriter and a Lakota law student who is confused about his sexual orientation.

Performing artists at the opening night reception were the Adams Town Drummers, the Mattaponi Women’s Dancers, and the Nansemond Men’s Dancers, all Virginia Tribal members. Saturday evening, Dareen Thompson (Ojibwe/ Tohono O’odham), flute player and music educator, performed some of his original compositions from his second album, “Between Earth and Sky.” At the close of the festival, Karenne Wood (Monacan) (1960–2019) was honored with the establishment of the Karenne Wood Native Writer/Artist Residency Program, sponsored by the Humanities Research Center at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. Known for her poetry and work in Virginia Tribal history, Wood was the director of the Virginia Indian Program at Virginia Humanities in Charlottesville. She also conducted research at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian and served on the National Congress of American Indian Repatriation Commission. In 2015, Wood was named one of the Library of Virginia’s “Virginia Women in History.”

Highly respected by colleagues and peers, the Pocahontas Reframed Film Festival was a fitting location to announce the establishment of the Native Artist/Writer Residency named in her honor.

Phoebe Mills Farris, Ph.D. (Powhatan-Pamunkey) is a Purdue University Professor Emerita, photographer, and freelance art critic.

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rights in action

Historic Win

Inter-American Court of Human Rights Rules in Favor of Indigenous Peoples Members of Radio Ixchel in Sumpango, Sacatepequez, Guatemala, one of the plaintiffs in the historic case.

Photo by Cesar Gomez.

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CS Advocacy Team n December 17, 2021, the InterAmerican Court of Human Rights announced its decision in the case Indigenous Maya Kaqchikel Peoples of Sumpango vs. Guatemala. The Court ruled that the Republic of Guatemala was “internationally responsible for the violation of the rights to freedom of expression, equality before the law, and participation in cultural life” of Indigenous Peoples.

The case, brought by Cultural Survival, Guatemala-based Asociación Sobrevivencia Cultural, and submitted with support from the Human Rights and Indigenous Peoples Clinic at Suffolk University Law School, argued that Guatemala’s telecommunications law excludes Indigenous Peoples from accessing their own forms of media via community radio. María Pedro de Pedro (Maya Q’anjob’al) from Radio Snuq’ Jolom Konob’ in Santa Eulalia, Huehuetenango, emphasized the importance of community radio to Indigenous communities. Through radio, she says, “we are protecting our cultural identity, we are protecting our culture, our music, our art, our traditions, our customs, our language, our surnames. . . . The microphone is power.”

The historic decision came after decades of activism by members of the Indigenous community radio movement in Guatemala fighting for their freedom to operate radio stations and broadcast information in Indigenous languages to and from their communities. Currently in Guatemala, Indigenous community radio stations are still not legalized more than 26 years since this right was guaranteed in the Guatemalan Peace Accords. They continue to operate in a legal gray zone that has led to frequent persecution by mainstream media conglomerates, the national police, and politicians.

“The Inter-American Court correctly holds that freedom of expression is a cornerstone of any democratic society.

Therefore, the decision is a major victory for Indigenous

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Peoples in Guatemala and a great opportunity for the Guatemalan State to be a leader in making amends to Indigenous communities, who constitute half of the population. It is also an important precedent for Indigenous Peoples in Latin America as it affirms the rights of Indigenous Peoples to collective and individual freedom of expression, and the right to practice their culture without discrimination,” says Monica Coc Magnusson (Q’eqchi Maya), Cultural Survival’s Director of Advocacy and Policy.

Anselmo Xunic Cabrera (Maya Kaqchikel), a member of Radio Ixchel, a community radio station from Sumpango Sacatepequez, Guatemala, said, “This has been a historic struggle for Indigenous Peoples. This decision will have an impact in Latin America and around the world. This sentence is a blow to the State, which has been racist, exclusive, and criminalizing. This news moves the heart.”

On April 3, 2020, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights referred the case to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. From June 9–10, 2021, the Court heard passionate testimonies from representatives of Indigenous community radio stations, experts on the right to freedom of expression and Indigenous rights, and representatives of the State of Guatemala. Currently, one of the only ways to obtain a radio license is by taking part in an auction. However, as Xunic testified during the hearing, “The auctions are discriminatory because from an economic standpoint we can’t pay that amount and we can’t compete as Indigenous Peoples.”

José Francisco Calí Tzay (Maya Kaqchikel), UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, emphasized that “access to community radio is critical to the transmission of language and culture” and that “Indigenous Peoples rely on this medium to inform and educate their communities, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Obstacles to radio frequency access translate to indirect discrimination against Indigenous communities . . . that, de facto, discriminates against Indigenous Peoples, as is the case of Guatemala’s general telecommunications law.”

The State of Guatemala has continuously ignored national and international laws and obligations regarding freedom of expression and many specific recommendations to recognize the community radio stations of Indigenous Peoples, while being one of the State signatories of the International Labor Organization Convention 169 and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The State has promoted discriminatory laws such as the General Telecommunications Decree 94–96, in force since 1996, which uses auctions as the only mechanism to legally access radio frequency licenses. In 2012, this legislation was extended for another 20 years without consulting with Indigenous Peoples. Since 2006, the Public Ministry has misused the penal code to criminalize existing community radio stations. Proposed legislation to recognize Indigenous Peoples’ media have been stymied for decades, including Bill 4087, pending approval since 2010.

“This decision is a victory not only for Guatemala but also for Indigenous Peoples throughout this hemisphere in protecting their rights to expression and culture and promoting pluralism in media. Of particular significance is the Court’s recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ right to operate their own media, and the relationship of this right to freedom of expression, culture, self-determination, and non-discrimination. This recognition by the Inter-American Court of Indigenous Peoples’ right to media may impact how other judicial and human rights bodies interpret and promote this right under the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples,” said Nicole Friederichs, lead counsel on the case and Clinic Director at Suffolk University Law School.

The Court’s decision is a major milestone for Indigenous rights. The Court ruled that the State of Guatemala violated Articles 1.1 (Obligation to Respect Rights), 2 (Domestic Legal Effect), 13 (Freedom of Thought and Expression), 13.2, 24 (Right to Equal Protection), and 26 (Progressive Development) of the American Convention on Human Rights. Decisions of the Inter-American Court are binding, meaning that the State of Guatemala is required to change the law. The Court ordered that Guatemala facilitate the identified victims’ free operation of community radio stations; amend domestic laws to recognize Indigenous community radio as a unique means of communication; establish simple procedures for obtaining licenses; reserve a sector of the radio spectrum for Indigenous community radio; and abstain from criminalizing individuals who participate at Indigenous community radio stations. The ruling also includes reparations for four of the affected communities. The Court further “affirmed the right of Indigenous Peoples to establish and use their own communication media, based on the content and the scope of the right of freedom of expression, but also taking into account the rights of Indigenous Peoples not to be discriminated against, their right to self-determination, and their cultural rights.”

There is no definitive timeframe for the State of Guatemala to comply with the ruling, however, the government

must comply with the following deadlines: the Court’s decision must be published in full in the press in Guatemala within one year. The four named affected Indigenous radio stations must be recognized by the government and must be financially compensated within one year. And criminal prosecution of those who work at the community radio stations, as well as government raids of the stations, must be stopped immediately.

Reflecting on the Court’s decision, Xunic said, “We’ve suffered 18 years of persecution and defamation. They have called us pirate radios, illegal radio stations; they’ve called us subversive radio, and even terrorist radios.

Now we’ve been proven right.” Amy Van Zyl-Chavarro, co-counsel from the Human Rights and Indigenous Peoples Clinic, said, “The idea that Indigenous Peoples might have the right to operate their own means of communication is precisely to increase the number of voices that are in the media in general, which increases pluralism. This is the first time that an international tribunal has spoken out about the rights of Indigenous Peoples to create and use their own means of communication. This is a ruling that other Indigenous communities can use to advocate for their rights internally and try to get their governments to follow these recommendations from the Court.”

This is a monumental victory for Indigenous communities in Guatemala and around the world. Community radio stations keep local communities informed about important issues such as the global pandemic, but they also help to promote local language and culture and keep Indigenous traditions alive. Rosendo Pablo Ramirez (Maya Mam), Director of Radio Xob’il Yol Qman Txun in Todos Santos Cuchumantán, Huehuetenango, made this clear in his testimony in court, stating, “We are spreading our music . . . it makes us happy. That is the importance [of community radio]. Talking about culture on the radio makes us remember, and as a result we can continue to exist in this world.” With this ruling, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has affirmed that freedom of expression constitutes a cornerstone of a democratic society.

December 28, 2021 press conference about the groundbreaking InterAmerican Court of Human Rights decision.

Photo courtesy of Asociación Sobrevivencia Cultural.

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indigenous languages

The Troubled State of the

A woman reading Buryat newspaper Nyutag Helen (Dialects) in Ulan-Ude, Republic of Buryatia, Russian Federation.

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Buryat Language Today

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Dulma Batorova (Buryat)

he Buryat language in Russia is in a critical state, despite the declarations and “efforts” of the local government and some minimal government budget allocations to address the problem. UNESCO has included the Buryat language in the Red Book of Endangered Languages. The situation is drastic to the extent that today, approximately 80 percent of the Buryat population does not know or speak their mother tongue.

Since childhood, I have spoken my native Buryat language. Back then, the whole community in my village spoke the language—in the family, at school, on the street.

Today, our children, even in Buryat villages, have switched to Russian. In the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s we saw a massive exodus of Buryat people from their communities to urban areas, which were predominantly populated by ethnic Russians. The rules and expectations were to speak Russian only, and in order to succeed and do well in the new environment, our people had to adapt by speaking Russian at work, at home, and to our children. In the cities, our people were shamed and harassed for speaking our language in public. That produced a cultural erasure and a break between generations.

Many schools offer the Buryat language as a subject, but children study it only if their parents submit a written request, and it is often offered at schools only as an extracurricular activity. In 2014, parliamentarians of the People’s Khural (Buryat Republic parliament) introduced amendments to the law on education specifying that the study of the Buryat language in schools is no longer compulsory.

Representatives of various Buryat communities speak many different dialects, live at great distances from each other, and are surrounded by a Russian-speaking population. These dialects are mostly oral and don’t have written sources, making it challenging to regain and grow new

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speakers as most Buryat people speak and use Russian as their everyday means of interaction and communication.

A shameful fact about our language history and a strategy used to divide and conquer is that when the official literary form of the Buryat language was chosen, all the other Buryat dialects were banned. As a result of this divide and inter-Tribal politics, our people are now not united around our language revitalization efforts and our language continues to decline.

Three years have passed since “The Buryat language in the 21st Century” international forum. Buryatia was represented by the government of the Republic of Buryatia, the Buryat Association for the Development of Culture, and Buryat State University. As editors of the newspaper Nyutag Helen (Dialects), we submitted proposals to the forum on how to create the best environment for Buryat language revitalization. Unfortunately, many proposals so far have not been implemented.

We are very aware of the fact that our older generation still speaks the Buryat language, but the majority of our youth does not speak the language at all. In order to popularize our native language, we began to write short articles and essays and publish them in a local regional newspaper. We received a lot of positive feedback and gratitude from our readers. Many said they were surprised that it was possible to write in our Barguzin dialect because our people have been told that it was “rude” and “ugly.”

Most people do not understand that language is only stronger in the diversity of its dialects. This is why we came up with the idea to publish a newspaper in existing micro-languages, ​​or dialects. There are five of them in the Buryat language, which are further represented in 14 sub-dialects. The goal of our publication, Nyutag Helen, is to connect Buryat people from all the regions where multiple Buryat language dialects are spoken. The first issue of the newspaper was published in October 2015 and was produced by Tsyren Choyropov (Цырен Чойропов), All photos by Dulma Batorova.

Editor-in-chief, and myself as founder, Editor, and distributor.

We are from the Barguzin Valley of the Republic of Buryatia.

Dinara Tregubova, one of the writers at the newspaper, comments, “The uniqueness of the newspaper Nyutag Helen is in an attempt to capture something that has never been captured before. Our dialects are an oral phenomenon and most speech features relate not to the spelling of words, but to their pronunciation. In fact, it’s often not clear how to spell them correctly using Cyrillic. Nyutag Helen reminds people who forget Buryat words of their ancestral language.

Therefore, this newspaper does not separate the Buryats, but, on the contrary, contributes to the creation of a unified language environment, providing an opportunity to experience the richness and diversity of the native Buryat language.

Having received an opportunity to raise their voices on the pages of this newspaper, people stop being shy and considering themselves illiterate. They begin to speak their native language more. The scope of the language is expanding, which is important for its survival. The editors of the newspaper are inviting new authors, including young people, to collaborate.”

In the past, discussions around language were dominated by linguists who believed that there should be only one literary dialect based on the Khori dialect of Buryat, and the rest could exist in oral forms without any recognition and support for their revitalization. During these discussions, we always expressed our position that the literary Buryat language must progress. Every language changes and evolves. It is necessary to enrich the existing literary language productively using the vocabulary of local dialects and subdialects. Speakers should also possess good knowledge of both local dialects and the literary language and continue to study them so the language can enrich and further develop.

We have never been against the literary Buryat language.

However, it has become the subject of many frustrations and remains the language of a narrow circle of linguistic experts. We are in favor of the parallel development of the literary language and local dialects. It is necessary to

introduce words and expressions from all Tribal groups of the Buryats to make our Buryat language a living and thriving system.

To date, we have published 38 issues of Nyutag Helen.

I went on several field visits to meet Buryat communities belonging to different territorial or Tribal groups and record their dialects and sub-dialects, including Songol, Sartul, Khori, Khongodor, Ekhirit, Bulagat, and others. The written, photo, and video materials that I captured during the expeditions recorded the sound of the dialects of the western, eastern, northern, and southern Buryats.

The Board of Nyutag Helen has been working hard to inspire and convince teachers and directors of local schools about teaching the Buryat language. We met with authorities of local districts and regions advocating for the need to introduce dialects and sub-dialects into Buryat language textbooks. We have recently found out that local dialects will be used in teaching the Buryat language in the Ust-Orda Buryat area on the western side of Lake Baikal.

The local municipality has financed and helped to develop and publish classroom materials. We are thrilled to see that our efforts are producing fruitful results.

Our newspaper is a space for language activists to share their experiences and practices. Both speakers of different dialects and language experts can write about their experiences on the pages of our publication. One thing that is absolutely important for us to understand is that our oral speech and traditions are more important today than the written language. After all, if there is no oral figurative speech, then there is no point in further developing a written language. We have a saying, “If the Selenga River becomes shallow, what will happen to Lake Baikal?” If the rivers and small streams of the oral speech and dialects dry up, then what will happen to the Buryat language as a whole?

Dulma Batorova (Buryat) is the founder and Editor of the newspaper Nyutag Helen (Dialects) in Ulan-Ude, Republic of Buryatia, Russian Federation, and is working on Evenk and Buryat language revitalization.

Buryat Elders are keeping their language alive through songs and dances.

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women the world must hear

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Kandi White.

Photo courtesy of Kandi White.

Indigenous women organizing to bring awareness about Murdered Indigenous Women and People in Bemidji, MN. Photo by Nedahness Rose Greene.

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Indigenous Women Taking Charge for the Protection of the Future

andi “EagleWoman” White (Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara) is a leading voice in the fight to bring visibility to the impacts that climate change and environmental injustice are having on Indigenous communities across North America. Kandi began her work with the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) as the Tribal Campus Climate Challenge Coordinator, engaging with more than 30 Tribal colleges to instate community based environmental programs and connect Indigenous youth with green jobs. She is currently IEN’s Lead Organizer on the Extreme Energy & Just Transition Campaign, focusing on creating awareness about the environmentally and socially devastating effects of hydraulic fracturing on Tribal lands and working towards a Just Transition away from the fossil fuel industry. Simone Senogles (Anishinaabe) is from the Red Lake Nation in northern Minnesota. As a member of the leadership team at IEN where she has worked for over 20 years, she is focused on lifting up Ogimaakwewiwin (Indigenous women’s and fems’ leadership and power).

The Indigenous Environmental Network is an Indigenousled and operated environmental justice organization working with Indigenous communities and Nations in the U.S. and Canada on climate justice. Daisee Francour (Oneida), Cultural Survival Director of Strategic Partnerships and Communications, recently spoke with White and Senogles.

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Daisee Francour: What is Indigenous feminism?

What does adding an “s” [feminisms] mean?

Simone Senogles: There’s a lot of diversity within Indigenous Peoples of the Americas. It’s beneficial to recognize that diversity and understand that the way that different Tribes view gender and gender roles really varies. [The plural] Indigenous feminisms honors that diversity. One of the things that we recognize about the word ‘feminism’ is that it’s necessary in this moment of colonization to pull out of the tangle of colonization and internalized patriarchy, sexism, and oppression of women and fems. This word is useful to us in this moment as we try to reconnect with our own definitions of what is a gender balance, what is a just society.

What is the intersection of climate change and Indigenous feminism? How do you see that intersection in the work that you do?

SS: I live in northern Minnesota. In our teachings, women are responsible for the water. Atmosphere is water. Water is the transition from the spirit to physical life, and water is life. Recently, we have been engaged in a fight against an oil pipeline coming through our territories. Northern Minnesota is called the land of 10,000 lakes, but there’s even more. Everything about our society, culture, teachings, and understanding about our role in the world is

connected to water. When the Line 3 pipeline fight was going on, the majority of the leadership that was emerging to fight this pipeline was Indigenous women. That was us taking our traditional responsibility to care for the water into the fights that are facing us nowadays.

Kandi White: I’ve been working with the Indigenous Environmental Network since 2007, and I started because I was working within a group of women at Fort Berthold, and Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara Nations against the proposed oil refinery. These groups that have been in their communities have been started by women, led by women, and continued by women. That is a pattern that I’ve seen all across in the country with all the different groups and grassroots organizations. A lot of women were stepping up and taking charge for the protection of the future. ss: One of the understandings that IEN shares with many other Indigenous organizers and activists is the recognition that what happens to the land happens to the body. We’re not just stewards of our Mother Earth, we are the same.

It’s one spirit with many physical manifestations. When we see our Mother Earth suffering, we feel pain in our own bodies, in our own hearts, to our own spirits. That connection between what happens to our Mother Earth happens to us also plays out very practically. How do we raise our families and our communities in a toxic environment?

How do we fish? How do we grow food? How do we save seeds when the world is being polluted and when we are dealing with climate change?

KW: Being from North Dakota, right in the middle of the Bakken oil boom where fracking is taking place, we saw an increase in violence against women because there was an increase in men’s camps that came to work. Our little tiny reservation communities were no longer safe. Women were being, and continue to be, sex trafficked. In addition, the chemicals and endocrine disruptors [used in extractive processes] affect children and women when they aren’t even pregnant yet. Their very ability to reproduce is being disrupted because of endocrine disruptors. ss: For many Indigenous communities and societies around the world, women are oftentimes the seed keepers, the gardeners, the farmers, the food growers, the tenders of our crops. Climate change is one of the most disruptive things that can happen to us as we’re trying to grow food.

It affects our soil, our seasons, our water; it affects the relationships of life. It’s disrupting our ability to carry out our culture, to eat our traditional foods, to have our ceremonies and our medicines.

KW: Also, there’s even more pressure on us as Indigenous women because we’re trying to care for our men whose traditional roles were taken from them. That is an added pressure for us as women to try to care for our men and be the leaders of these organizations and be the strong ones.

SS: That’s circling back to that gender balance that I was talking about. When we talk about feminism, we’re using that word right now as a tool. It’s about that balance, including gender roles.

That balance between how much you take from Mother Earth, how much you give back. We’re always trying to walk in balance, at least traditionally.

How do you see Indigenous women addressing climate change?

KW: It’s been really beautiful working with the Indigenous Environmental Network because this is where I have a space to feel like I’m not alone. The struggles are happening in a lot of communities all around the world. [We] visit each other’s homelands to see each other’s struggles, and we lift each other up. Our strength is our culture, going back to our traditional ways that we never really left, but strengthening them both within our children and in our own communities. And always having an eye on seven generations ahead, but also seven generations back, to get a clearer understanding of how to operate.

Simone Senogles.

Photo courtesy of Simone Senogles.

SS: One part of the struggle is getting women back into positions of power and influence that were taken away by colonization. Traditionally, women in my community were in charge of manoomin (wild rice) and it was central to our economy. But with colonization and capitalism and patriarchy, that position of women was taken.

KW: There is a connection that we have to remember: that’s our connection with the sacred and knowing the systems of life. People should be looking around them at the grassroots for the solutions to the problems that exist that are perpetuated by the negative feedback loop of capitalism. Go outside and take off your shoes and stand on the Earth for five minutes. If you can, go outside and look at the stars. If you’re in the city, try community block gardens. Try a little garden on your balcony. Grow something. Grow anything from a seed and you’ll understand that connection. We have to remember to always reconnect. I envision a population that has remembered humility and has remembered respect for self and respect for land and respect for each other.

SS: I’m so grateful to work with strong Indigenous women and fems. I envision much of the same future that Kandi does. Those of us who choose to bring children into this world are doing an ultimate act of love and hope. If we bring our children into this world, that’s a gift for this world, and we have to make sure that this world is a gift for them. __________________ Listen to this full interview at rights.cs.org.

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States Fail to Adequately Address Climate Change

An Indigenous Peoples’ Analysis of COP26 Decisions

Indigenous Peoples represented the second-largest civil society delegation in attendance at COP26.

Photo by Avexnim Cojti.

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rom October 31–November 12, 2021, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of Parties (COP26) took place in Glasgow, Scotland. Despite the tremendous efforts brought forth by the delegation of Indigenous Peoples from around the world, global leaders failed to act on the urgency of the climate crisis. The global community must wake up and acknowledge that fighting climate change requires true commitment and changed behaviors now.

Indigenous Peoples represented the second-largest civil society delegation in attendance at COP26, second only to oil and gas lobbyists. The general feeling towards COP26 is best captured by Cultural Survival’s Lead on Brazil and COP26 delegate, Edson Krenak (Krenak): “COP26 brought us many disappointments. As always, Indigenous Peoples, as guardians of the land, did not sit at the table where negotiations and decisions were made.

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States continue, together with corporations, to try to save the economy, the money machine that is capitalism or colonialism. They are not working to save the planet!”

We are resilient and adaptive Peoples, and we will continue to do our part in holding our sacred responsibilities towards Mother Earth. Even though Indigenous Peoples were not at the helm of the decision-making machine, we were successful in voicing our concerns regarding climate issues in our communities and influencing policies that will have a direct impact on our communities. We also strengthened our resolve to continue to make our voices in these international spaces heard and continue to push for the recognition of human rights and the protection of Indigenous Peoples’ rights.

“For a while, Indigenous Peoples have been advocating to have one seat. Even if one seat is insufficient, one seat [is] to represent Indigenous knowledge, science, and perspective on that climate technology network,” said Graeme Reed (Anishinaabe), Co-chair of the International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on Climate Change about the Climate Technology Center and Networks Advisory Body.

Adoption of the Glasgow Climate Pact

The Glasgow Climate Pact, adopted by nearly 200 countries, goes further than the Paris Agreement, aiming to set global warming targets to 1.5 degrees Celsius while recognizing that there is no safe limit for global warming. The chief organizer of COP26, Alok Sharma, described the Glasgow Pact as “a fragile win,” affirming the general feeling that not enough is being done with respect to the climate change crisis.

While numerous member States committed to the phase-out of coal, some of the leading coal-dependent countries like the United States, Australia, India, and China did not. Major international banks committed to effectively end all international public financing of new unabated coal power by the end of 2021, while member States such as Denmark, Canada, Italy, and the United States, along with other public finance institutions, created a joint statement that commits to ending international public support for the unabated fossil fuel energy sector by the end of 2022.

Cultural Survival’s Director of Strategic Partnerships and Communications and COP26 delegate, Daisee Francour (Oneida), says, “We must leverage this small commitment to push our local and national governments to go beyond this phase-out. This means continuing to apply pressure on governments to work towards a true, just transition that actually addresses climate, economic, and social justice. We must center Indigenous leadership, rights, and Free, Prior and Informed Consent as we build a more sustainable future.”

Inclusion of Human Rights Language in Article 6

Article 6 serves as the rulebook on how CO2 emissions will be calculated and accounted for, as well as the use of carbon markets, emissions reduction, and National Climate Action Plans. “Cultural Survival’s stance on Article 6 is that we do not believe in carbon market mechanisms as a climate change solution. In the context of COP26 negotiations, these market mechanisms were disguised as nature-based solutions. The final text mentions the need to respect Indigenous Peoples’ rights but does not mention the need to obtain our Free, Prior and Informed Consent,” says Galina Angarova (Buryat), Cultural Survival Executive Director.

While the lobbying efforts of the Indigenous delegation resulted in language for the recognition of human rights and Indigenous rights in several provisions of Article 6, the inclusive language is vague and lacking the vigor we hoped for. “We wanted to see an independent grievance mechanism. We are also dismayed at the exclusion of our rights in activity design and implementation. In particular, the consultation provision in 6.4 is inadequate. It needs to include applicable international standards and ensure compliance with the rights of Indigenous Peoples to Free, Prior and Informed Consent,” stated the delegation.

Addressing Loss and Damage

Developed countries vetoed attempts to expand assistance mechanisms for loss and damage caused by climate change. Nonetheless, the Glasgow Pact recognizes loss and damage that has already occurred due to climate change, and acknowledges that it will only increase, posing greater threats to societies, economies, and the environment. Notably, paragraph 62 “acknowledges the important role of a broad range of stakeholders at the local,

national, and regional level, including Indigenous Peoples and local communities, in averting, minimizing, and addressing loss and damage associated with the adverse effects of climate change.”

Developed countries continually fall short on their pledges and obligations to provide $100 billion per year to fight climate change. “It is a well known fact that the carbon footprints of Indigenous Peoples and some small developing countries are minimal in comparison to those of developed countries. Developed countries are the worst polluters of Mother Nature. However, they get to skirt their obligations while Indigenous Peoples bear the brunt of these bad decisions. This is unfair to say the least,” says Monica Coc Magnusson (Q’eqchi Maya), Director of Advocacy and Policy at Cultural Survival.

Funding and access were at the heart of COP26 discussions. A pledge of $19.2 billion was endorsed by world leaders at COP26 for the protection of forests and to end deforestation. Recognizing the invaluable role that Indigenous Peoples play in climate change solutions and mitigation, several philanthropic organizations pledged an additional $1.7 billion to fund the efforts of Indigenous Peoples in their fight against climate change. The Indigenous delegation commented, “It is essential that Indigenous Peoples have direct access to finance, rather than systems that route funding through intermediary organizations that are inaccessible and unreliable. Dedicated climate financing for Indigenous Peoples could provide support for us to maintain, restore, and enhance our knowledge and practices that care for the Earth, to promote Indigenous food sovereignty, create an appropriate structure for loss and damage to compensate Indigenous Peoples, and advance the rights of Indigenous women and persons with disabilities within the climate agenda.”

Adoption of the Just Transition Declaration The decision reached in the Glasgow Pact about limiting emissions is nowhere close to meeting proposed targets.

The Just Transition Declaration recognizes the need to include everyone, especially the vulnerable, in the transition to net zero emissions and environmentally sustainable economy. It includes “a commitment to gender equality, racial equality, and social cohesion; protection of the rights of Indigenous Peoples; disability inclusion; intergenerational

Cultural Survival hosted several events at COP26, including one on Earth observationbased innovation by and for Indigenous women with Group on Earth Observations Indigenous Alliance.

Photo by Avexnim Cojti.

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equity and young people; the promotion of women and girls; marginalized persons’ leadership and involvement in decision-making and recognition of the value of their knowledge and leadership; and support for the collective climate action of diverse social groups. Social dialogue as well as rights at work are indispensable building blocks of sustainable development and must be at the center of policies for strong, sustainable, and inclusive growth and development.”

The Declaration also acknowledges the need for safeguards in existing and new supply chains and the importance of creating fair and just work for all. It recognizes the need to respect human rights and to promote social dialogue and engagement among all who will be affected by the transition to green economies. It recognizes the importance of upholding human rights and the protection of the rights of Indigenous Peoples, as well as acknowledging International Labor Organization guidelines. While the Just Transition Declaration recognizes Indigenous Peoples’ rights, “had it included stronger human rights protection language, it would have illustrated its commitment to focus more on the just aspect of transition and less on economic benefits,” says Magnusson.

Given the overall lack of action and urgency expressed for the climate crisis by the global leaders at COP26, there is so much more to be done. Much of this movement, like keeping member States accountable to their commitment, will fall on our shoulders. If we are to win the climate change war, it means we as Indigenous Peoples will have to work harder at the local and international levels. We have to ensure our local Indigenous communities get the financing they need to continue to steward their lands in a sustainable manner.

At Cultural Survival, we will continue to advocate for the collective rights of Indigenous Peoples to lands and resources. However, we cannot address a global crisis without focusing on local, place-based solutions. Supporting Indigenous communities at the local level supports and enriches ecosystems, strengthening the interconnected and interdependent web of life. Indigenous Peoples’ Traditional Knowledge is the catalyst for the climate change mitigation our world desperately needs. We are committed to partnering with Indigenous communities, and we will continue to expand our efforts in ensuring the promotion and protection of Indigenous Peoples’ and human rights.

Indigenous Voices from COP26

The following are excerpts from interviews conducted by Cultural Survival’s staff for Indigenous Rights Radio coverage at COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland.

They Are Starting to Listen to Us Andrea Carmen (Yaqui)

Executive Director, International Indian Treaty Council

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ndigenous Peoples have had prophecies and stories since time immemorial about what would happen if humans disrespected the natural world and ignored that responsibility to take care of it. The actions of corporations and governments and the addiction of the global community to fossil 14

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fuels directly contributed to what everyone, including Indigenous Peoples, recognize as a threat to our food sovereignty, ways of life, and our very survival. I worked with the formation of the International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on Climate Change in 2008, which really became strong in 2015 and has functioned ever since as a global voice for Indigenous Peoples.

We have a responsibility to be here at the United Nations and try to influence the decisions that are being made and defend our rights. In 2015 at COP21 in Paris, we were very active with over 200 Indigenous Peoples participating and getting the rights of Indigenous Peoples recognized in a legally binding international instrument for the first time. It’s in the preamble, which in international treaty law sets the tone and governs the implementation of all of the rest of the provisions. It was really important for All photos by Avexnim Cojti.

us that the Paris Agreement implemented paragraph 135, recognizing the importance of supporting the practices and the key contributions of the knowledge systems of Indigenous Peoples and creating a platform for the exchange of best practices and innovative programs.

Now, they’re talking “nature-based solutions.” They think Indigenous Peoples are going to get on that green economy bandwagon. But Indigenous people didn’t create any of those terminologies, nor do they reflect our traditional worldviews and practices. They’re promoting things like carbon trading and forest offsets and calling them nature-based solutions, but we’re stepping back from that and staying true to our ways of knowing and what we understand from our millennia of ancestral knowledge and practices, like seed trading, water-saving, and bringing back traditional methods.

A pledge for funding Indigenous Peoples is an advancement and commitment. But there are things that have not really been clarified. Will this funding be advised and managed by Indigenous Peoples ourselves to develop the criteria and the procedures? And what will be entailed in actually getting this funding to Indigenous Peoples on the ground who are working on innovative programs and projects for adaptation and protection of our Traditional Knowledge systems? The caucus has always been strong on the point that this funding has to be provided to Indigenous people from all regions. One of our Māori Elders said, “I see they divide us according to who we were colonized by.” It’s important that our contributions be recognized universally. Funding needs to be made available directly to Indigenous Peoples, not through the States or any other intermediaries.

After the Paris Agreement was affirmed by the vast majority of countries in the world, we had more than three years of consultations with States in various regions to talk about the creation of the Local Communities and Indigenous People’s Platform. A strong demand that Indigenous people had for the creation of this platform was equal participation between Indigenous Peoples and States.

It created a very revolutionary process in the UN system.

It is ironic that it happened in Paris, because this was one of the worst conferences for participation—we weren’t even allowed in the rooms of negotiation for the Paris Agreement. But now we have a constituted body here at COP26 made up of half Indigenous representatives chosen directly by the Indigenous regions. We are true representatives, not independent experts. This is the first time that we have had direct representation in any UN body. I was selected by the Indigenous Peoples of North America, Canada, and the United States Tribal governments, treaty councils, and grassroots organizations, the gamut of us working together by consensus. I was nominated in 2019 to be the first member serving for a three-year term on the Facilitative Working Group, which was put in place at COP24. They are starting to listen to us.

If We Don’t Reduce Emissions, We’ve Made No Progress Frank Ettawageshik (Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians)

Executive Director of the United Tribes of Michigan and President of the Association on American Indian Affairs

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e are part of a group called the Human Rights and Climate Change Constituency, which is a confederation of many organizations that are working together, including women’s organizations, unions, [2SLBGTQIA] groups, and environmental groups, to lobby for human rights issues. In the Paris Accord we got Traditional Knowledge of Indigenous Peoples acknowledged, which was important. We argued that Traditional Knowledge is fundamental to the preservation of humanity; not just a catalog of information, but a way of life, a way of knowing the world. As a human culture, we did not show respect to the rest of the world. We didn’t show respect to each other. We were not showing respect to the water or to the trees or the other beings on Earth. By disrespecting and getting out of harmony, we’re now paying a price as a human society. Within the fundamental teachings of Indigenous Peoples, principle amongst them is respect for the natural world. All the solutions that they’re talking about, you can get lost in the data. But fundamentally Indigenous Peoples are trying to share their philosophy and values with the rest of the world so that they will regain respect for the natural world and thus help create harmony and balance. Climate change is a strong example.

Indigenous Nations around the world have joined with the 1.5 to Stay Alive Coalition, a group of coastal and island nations and allies, Indigenous Peoples, and other people who believe that 1.5°C or below (of temperature rise above the pre-industrial levels before we were burning all the fossil fuels) is where we have to be. We couldn’t really go for a higher goal, whereas the U.S. and China had agreed on 2°C coming into the COP21 in Paris. But we were able to get that modified with this large coalition of which Indigenous people were part.

When we were working on the Paris Agreement, there’s a thing called the Paris rulebook that lays out how this process is going to work. All of the articles have been adopted except for Article 6, which is the accounting mechanism that has to do with market and nonmarket solutions on how this will be integrated. It fundamentally says that anything under Article 6 is supposed to be measured by whether it truly causes a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions or not. Fundamentally, if we don’t reduce greenhouse gas Cultural Survival Quarterly March 2022

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emissions, we can have all these fancy agreements, we can spend lots of money and have money flowing all over the place, but if in the end we don’t actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions, then we’ve made no progress.

We have to do a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, and eventually we have to phase out the use of fossil fuels. These mechanisms are ways to try to help figure out how we’re going to do that and how we can account for that. That’s how countries are going to be able to develop the data that they can then use to show how ambitious they’re being with their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). The Paris Accord works because the countries develop a Nationally Determined Contribution. Arguably, all of those NDCs, when they’re put together, will be an aggregate number that will show that we will be lowering greenhouse gas emissions to the point where we keep it to 1.5°C or below. That’s the goal. The NDCs have to be ambitious enough, and that ambition is going to be demonstrated by the way they are developed. Article 6 is integral to the way they’re going to calculate and what they get credit for in the NDC.

It’s Up to Us to Define a Just Transition Victoria Tauli-Corpuz (Igorot)

Former UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

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he Just Transition basically is saying that we should stop doing business as usual. We should cut back on fossil fuel emissions, the extraction of coal, and the use of gas for energy sources, and we should shift towards renewable energy sources in relation to our production and consumption systems. Industrial agriculture is emitting emissions in very significant ways. Agriculture has to be done in a different way, like Indigenous Peoples are doing. They call it regenerative agriculture, but actually Indigenous Peoples have been doing this since time immemorial. We have different ways of managing the soil, shifting cultivation. The Just Transition covers the breadth of how climate change is being exacerbated.

Corporate control is a very big factor in this. There should be more democratization in how resources are extracted, produced, and also consumed.

A Just Transition to a green economy can mean a lot of things; it’s up to us to define it. We should ensure that the human rights of Indigenous Peoples are respected. Indigenous people should strengthen their capacity to govern themselves, to be more self-determining and sovereign 16

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and able to shape their communities. Indigenous Peoples’ actions are the ones that will contribute to solving the climate change crisis. So Indigenous Peoples should be empowered. They should ensure that there is better gender equality and that the youth are included in their processes so that kind of leadership will be transmitted to future generations—Traditional Knowledge, Indigenous justice systems, education systems, and health systems. They have to be the ones to define and design the society that they would like to leave behind for future generations.

We Can’t Solve This Crisis Without Indigenous Peoples Fawn Sharp (Quinault)

Vice President of Quinault Indian Nation, President of the National Congress of American Indians

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limate change is not only impacting our fisheries resource directly, which is core to who we are, our identity, and our traditional foods, but the glaciers that feed the Quinault River have disappeared. We’re currently under a state of national emergency due to sea level rise and the ocean is threatening to take out the only access road to our village. The place where my ancestors signed a treaty with the United States is underwater at this point, and the only access road to our village is threatened due to a landslide. I’ve personally witnessed the disappearance of our glaciers in the Olympic Mountains. I’ve had to declare four national states of emergency, and just five months ago, we experienced 111°F temperatures, the hottest temperature ever recorded. Our fish were being cooked alive with visible heat lesions. Clams were being baked in the open beaches as the tides receded.

Our conifer trees were scorched brown. All across Indian country every region is affected by climate change, from Tribal leaders in Alaska to Tribal leaders in California who are facing megafires and Tribes in the Gulf that are facing hurricanes and tornadoes.

At COP26, we’ve had direct engagement with the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, John Kerry. He addressed the National Congress of American Indians, and his words were promising in that he acknowledged that the future health of the planet, as well as humanity, is inextricably tied to ensuring that the voices of Indigenous Peoples are not only heard, but that we’re at the table. That signaled to us that the United States was not only open but wanting to elevate our voices, because they recognize that

we offer timeless solutions. We can’t solve this crisis without Indigenous Peoples. We must be active participants.

We must not only have a seat at the table, but our voices and the solutions that we offer must be heard. We also are advancing Free, Prior and Informed Consent domestically and internationally. It’s critically important for Tribal Nations and Indigenous Peoples to have a decisive say over our lands, territories, and resources. We’re pressing countries about implementing these commitments that were adopted in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The Biden administration’s commitment not only to Tribal Nations, but acknowledgment of our matriarchal leadership, is exemplary. When Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo) was appointed as the Secretary of Interior, it was the first time a Native American was appointed to a cabinet level position—and a Native woman. She brings a view of not only Indigenous Knowledge, but as a woman, she’s inspiring an entire generation of women leaders. I personally witnessed our young girls, our future leaders, look at her with awe and know that our women have a rightful place. When we’re in positions of leadership like that, we can make transformative changes and incredible advancements in a relatively short period of time. It’s an exciting time, and we are going to continue to blaze those trails and open up opportunities for the next generation of women leaders.

Calling for Urgent Action to Address the Devastating Impacts of Climate Change Graeme Reed (Anishinaabe)

Co-chair of the International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on Climate Change

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he Indigenous Peoples’ Constituency is one of nine constituencies originating from the major groups in the sustainable development conversation. We were created as a constituency in 2000, then selforganized into the International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on Climate Change (IIPFCC) in 2008. Our main role is supporting Indigenous Peoples who participate in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

We work to develop collective solidarity and positions in advocacy and lobbying that contribute to the advancement of our self-determination, the safeguarding of our rights, Photo courtesy of Graeme Reed.

meaningful and thoughtful consideration of our knowledge systems, our full and effective participation as Nations, and finally, the ongoing call for urgent and transformative action to address the devastating impacts of climate change on our lands, waters, and territories.

We opened our session as usual with a preparatory caucus meeting just before the COP26 formally opened.

That space is intended to support and coordinate Indigenous Peoples attending and to build relationships. We also held daily coordination meetings to respond to the various activities of each day. In Scotland, we organized the International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on Climate Change Pavilion, the first Pavilion hosted in the Blue Zone (UN organized space). We had around 70 events over the course of the 2 weeks. It was all live streamed and saved on our IIPFCC Facebook page.

We were able to get an agreement at COP24 for the creation of a newly constituted body called the Facilitated Working Group with seven Indigenous representatives from seven UN sociocultural regions. At COP26, we had the first-ever annual Knowledge Keepers Gathering with 28 knowledge keepers from those 7 sociocultural regions, and we had our own meeting that allowed us to create our own space. This is the first time that we’ve had a meeting within the parameters of the Blue Zone that explicitly asked States to stay out. That’s an indication of our growing ability to create space for Indigenous Peoples within these systems.

We also have advocacy objectives. One of those was Article 6 and the implementation of carbon market mechanisms. The caucus has been extremely effective in communicating the importance of the protection of human rights and the rights of Indigenous Peoples and making sure that that language is captured within Article 6. Other successful outcomes were the creation of an independent grievance mechanism and the adoption of the second three-year work plan of the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples’ Platform, which was co-constructed on a consensus basis by the Facilitative Working Group, a group made up of equal numbers of Indigenous Peoples and States. We also landed a decision on the Climate Technology Center and Networks Advisory Body. Indigenous Peoples have been advocating to have one seat, even if one seat is insufficient, to represent Indigenous Knowledge, science, and perspective on the climate technology network.

COP27 will be held in Cairo, Egypt, on November 7–18, 2022. IPFCC will be advoacting for human rights, Indigenous Knowledge participation, concrete action, and speaking out against the massive injustices faced by Indigenous Peoples including the ongoing criminalization, depossession, and assassination of our lands and water defenders.

Listen to 25+ interviews with Indigenous leaders speaking about climate change impacts and solutions at COP26: rights.cs.org/cop26.

Cultural Survival Quarterly March 2022

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Nature-Based Solutions are False Climate Change Solutions Indigenous Peoples Hold the True Solutions to Climate Change

Indigenous delegates Daisee Francour (Oneida) and Thomas Joseph (Hupa) at COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland.

Photos courtesy of Daisee Francour.

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Daisee Francour (Oneida, CS Staff) t last year’s UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of Parties (UNFCCC COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland, nature-based solutions were at the forefront of discussions. The term “naturebased solutions’’ was first introduced in 2009 through UNFCCC negotiations and was clarified in 2016 by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, a global conservation organization, which defines it as “actions to protect, sustainably manage, and restore natural or modified ecosystems that address societal challenges effectively and adaptively, simultaneously providing human well being and biodiversity benefits.”

On the surface the definition has potential. However, what makes it complicated and controversial are its broadness and failure to include obligations to seek the Free, Prior and Informed Consent of Indigenous Peoples or to center their leadership and knowledge systems in the co-creation, development, implementation, and evaluation of such solutions. Nature-based solutions are defined so broadly that they are dangerously discretionary. Corporations can and do twist their meaning, lending to proven failures such as carbon trading schemes and monocrop tree plantations in place of true, culturally appropriate ecosystem restoration. Additionally, they are a distraction from the profound solutions that Indigenous Peoples are

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already developing and implementing, which, to achieve what the world needs at a global scale, requires political and financial commitments from member states to resource Indigenous land tenure, rights, and leadership. As the COP26 International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on Climate Change’s Opening Statement press release states, “Colonialism caused climate change. Our rights and Traditional Knowledge are the solution.”

A Forest Peoples’ Programme report on “Re-thinking Nature-Based Solutions” summarizes some of the challenges: “The term ‘nature-based solution’ is controversial, not least because among its most enthusiastic supporters are large oil companies, governments of wealthy countries with high emissions, and industries responsible for much of the ongoing damage to our planet. It also attracts controversy because it remains defined loosely to allow it to mean different things to different people...Much of the controversy comes from the inclusion in nature-based solutions of actions to offset emissions, or actions that destroy nature in one area (mining, infrastructure, etc.) and which are ‘offset’ by investment in creating, maintaining, or restoring natural or ‘modified’ systems elsewhere. This controversy echoes concerns raised about offsetting carbon emissions through Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) projects and carbon trading, debates which still rage but where it is increasingly clear as emissions continue to rise year-on-year that cutting emissions is far more crucial. On the ground, REDD+ projects continue to be

challenged by Indigenous Peoples and forest communities for failing to deliver equitable benefits and undermining rights guaranteed under international law standards and safeguards, including rights to own and control lands, territories and resources, and rights to Free, Prior and Informed Consent.”

Nature-based solutions are yet another tactic that big polluters are using to redirect society’s attention away from their extractive practices and massive carbon footprints.

They are the continuation of extractive capitalism, which commodifies our Mother Earth and puts a price tag on carbon sinks, like tropical forests. Carbon markets create a carbon trading system that lets big polluters off the hook—allowing them to continue to not make any true efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and instead purchase carbon credits from those who have lowered their emissions. Nation States, which have earned these carbon credits through their claims of forest management, identify carbon sinks within the country, which are often managed

by Indigenous Peoples. They then move to displace those Indigenous communities from their lands to rack up and sell carbon credits to corporations.

Nature-based solutions are a ploy to “greenwash” climate change solutions that co-opt and commodify Indigenous lands, worldviews, and our own terminology. If we want to truly be nature-based, we must rematriate our relationship with Mother Earth; not view her as an extractive, disposable thing, but rather as a relative who we nurture, respect, and live with in a reciprocal manner. This requires a holistic, regenerative, rights-based approach. Because nature-based solutions excludes the importance of Indigenous land tenure, stewardship, rights, and leadership altogether, there is a serious and direct threat that our engagement in these solutions could lead to continued land grabbing, displacement of Indigenous communities, human and Indigenous rights violations, as well as criminalization of Indigenous land defenders and water protectors. Excluding Indigenous Peoples from any solution to climate change, especially ones that invisibilize our leadership and appropriate our knowledge systems, will have a devastating effect on biodiversity protection.

So, how do we center Indigenous Peoples and their knowledge systems in the fight against climate change?

Governments, corporations, conservationists, private landowners, and others must start with the implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Indigenous cultures inherently contain the solutions and adaptation methods needed to address climate change through such techniques as carbon sequestration through forest management, mitigating the danger of massive fires through controlled burns, regenerative traditional agricultural practices, and more. The climate-related potential and current achievements of Indigenous land stewardship is evident in both Indigenous Knowledge systems and in western studies. These activities are truly based in nature,

and in the ancient and ongoing relationships and practices among Indigenous Peoples and the lands in which they live. Indigenous land tenure—the legal, guaranteed right of Indigenous Peoples to self-determine and lead activities on their lands—is a primary way to address climate change and one that should be promoted and prioritized at all levels.

In addition to Indigenous Peoples securing land rights to their territories, conservation must honor and embrace Indigenous customary land tenure, which ultimately includes traditional and self-determined governance over said lands.

Indigenous governance systems are incredibly dynamic and sophisticated, and ensure the sustainability of both communities and all living things. Indigenous values like respect, reciprocity, relationships, and responsibility guide our traditional governance systems and our stewardship practices and philosophies. These values and worldviews do not exist in mainstream conservation or in the climate change narrative, yet are critical to incorporate in the climate change solutions being presented and implemented.

Successfully incorporating Indigenous values and wisdom into practice will require the resourcing and financial backing of Indigenous leadership so Indigenous Peoples can ultimately lead the world towards a more sustainable future.

As Indigenous Peoples, we live in a reciprocal relationship with our lands and territories and we are expert stewards of our environments. Our well being is deeply tied to the well being of our lands. From growing traditional foods to sustainable harvesting practices to gathering medicine for ceremony and ensuring soil health and regeneration, Indigenous Peoples’ Traditional Knowledge, cultures, languages, cosmovisions, and traditions hold the solutions to climate change because they illustrate our original instructions for how we are supposed to be in right relationship with each other, our environment, and all living things. Our ways of being and knowing have long been disrespected, excluded, appropriated, and commodified, and we continue to see this violence against our peoples and lifeways in the climate and social crises faced across the world today.

Indigenous Peoples’ lands, livelihoods, and rights are under direct threat with these proposed “nature-based” solutions. As a global Indigenous community, we have already enacted climate change solutions based on our lifeways, cosmovisions, and the reciprocal relationship with our environments, despite the enormous adversity of land-grabbing, genocide, violence, expulsion from our lands, territories, and natural resources, persisting rights violations, and criminalization faced by our communities. Appropriating the term “nature-based” is not only misleading, but will not reduce emissions or truly address climate change. Rather, countries must stop putting powerful corporate economic interests before the existential threat that the planet faces, and must acknowledge, respect, center, and financially resource Indigenous Peoples’ rights and leadership.

Cultural Survival Quarterly March 2022

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A Pacific Island Nation Is Being Subsumed by the Sea

W Suhra Nahib

hile islands and coastal communities everywhere are facing the harsh effects of climate change, the South Pacific island nation of Tuvalu is experiencing its own acute crisis: Because of climate change, Tuvalu has begun sinking. Based on the available evidence, experts believe these beautiful islands might submerge into the South Pacific Sea within a few years.

Richard Gokrun (Tuvaluan), a former meteorologist and the Executive Director of the Tuvalu Climate Action Network (TuCAN), an NGO that supports Tuvalu’s civil society organizations to enhance their resilience to climate change, shares his concerns about the potential fate of the islands. “Tuvalu communities are experiencing sea level rise, increasing temperatures, droughts, coastal erosion, and intensely strong winds. Sea level rise has badly affected the groundwater to the extent that communities can no longer use groundwater for drinking,” he says.

Tuvalu has always fought with extreme weather like storms and floods. However, the consequences of climate change are making it uninhabitable. For Tuvalu communities, a healthy ecosystem is important because agriculture is the primary source of economic, societal, and dietary welfare.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, about 80 percent of Tuvalu participates in agriculture and fishing. The entire population relies on ocean resources, as well as pulaka, a “swamp crop” that is likened to taro. But natural resources are disappearing due to saltwater mixing with groundwater, which has caused soil infertility for local farmers. Most crops, including pulaka, cannot absorb salt.

Gokrun explains that as the population increases, so does demand for imported goods due to the limitation 20

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of land for subsistence farming. “Local Tuvalu communities are having to shift from their traditional food diet to a diet mostly consisting of imported food, some of which have caused various lifestyle diseases,” he says. Scientists have also observed that higher temperatures negatively affect crop productivity, biodiversity, and local Tuvaluans; many Tuvaluans now avoid working during the day because of the intensity of the sun. “Direct heat from the sun is too hot to do many outdoor activities and nights are also hot.

That causes some families to move out of their homes to open spaces to get fresh winds and a good night’s sleep,” says Gokrun.

Higher temperatures have also disturbed the marine ecosystem. Some species have migrated due to coral bleaching, which puts many communities in despair since marine resources are the primary source of food and income.

Many fishers have to travel farther away to catch fish for their daily supply of income. Gokrun also notes that there are nearby fishing spots that are no longer used due to climate impacts that cause those rich marine lives to migrate elsewhere or are even extinct. The sudden change in the weather and the environment, combined with a lack of resources and technology, make it difficult for Tuvalu communities. This results in significant migration.

Gokrun says that Tuvalu communities have introduced mitigation measures to these impacts in such ways as rebuilding infrastructures and innovative farming practices.

For example, to mitigate saltwater intrusion, farmers have raised artificial soil beds to a height that is beyond the reach of saltwater. Likewise, communities in Tuvalu have come together to move their food resources to higher locations for better growth and less saltwater penetration.

Because pulaka is the primary food source for Tuvalu’s people, the community’s priority is to build a wall to protect the plants. “Communities have planted mangroves along the beach to lessen the impacts of strong currents All photos courtesy of Tuvalu Climate Action Network’s Facebook page.

and waves. Further inland along the coast, more trees are being planted to secure the soil, and youths, together with other organizations, have planted mangroves to prevent coastal erosion further inland,” says Gokrun.

Tuvalu’s communities have also taken steps to preserve clean water, building a community reservoir to prepare for droughts. The government is also assisting with water projects and, according to Gokrun, has its “water storage on standby when the need is great, and has its desalination plants ongoing when long periods of no fresh water occur.”

Despite such efforts to save the islands’ ecosystem, some Tuvaluans have opted to relocate, leaving Tuvalu because of climate change. Reports indicate that about 75 percent of Tuvaluans over 30 have relocated to New Zealand and Australia since 2004 under the Pacific Access Category program. The relocation of Tuvaluans has had both positive and negative impacts on the community. As some Tuvaluans leave, families who had previously been cramped in a single small house have the opportunity to expand their space. Additionally, Tuvaluans who have moved abroad continue to support their families and communities by sending money back home.

The unfortunate consequence of relocation is that those who have moved to another country face the challenge of adapting to another culture. Gokrun points out that when these families return to visit Tuvalu, “the cultures and lifestyle of the particular country they reside in will be coming along with them and cause other members in the community to adopt those lifestyles.” Adults who leave Tuvalu and remain true to Tuvaluan culture are able to remember and practice their cultural traditions. However, younger generations who leave often find it challenging to marry their native heritage with the new lifestyles of the countries to which they migrate.

It is well known that larger nations like France, Germany, the United States, and China are significant contributors to climate change. The Paris Agreement, an international agreement among nearly 200 parties that seeks to limit global warming through the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, has yet to curb increasing temperatures. Commenting on the most recent Conference of the Parties held in Glasgow in January, Gokrun says, “The decisions at COP26 are a disappointment and unjust for small island

developing states like Tuvalu. It did not address our demands for climate justice, climate finance, and climateinduced loss and damage.”

Larger countries need to consider smaller island nations as important as other large countries.

“Countries like the United States, France, Canada, and Germany must put more funds into climate finance to support our small island nation to mitigate the impacts that we face daily,” says Gokrun. “The larger countries need to start keeping the Paris Agreement alive and consider reducing harmful impacts to the environment because small islands are not the only nations in danger. Climate change impacts every one of us.”

In addition to dealing with the impacts of climate change on a daily basis, the Tuvaluan community also faces the challenges of the pandemic. “The impacts of COVID-19 have kept ill people in the communities from accessing proper treatment in our main hospitals and also those who need urgent medical treatment overseas due to border restrictions,” says Gokrun. During the global lockdown, unemployment increased as day laborers were laid off from their jobs. Most families rely heavily on the income of day laborers because that is the only access they have to imported foods. Many families also decided to move from the capital to their islands of origin, which has added to the issue of less water and space for families who reside together.

Fortunately, the situation in Tuvalu is slowly improving, and those who were laid off are getting their jobs back.

Gokrun notes that while “the stress created in this situation is unbearable, for the benefit of Tuvalu communities, we must accept these facts and ensure strong prevention measures are strictly followed.”

It remains to be seen whether or not the islands of Tuvalu can be saved from the rising sea. But Gokrun and the Tuvalu Climate Action Network continue to fight for the urgently needed global commitment to reduce Earth’s warming, and the equally urgent need to assist Tuvaluans in implementing clean energy and adapting to climate change.

Suhra Nahib is an associate for Communications and Research at the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee.

Left: Richard Gokrun calling attention to the need to address climate change.

Cultural Survival Quarterly March 2022

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Joining Together for a Just Transition

Indigenous Leadership in Emerging Green Economies

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ndigenous communities are taking a leadership role in emerging green energy economies by holding companies accountable to human rights commitments through the supply chain. On October 28, 2021, ahead of the climate negotiations at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of Parties (COP26) in Glasgow, Cultural Survival and 140 other organizations issued a joint statement calling on climate negotiators to make a binding This article is co-written commitment to source transition minerals by members of a coalition responsibly, and for the centering of human rights of Indigenous and front working to protect the line communities and workers at mining, rights of Indigenous recycling, reclamation, manufacturing, Peoples in the transition and renewable energy projects. to the Green Economy: Transition minerals such as nickel, Cultural Survival, First lithium, cobalt, and copper play a critical Peoples Worldwide, Batani role in the development of a green, low Fund, Aborigen Forum, carbon economy. Clean energy technologies, Earthworks, and the from electric vehicles and battery storage Society for Threatened to wind turbines and solar panels, require Peoples. a wide range of minerals and metals, and demand is skyrocketing. A report from the International Energy Agency forecasts that mineral requirements for clean energy technologies will quadruple by 2040, with electric vehicles and battery storage creating the largest industry demand. Demand for lithium, crucial for electric vehicle battery production, is estimated to increase 10-fold over the next decade, with at least one new mine needing to begin operations each year.

The rapid increase of mining increases the danger of further displacement and dispossession of Indigenous Peoples. Indigenous territories contain significant concentrations of untapped heavy metal reserves around the world. In the United States, 97 percent of nickel, 89 percent of copper, 79 percent of lithium, and 68 percent of cobalt reserves and resources are located within 35 miles of Native American reservations. Globally, we know that mining potentially influences 50 million square kilometers of Earth’s land surface, with 8 percent coinciding with Protected Areas, 7 percent with Key Biodiversity Areas, and 16 percent with Remaining Wilderness.

Human rights violations follow the mining sector. The Business and Human Rights Resources Centre reports 304 human rights allegations made against all 115 companies involved in transition mineral extraction. Development frequently occurs without the Free, Prior and Informed Consent of Indigenous Peoples, and has significant long22

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Pavel Sulyandziga (Udege), Director of Batani Fund, coordinates an international campaign to ensure that Russia's Nornickel respects Indigenous rights.

Photo courtesy of Pavel Sulyandziga.

term impacts. In the short term, it brings an influx of temporary workers that can lead to increased transmission of COVID-19, increased criminal activity, and a degradation of local infrastructure. Other violations include forced migration, the murder of human rights defenders protesting development, and environmental threats to the land, water, and subsistence resources.

The mining methods used in the extraction of transition minerals, such as water intensive extraction and open-pit mines, remain unchanged, and increased demand now threatens even more cultural and sacred sites, watersheds, and landscapes. During extraction, toxic materials such as arsenic, mercury, cadmium, chromium, and lead are released into the air and water, with devastating long-term effects on people and the environments they depend on.

Indigenous communities are fighting back against increased mining within their homelands. In Argentina, companies started lithium mining and exploration without securing the Free, Prior and Informed Consent of Indigenous communities. Now, 33 Kolla and Atacama communities have united to oppose any lithium extraction on their lands.

Rising demands for electric vehicle batteries have led companies to expand lithium production in the Atacama salt flat of northern Chile. Some Lickanantay communities have successfully opposed the mining industry due to impacts on the salt flat, water table, biodiversity, and communities. In 2019, a lithium mining project was abandoned due to Indigenous opposition. Conflicts over other lithium mining projects continue, however, and other Indigenous communities in northern Chile are being threatened by projects emerging in some of the country’s smaller salt flats, such as Maricunga.

In Guatemala, the Fenix Nickel Mine on the shores of Lake Izabal, Guatemala’s largest lake, has been mired in violent conflict since it was built on Indigenous land without consent in 1960 during the country’s civil war. In 2007, uniformed mine personnel allegedly gang-raped at least 11 Q’eqchi women after burning their homes to evict them from their ancestral lands. In 2009, mine security opened fire on Q’eqchi land defenders protesting their eviction, killing community leader Adolfo Ich. In 2017, Carlos Maaz Coc, a fisherman peacefully protesting the mine’s contamination of the lake, was shot and killed. In October 2021, Guatemala’s President declared martial law and suspended civil rights in response to a peaceful blockade by Q’eqchi community members.

Indigenous Peoples elsewhere in North America are also speaking out. In Nevada, Indigenous community leaders with Atsa Koodakuh wyh Nuwu (People of Red Mountain) are protesting the Thacker Pass lithium mine in Nevada, citing the harm it would cause to the Fort McDermitt Paiute-Shoshone Tribe, ancestral burial sites, water resources, and local wildlife like greater sage grouse, pronghorn antelope, and sacred golden eagles.

Finding an Indigenous-Led Way Forward

Indigenous Peoples are crucial agents of change for both climate mitigation and adaptation. While making up just over six percent of the global population, Indigenous managed lands are home to about 80 percent of the world’s remaining biodiversity. Indigenous Peoples manage or hold tenure over 25 percent of the world’s land surface and manage at least 24 percent of the total carbon stored above ground in the world’s tropical forests.

Rapid exponential expansion of the extraction of transition minerals will not only continue to pose a threat to Indigenous rights and territories, but also to lands that are crucially important for biodiversity and carbon sequestration. In order for the low carbon transition to be a truly just transition, Indigenous and other marginalized populations must be at the center of decision-making, particularly when proposed policies and projects may affect their rights and livelihoods.

Indigenous-led organizations are calling on companies to do better. To start, governments and companies involved in the new green economy should observe and implement rights enshrined in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, including the right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent. But, governments have been slow to

The Fenix Nickel Mine in El Estor is Guatemala’s only active metal mine, and extracts 120,000 tons of nickel per month, making it the biggest in Central America. Photo by Cultural Survival.

address the potential impacts of transition mineral extraction on Indigenous Peoples. In March 2022, the European Parliament will consider a new law to ensure the ethical sourcing of battery materials by requiring battery makers and importers to apply Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Due Diligence guidelines devised to respect human rights. It has not yet been confirmed whether the new law will include Indigenous and NGO demands to incorporate Indigenous Peoples’ rights. Meanwhile, industry lobbyists are encouraging a delay in implementation of the new law for up to 36 months. In the U.S., the Biden administration has yet to start a process to ensure ethical sourcing of battery materials.

In the absence of government action, Indigenous leaders are directly engaging companies in the supply chain to make sure that they are aware of the risks to Indigenous Peoples.

In 2020, after Elon Musk put out a call on Twitter announcing Tesla’s search for more nickel to expand production of Tesla electric cars, Indigenous communities from the Russian Arctic joined together with dozens of other organizations to send an open letter to Musk urging Tesla not to purchase from Nornickel until they demonstrate a real commitment to consultation with affected Indigenous Peoples. (Nornickel, Russia’s largest supplier of nickel and the most egregious polluter in the Arctic, was responsible for the Arctic’s largest oil spill when 20,000 tons of diesel fuel fouled local rivers and lakes.)

Tesla has now approved a new Indigenous rights policy that must be followed by its suppliers.

Indigenous leaders from Russia point to the importance of working with companies in the supply chain when their own government fails to uphold Indigenous rights. Dmitry Berezhkov, an Indigenous rights activist and editor of Indigienous-Russia.com says, “We consider environmental well being as a part of Indigenous Peoples’ rights. The number of ways to defend Indigenous Peoples’ rights in Russia is being reduced day by day as the State, together with industrial companies, tries to impose more control on people’s lives. That’s why we are trying to be inventive and find new ways to defend our rights.”

Cultural Survival Quarterly March 2022

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Impacts of Climate Change Among the Endorois Peoples in Kenya

Carson Kiburo monitoring the impacts of climate change on livestock.

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Carson Kiburo (Endorois) he Endorois are an Indigenous Peoples living around Lake Bogoria, Mochongoi Ol-Arabel, and Marmanet Forest in the Marigat and Mogotio sub-counties of Baringo County, Nakuru, and Laikipia Counties within the Rift Valley of Kenya. We have always lived around Lake Bogoria and regard Mochongoi Forest and Lake Bogoria as sacred grounds. The 2019 Kenya government census reported us as numbering slightly more than 45,000, even though other estimates say our actual population could be higher than 60,000.

Our Peoples were forcibly evicted from our ancestral land in the early 1970s by the Kenyan government in the name of conservation, ultimately paving the way for the creation of Lake Bogoria National Reserve. This eviction has created generational trauma and intense loss of irreplaceable knowledge systems, culture, language, and eradication of identity. These deep-rooted challenges are compounded by emerging seemingly destructive, defining issues of our time, like climate change.

Climate change discourse is personal for me. I was born in a rural village near Lake Bogoria and have seen the effects of climate change first hand and the desperate measures taken to survive. I have seen community leaders and activists vilified by government propaganda and the heavy hand of reprisal. It has taken a lot of energy to combat the most pressing issues that were already threatening

our very existence as a Peoples and an entire humankind.

I have had a noticeable scar on my left forehead since I was seven years old. My siblings and I had gone to the dried-up Waseges River with our mother. That day, my mom was washing clothes there as we waited to take a bath in the nearby thicket, and after that go home with as many liters of water as we could carry. Being the naughty boy I was, I climbed and fell from a six-foot fruit tree. The challenge of water continues to be dire and people still get snake bites or fall on the rocky terrain as they try to access water. Today, our pasture drylands are depleted and it is much hotter than it was in previous years. We know that our ancestors’ livelihoods were sustainable, as they incorporated biodiversity culturally. I have devoted my life to transmitting our Endorois knowledge because they are key in combating the world’s most pressing challenges.

Over the last nine years, Lake Bogoria and other lakes in the Great Rift Valley have seen water levels rise, displacing people and disrupting lives. Over the last two years, we have seen the worst. It has brought many conflicts over land and other limited resources exacerbated by the rising population.

We are traditionally a Pastoralist Peoples but have recently learnt to grow crops to diversify our livelihoods, encouraging rich biodiversity around Lake Bogoria.

According to our customs, different animals, plants, and ecosystems are attached to totemic significance, for the ease of identification in our clans. These clans have

Flamingos on the shores of Lake Bogoria, Kenya.

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All photos by Carson Kiburo.

lineages that are named after ancestors. Every clan has a name bestowed on their women. Tarkok is my clan’s women’s identity and the moon is our totem. We incorporate flora and fauna for the totemic symbol to also mark livestock.

More than 300 species of wildlife inhabit our land, and according to our Traditional Knowledge, their protection is intertwined with our totems and how we coexist with nature.

That is how climate, food sovereignty, and our culture intertwine. We burn korosek (a sacred plant used as incense) when offering prayers, and everyone who attends is given a piece to take home as a blessing for their homesteads.

In the savanna plains at the bottom of the Laikipia escarpment, the area around the lake where my people currently live, experiences a sweltering climate and frequent droughts. Whenever our rivers run dry and grass diminishes for our livestock, we hold prayers at Loburu, the geysers of hot springs in Lake Bogoria.

My Peoples have had early warning signs against destructive climate patterns. Since the enforcement of the government’s previous inefficient and non-participatory policies, we have lost, and continue to lose, our knowledge systems. This is primarily due to the overreliance on western consumerism and production methods, which contribute to the warming of the planet through carbon emissions.

We now experience nutrition-related diseases and medical conditions because we have increasingly turned away from our Indigenous food systems. The shift has occasioned massive cutting of trees, irrespective of revered links from our ancestors. We have scrambled for, subdivided, and destroyed sacred community land linked to living in harmony with nature and our livestock. In the process, we have seen many springs dry up and swamps and grazing fields disappear. These enormous climate change challenges have led to rural-urban migration, thus disdaining our People’s way of living and eroding our languages.

Global warming and its effects have hit the Endorois hard due to disrupted rainfall patterns. Our grazing fields shrink every day and our livestock numbers have been drastically reduced. Many die during dry spells that used to happen between January and April, but nowadays are unpredictable. The breeds of our livestock are not as pure as they used to be due to government efforts to introduce imported foreign breeds, which have not been able to adapt to our extreme weather conditions. Our pure heritage species could survive the harshest droughts because of their resilience and ability to adapt, but changing livestock breeds and unclear government policy support have left farmers more vulnerable.

The Paradigm Shift

Until the 1990s, the Endorois led a full time pastoralist lifestyle, raising the indigenous Zebu breed of cattle. The introduction of subsistence maize farming to address the increase in population has caused the diminishing of grazing fields. Endorois leaders and our entire community are grappling with resilience measures to adapt and survive as we mitigate the effects of climate change. At Jamii Asilia Centre, the Indigenous-led organization I founded, we engage the community to curb the situation. We have introduced household fodder farming (crops cultivated primarily for animal feed) within small-holder farms and homesteads. Fodder cultivation is resilient in arid and semiarid areas where we live and cost-effective. Other activities include destocking (reducing in numbers) and grazing cows within enclosed farms where the grass is grown.

Small-scale farming incorporates agroecology such as fruit trees and vegetable farms. Drought-resistant cows give enough milk for the family and some extra so it can be sold. Several women and youth-led innovative communitybased initiatives such as massive planting of trees, the introduction of agroecology, capacity building, and efforts addressing rising waters collectively tackle the issues brought about by climate change. We are learning the hard way about climate justice, but we believe that western systems and processes can be incorporated into our Indigenous livelihoods.

Having participated in UN processes over the last five years, and most recently at COP26, I am responsible for amplifying and representing the voices of our Peoples.

I work closely under the counsel of my Elders in multistakeholder forums to influence policy. My focus is to build my capacity to intertwine cultural heritage and Traditional Knowledge with scalable, sustainable development.

Indigenous networks and caucuses build our strength to defend our collective rights. The Kenya Indigenous Youth Network and Global Indigenous Youth Caucus are crucial in my journey to better advocate for and participate in our self-determination. Solidarity in these networks has affirmed the strength of the right to self-determination as intertwined with our lands, territories, and natural resources.

Self-determination is the power to decide on and continue our technologies, cultural education, and traditional lifeways bestowed unto us from our ancestors.

Carson Kiburo (Endorois) is the Executive Director at Jamii Asilia Centre. He is currently studying law at Kabarak University in Kenya.

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koef grant partner spotlight

Indigenous Stewardship Brings Restoration of Mangroves

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Bia’ni Madsa’ Juárez López

(Ayuuk ja’ay and Binnizá, CS Staff)

angroves are ecosystems distributed in the global tropics composed mainly of unique trees capable of living in saline waters. There are at least 50 species of mangrove trees across the world. According to Conservation International, mangrove forests are found on the saltwater coasts of 118 tropical and subtropical countries, totaling approximately 136,000 square kilometers and making up 0.1 percent of the planet’s surface. Southeast Asia is home to almost a third of all mangroves, with Indonesia alone being home to almost 20 percent. Mangrove forests are being lost at a rate of one to two percent per year, faster than any other type of forest, due to deforestation, agriculture, aquaculture, urban development, and overharvesting.

The importance of mangroves is undeniable. Mangroves store more carbon per unit area than any other ecosystem on Earth, storing up to 10 times more carbon per hectare than terrestrial forests, and also help fight coral bleaching. According to some studies, young corals that grow among mangrove roots in the shade of mangrove trees show greater resilience to bleaching. As delicate ecosystems, mangroves are indicators of pollution and environmental impacts. Mangroves serve as nurseries for biodiversity, which makes them a vital ecosystem, especially for coastal communities. They protect coastlines from erosion and storm damage and act as buffers to storm surges, forming a natural barrier between the ocean and coastal communities; mangroves have been found to reduce storm surge by as much as 50 centimeters per kilometer of mangrove width.

When mangrove forests are destroyed, much more than trees suffer. Many endangered species depend on mangroves for their habitat, and millions of coastal fisherpeople and farmers are also negatively impacted. Indigenous communities have developed close relationships with mangroves and have stewarded millennia-old Indigenous Knowledge in their protection, management, and sustainable use. Just as they have done historically, many Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities protect the mangroves by carrying out important projects for them. Here we share three examples of restoration work

by Cultural Survival’s Keepers of the Earth Fund grant partners from different regions and Indigenous cultures.

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Comité de Cultura y Ambiente, Consejo Comunitario de Barú (Afro-descendants), Colombia

To the north of Colombia in the Caribbean is the island of Barú, where the self-proclaimed Afro-descendant ethnic community of Barú lives: a community that, like its distant relatives from Lokiaka Community Development Centre, has a close relationship with the mangrove and seeks its protection. In 2021, through a collaboration with the Keepers of the Earth Fund, they developed a project focused on mangrove conservation.

Their project, “Learn without Reading with Your Eyes Open,” is an innovative and transformative approach that seeks to implement a new learning strategy for the educational community made up of children and young people from the Barú community. In addition to the young population, the Culture and Environment Committee of the Community Council of Barú, which is part of the rural government of Barú, participated closely in the project that trained children and adolescents on topics such as the cultural importance and conservation of the ecosystems of their territory, including the mangrove and other forests, all within the framework of their Barulera identity.

In addition to the workshops, one of the main activities was the collection of 200 mangrove propagules in the areas with the greatest reproduction in the territory. After this, they collectively built a pilot nursery for the planting of mangrove propagules that are cared for by all participants and that will be used later to reforest vulnerable sectors of the Barú mangrove ecosystem. In its future plans, the community seeks to design a strategy for the responsible use of the mangrove ecosystem that generates appropriation and empowerment of other members of the community.

This conservation project was key to the education of youth during the COVID-19 pandemic as many rural Indigenous children face obstacles to accessing quality, culturally relevant education in developing countries such as Colombia.

Lokiaka Community Development Centre (Ogoni), Nigeria

The Ogoni in the Niger Delta region face threats to their livelihood as the quality of their land is depleted and the biodiversity of the local ecosystem deteriorates due to oil and gas extraction. Their farmlands are less fertile and integral plants are becoming extinct, escalating food insecurity. The population of mangroves in the Niger Delta Region has substantially diminished due to clearing for

commercial agriculture, urban construction, pollution, oil spills, and runoff containing chemical and biological contaminants. Additionally, the changing climate has brought an influx of cyclones, hurricanes, and tsunamis that cause severe damage to the mangrove population.

Mangroves are extremely versatile in their utility for the Ogoni people. They can be used as water-resistant wood for buildings and furniture, serve as domestic fuel, protect shorelines from erosion, and filter pollutants to maintain water quality. Through a grant from Keepers of the Earth Fund to the Lokiaka Community Development Centre, volunteers at Lokiaka worked to replenish the land by conducting two intensive training sessions with Ogoni women. Workshops taught 65 Indigenous women farmers the skills to start mangrove and fruit tree nurseries. Participants learned about sustainable nursing of mangrove propagules and how to transport them within the mangrove swamp forest of Kwawa. Lokiaka emphasizes the role of Indigenous women farmers in maintaining the health of the land and ecosystem to ensure that women are recognized as important stewards of the land. Their importance cannot be overstated.

With this work, the Ogoni community is contributing to climate resilience in several ways. Mangroves are among the most carbon rich tropical forests and can store twice as much carbon on a per area basis as salt marshes, preventing carbon from escaping into the atmosphere as a greenhouse gas. Carbon storage also results in the accretion of sediment, allowing the coastline to keep up with rising water levels. By training Ogoni women in sustainable agricultural practices, their knowledge of conservation forest practices will continue to rejuvenate the local ecosystems and improve the health of Ogoni communities.

Carey Cooperative, Isla Arena (Maya), Mexico

The Isla Arena Maya community lives on an island off the coast of the state of Campeche. Previously they traveled by boat, which made trade or health emergencies complex, so they were happy when a road was built to connect the

community with the rest of the territory. However, by doing this without proper planning, the community saw their mangroves begin to die. Acres of them dried up, and birds and other species also started to leave.

After seeing the desolate, arid landscape that brought multiple problems to this fishing-dependent community, community members decided to take action. They developed a plan for the restoration of the mangrove, building canals and bridges to recover the flow of freshwater and saltwater, and implemented a delicate mangrove reforestation plan. This included bringing seeds and seedlings in from other communities to germinate and plant. The process was repeated many times because several plants died due to poor environmental conditions. Now, after 16 years of hard work, thousands of flamingos have returned to the area. The hundreds of small mangroves that have already begun to reproduce on their own are the best evaluators of this important Maya community work. To strengthen its environmental education and conservation work, the Isla Arena Carey Cooperative is partnering with Cultural Survival to establish a community radio station.

The example of the Isla Arena community shows that Indigenous Peoples have to adapt their stewardship practices to maintain their communities’ needs and well being.

Within that process comes many lessons, and these learning experiences throughout history have made Indigenous Peoples successful in environmental stewardship, ecosystem restoration and experts in conservation. It is encouraging to see that the Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities, who do not know each other, agree on the important work of mangrove conservation. Their great community work will benefit beyond their territories and for the many generations to come. Cultural Survival is honored to contribute to their efforts through the Keepers of the Earth Fund.

Youth from the Barú community in Colombia (left) and Ogoni youth in Nigeria (right) replanting mangrove trees.

Photo (left) by Community Council of Barú. Photo (right) by Lokiaka Community Development Centre.

Keepers of the Earth Fund (KOEF) is an Indigenous Led Fund within Cultural Survival designed to support Indigenous Peoples’ community development and advocacy projects. Since 2017, through small grants and technical assistance, KOEF has supported 186 projects in 37 countries totaling $810,470.

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board member spotlight

Indigenous Power Is Ascendant | Kate R. Finn

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ultural Survival welcomes the newest member of our Board of Directors, Kate R. Finn (Osage).

Finn is the Executive Director of First Peoples Worldwide, whose mission is to work from a foundation of Indigenous values to achieve a sustainable future for all. Finn leads the University of Colorado-based organization to build corporate accountability to the rights of Indigenous Peoples at the intersection of law, finance, and business.

Finn grew up in Colorado. “I really love the outdoors. It is where I find my energy,” she says, adding that she spent time in Oklahoma where her dad has land as a member of the Osage Nation. From a young age, Finn recognized that “Native women run the world, that Native women are caretakers and thinkers and movers in our communities.” She credits the many Indigenous women mentors inside and outside of her field with “shining a light on [my] journey and proving that Indigenous women move things forward.”

Finn holds a J.D. and a Masters in Public Administration from the University of Colorado, and a B.A. from Princeton University.

Her areas of expertise include Indigenous Peoples law and policy, federal Indian law, preventing violence against women, sustainable finance, and business and human rights. “I got hooked during law school on all topics related to federal Indian law,” she says.

“What really got me was that the case law around federal Indian law really is so nascent, even though we are original inhabitants of the land. There’s so much room to design new and better frameworks for Indigenous Peoples within the law. When we work with Tribes and Indigenous communities, we get to pull from their vast knowledge based on whatever we’re trying to address; we get to look at where the cultural, linguistic, environmental, and spiritual intersections are. Bringing all of that to the discussion brings our humanity with us into that solution.

I believe that is how we can move the needle forward for future generations.”

“Native political power is on the rise,” she continues. “It was truly moving to watch Secretary Haaland be sworn into her role with my daughters, and to tell them that there are Native women in Congress and in so many seats of power at the state and Tribal level. A lot of times Indigenous Peoples are sidelined in global issues, and that is an issue that we need to solve since Indigenous Peoples are keepers of Traditional Knowledge and biodiversity that will help all of us to solve climate chaos. At First Peoples Worldwide and at Cultural Survival, elevating Indigenous leaders in mainstream topics and creating a platform for Indigenous

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leaders to participate at the highest levels of decision shows that Indigenous issues are not sideline issues, but rather Indigenous Peoples are the decision-makers that will lead us towards a more sustainable future.”

Finn’s recent work focuses on articulating the impacts of development in Indigenous communities. “I am so proud of the work that we’ve been able to do to mobilize Indigenous leadership. I’m also proud of our work to bring values-aligned investors together on Indigenous priorities globally. One of our priorities will be to walk into partnership with Cultural Survival and a number of others to address the impacts of transition minerals on Indigenous communities. Another area of work follows up from our paper on private equity in Indian Country. We’re doing a lot of on-the-ground research both on Native food economies and support that Native food enterprises can use post-pandemic.

We’re also looking forward to doing some big work around catalytic capital and defining what is catalytic for Native entrepreneurs.”

Finn was the inaugural American Indian Law Program Fellow at the University of Colorado Law, where she worked directly with Tribes and Native communities. She serves on the boards of First Nations Community Financial, Unified Solutions Tribal Community Development Group, Cultural Survival, and on the Stewardship Circle of Adasina Social Capital. On her new role as a Cultural Survival Board Member, Finn says, “I’m thrilled to be able to bring perspectives both from the market-based advocacy side and the policy advocacy side to the table, but also to do what I can to create partnership and collaboration for the organization and through the organization to support its goals.”

Photo courtesy of Kate Finn.

bazaar artist spotlight

Rebuilding from the Rubble | Everest Wings Cat Monzón (Maya K’iche’, CS Staff)

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ikrant Rana is originally from Nepal. His company, Everest Wings, sells handcrafted products made by Kami, Newar, Tamang, Magar, Tharu, and Yadav Peoples, ranging from the Himalayas to the lowlands of Nepal. The business was born out of tragedy; in the wake of the 2015 earthquake that devastated his homeland, Rana was moved to help. “My best friend and I were in Boston and wanted to help our people back home,” he recalls. “We provided some financial help but we wanted to do something more. [So] we collaborated with Old South Church in Boston to sell goods from Nepal. When we went back to Nepal, we saw the primary school in my district completely destroyed by the earthquake. We wanted to rebuild that district. We started with hemp products like backpacks and hats. We also started sourcing wooden masks, then metal products like singing bowls. We felt like we were not only selling the product, but we were telling people about how beautiful our culture is. That really gave us a lot of satisfaction. After finding out about the Cultural Survival Bazaar, things multiplied.

We got into the right place with the right kind of people.”

Crafting singing bowls.

Today, Everest Wings’ motto is “hemp and healing.” Hemp grows abundantly in the wild in Nepal’s mountainous region.

“We are trying to bring hemp as a sustainable source and healing with meditation and sound and vibration and yoga,” Rana explains. “Hemp is utilized in our everyday life in Nepalese culture. My grandmother used to give hemp seed to the cows and buffalo when they were really sick.” Local farmers will cut the hemp and dry it under the sun, and then start handweaving it into thread. Later, the hemp is mixed with cotton to make other products.

Singing bowls typically come from Indo-Tibet, where Buddhism and Hinduism flourished. The idea of sound healing comes from the second or third century. People would create metal bowls for use in religious purposes, using their vibration to keep bad energy away. Later on, mainstream yoga sects started using them. “Artisans use different kinds of metals to produce bowls using fires and ovens. They handwrite mantras on them. The artists also make a lot of Buddhist sculptures. It’s a really growing market,” Rana says.

In addition to giving back to where he came from, Rana also wants to showcase the beautiful artistic expression of the different ethnic and Indigenous Peoples in Nepal. “There are certain people who only make the metal bowls, and they have been doing this for generations and generations.

Certain farmers in certain villages just produce hemp products. We are bringing their voices, their artistry, and skills to the world,” he says. To have a greater impact, Everest Wings started organizing six-month trainings in skills like sewing for women. Then they asked Newar kamis (ironsmiths), who for centuries have been making utensils, plates, buckets, and household items, to start producing singing bowls. Everest Wings helped rebuild the primary school, and those families whose children attend the school are now working with them.

Everest Wings has participated at the Cultural Survival Bazaars a few times. “What the Bazaars have provided is value to the people,” Rana says. “People here underAll photos courtesy of Everest Wings.

Making hemp fabric.

stand that when you buy a mask, you are providing a monthly salary for a family in Nepal. The Cultural Survival Bazaars have given us a window to the rest of the world.

We were able to connect with people who really love and value our arts. We started our own production, meeting with the artisans, giving them the training, and trying to make a difference for individual people. It has also given us a sense of community. It gives me the sense of family, which you don’t get in other commercial shows. When somebody buys my singing bowl at a Cultural Bazaar, it is somebody who really wants to change things. That kind of understanding and enlightenment is only found in the Cultural Survival Bazaar. Everything here is handmade, and every product has a story.”

The Cultural Survival Bazaars are back!

July 16–17, 2022: Newburyport, MA July 23–24, 2022: Tiverton, RI bazaar.cs.org

An ornately decorated singing bowl.

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Celebrating five Decades of Indigenous Rights

Creating lasting change takes decades of commitment, service, resources, relationships, and allyship. For our 50th anniversary, we have an ambitious goal to raise $500,000 by June 1, 2022, for our #CS50 campaign and we are more than halfway there. We are counting on you to help us reach our goal! Thank you for being part of the Indigenous rights movement and the Cultural Survival family.

Donate online at cs.org/donate | Call us at 617.441.5400 x18

Thank you!

#culturalsurvival50 #1972 #CS50