CSQ 42-4 - Respecting Our Science and Ways of Knowing

Cultural Survival Q

U

A

R

T

E

R

L

Y

Respecting Our Science and Ways of Knowing Indigenous Peoples’ Food Sovereignty, Traditional Lifeways, and Climate Change

Vol. 42, Issue 4 • december 2018 US $4.99/CAN $6.99

D ec e m b er 20 18 Vo lum e 42 , Issue 4 Board of Directors president

Duane Champagne (Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa) Vice President

Steven Heim Treasurer

Jason Campbell (Spokane)

Clerk

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

Decolonizing food systems is essential to Indigenous Peoples' sovereignty. Read about Chef Sean Sherman's culinary journey on page 12. Photo (left) by Mette Nielsen. Photo (right) by Nancy Bundt.

F e at u r e s

D e pa r t m e n t s

14 Respecting our Science and Ways of Knowing

1 Executive Director’s Message

More than 60 Indigenous community members and experts gathered in August to discuss climate change, traditional knowledge, and food sovereignty in Ixtlán de Juárez, Oaxaca, Mexico.

Santa Fe Office Mailing Address 518 Old Santa Fe Trail, Suite 1-641 Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505

Featuring interviews with: • Aslak Holmberg (Sami), Sami Council • Andrea Carmen Valencia (Yaqui), International Indian Treaty Council • Celia Alicia Gomez Carrasco (Zapoteca), Yureni A.C. • Emigdio Ballón (Quechua), Pueblo of Tesuque • Berenice Sanchez (Nahua/Otomí), Assembly of Indigenous Peoples for Food Sovereignty • Rafael Avendaño (Mixteco), Cooperativa del Caracol Púrpura

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

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

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.

ii • www. cs. org

Bia’ni Madsa’ Juárez López and Alma Patricia Soto Sánchez

22 Made in the Shade

Bia’ni Madsa’ Juárez López Mixe coffee farmers in Mexico cultivate sustainability according to local Indigenous knowledge and practice.

24 Indigenous Communications Without Borders Cesar Gomez and Nati Garcia Representatives of the Central American Indigenous Community Radio Network met to demand laws that favor community broadcasting.

2 In the News 4 Indigenous Arts:

Frank Waln

6 Women the world must hear

The Women Behind Biodiversity Conservation and Climate Change Adaptation

8 Indigenous Knowledge

Indigenous-Led Funds Seek to Decolonize Philanthropy

10 Rights in Action: Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the American Indian Movement

12 Indigenous Food

Sioux Chef

26 Bazaar Artist Timoteo Ccarita

27 Keepers of the Earth Fund Partner Spotlight Comunidad Maya Pixan Ixim, Omaha, Nebraska

28 In Memoriam Spirit, Generosity, and Leadership

On the cover Maize and the farmer's hands and knowledge that has kept it alive for thousands of years. Santa Gertrudis, Oaxaca 2013. Photo by David Lauer.

E xecut iv e Di rector’ S messa ge

Respecting Our Traditional Science and Ways of Knowing

I

ndigenous participants at the “Respecting Our Traditional Science and Ways of Knowing: Indigenous Peoples Sovereignty, Lifeways, and Climate Change” gathering in August in Ixtlán de Juarez, Oaxaca, Mexico, expressed the following summation in their final Outcome Document: “We commit to remaining strong in the struggle for survival that is called Climate Change.

The forces that have created this crisis and which continue to carry out their destructive activities are many and powerful. But we are powerful too, and our power comes from being who we are, sharing and supporting one another, and following our original ways, teachings and instructions as caretakers of the natural world. We will retain our Indigenous teachings and pass them to our grandchildren, so that all the grandchildren of the world can live.”

Organized by Cultural Survival and the International Indian Treaty Council, this convening engaged participants in a dialogue on Indigenous perspectives of climate change through traditional knowledge and Indigenous science. Indigenous scientists, educators, students, youth, elders, and local community members discussed how Indigenous people understand climate change through cultural practices and spiritual knowledge. Central to the dialogue was the interconnectedness and interdependence that Indigenous lifeways are based on, right relationships to Mother Earth and all living things, and the importance of reviving and passing this knowledge to future generations. This issue of the CSQ is dedicated to showcasing the importance of respecting and living by these teachings and traditional ways of knowing, crucial for our survival as humankind.

Poignantly, Bia’ni Madsa’ Juárez López (Mixe/Ayuuk ja’ay & Zapotec/Binniza)

writes about the work of her grandmother, Paula Reyes Pérez, living and farming in the highlands of Oaxaca, Mexico. Her coffee farm, together with that of her neighbors, conserves many species of trees. As people in the community say, “This respect for other lifeforms is a main factor contributing to the high biological diversity of coffee farms in the region.” To the north, Sean Sherman’s (Oglala Lakota) dedication to revitalizing Native American cuisine in the United States underlines the importance of traditional foods and food sovereignty for Indigenous communities: “Food really defines who we are on so many levels, nutritiously, regionally, spiritually, culturally.”

Musician Frank Waln (Sicangu Lakota) reminds us, “We need to remember who we are and where we come from, the people and places that made us. By remembering . . . it helps us to remain rooted and grounded.”

Global Environmental Fund Fellow Fellow Edith Bastidas (Pastos) speaks about the importance of Indigenous women’s involvement in mitigating climate change and protecting biodiversity: “These experiences have made me realize how important it is to share broadly and ensure Indigenous Peoples— especially Indigenous women—understand these issues, because there are so many processes that exist without women knowing, participating, or giving their consent.” And activist Robby Romero (Apache) sums it up: “Indigenous Peoples around the world are at the forefront of human rights, the cutting edge of social change, on the frontlines of environmental justice. We are invisible no more.”

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

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

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

INTERNS AND VOLUNTEERS Salma Al-Sulaiman, Tobias Berblinger, Brooke Gilder, Francesca Glaspell, Tanisha Harrelson, Allen Perez, Nathasha Perlmutter, María Reyes Garcia

In Solidarity,

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

www.cs.org

2018 Statement of Ownership

2018 Statement of Ownership, Management, and Circulation: 1. Publication Title: Cultural Survival Quarterly 2. Publication Number: 0740-3291 3. Filing Date: October 1, 2018 4. Issue Frequency: Quarterly 5. Number of Issues Published Annually: Four 6. Annual Subscription Price: $45.00 7. Mailing Address of Publication: 2067 Massachusetts Ave. Cambridge, MA 02140 8. Mailing Address of Publisher Headquarters: 2067 Massachusetts Ave. Cambridge, MA 02140 9. Full Mailing Address and Complete Names of Publisher, Editor, and Managing Editor-Publisher: Cultural Survival, Inc. 2067 Massachusetts Ave. Cambridge, MA 02140, Editor/Managing Editor: Agnes Portalewska, Cultural Survival, 2067 Massachusetts Ave. Cambridge, MA 02140 10. Owner: Cultural Survival, Inc., 2067 Massachusetts Ave. Cambridge, MA 02140 11. Known Bondholders, Mortgagees, and Other Securities: None 12. Tax Status: The purpose, function, and nonprofit status for federal income tax purposes has not changed during the preceding 12 months 13. Publication Title: Cultural Survival Quarterly 14. Issue Date for Circulation Data Below: December 2018-Issue 42, Volume 4 15. Extent and Nature of Circulation: a. Total Number of Copies: Average No. Copies Each Issue During Preceding 12 Months: 3400; Actual No. Copies of Single Issue Published Nearest to Filing Date: 3400 b. Paid and/or Requested Circulation-1. Paid/Requested Outside-County Mail Subscriptions Stated on Form 3541: 1400; 1270 2. Paid In-County Subscriptions: 260; 255 3. Sales Through Dealers and Carriers, Street Vendors, Counter Sales, and Other Non-USPS Paid Distribution: 800; 600 4. Other Classes Mailed Through the USPS: 90; 130 c. Total Paid and/or Requested Circulation: 2550; 2255 d. Free or Nominal Rate Distribution 1. Free or Nominal Rate Outside-County 100; 180 2. Free or Nominal Rate In-County : 100; 70 3. Free or Nominal Rate Copies Mailed at Other Classes 50; 60 4. Free or Nominal Rate Distribution Outside the Mail 200; 250 e. Total Free or Nominal Rate Distribution: 500; 650 f. Total Distribution: 3050; 2905 g. Copies Not Distributed: 350; 495 h. Total: 3400; 3400 i. Percent Paid and/or Requested Circulation: 84; 78 16. This Statement of Ownership is printed in the December 2018 issue of this publication 17. I certify that all information furnished on this form is true and complete: Agnes Portalewska, Communications Manager, Cultural Survival, Inc

Cultural Survival Quarterly December 2018 • 1

i n t he new s New Zealand: Government – ori Language Pushes for Ma in Schools by 2025 September

Mashpee Land Sovereignty Walk. October 6.

Photo courtesy of Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe.

New Zealand’s government wants to –ori language part of the make the Ma core curriculum in all primary schools –ori is already by 2025. While te reo Ma one of the three languages recognized in New Zealand (alongside English and New Zealand sign language), it is yet to be required in schools.

Canada: Court of Appeals Halts the Trans Mountain Oil Pipeline Expansion

Guatemala: Highest Court Orders Suspension of Tahoe’s Escobal Mine

August

September

The Canadian Federal Court of Appeals has negated the federal government’s approval of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion after it failed in its legal obligation to consult the First Nations or consider environmental impacts.

The Guatemalan Constitutional Court has ruled in favor of the Xinka Indigenous population by declaring that the Tahoe Resources’ Escobal mine will remain suspended. This ruling reaffirms a lower court decision in 2017 to freeze the activities in Escobal and neighboring Juan Bosco by terminating the company’s license due to discrimination and failure to consult with the Xinka people.

Honduras: Indigenous Peoples Reject New Consultation Law August

A new proposed law in Honduras aims to reduce the right of consultation between Nation States and Indigenous communities from legitimate consul- tations to “mere formalities.” The Bill’s second article allows the Honduran government to ignore the outcome of local consultations for extractive projects, a violation of ILO Convention 169. Hundreds of Maya Chorti, Lenca, Pech, Miskito, Tolupan, and Garifuna people marched from south Tegucigalpa to the National Congress to protest.

United States: New Environmental Review Ordered on the Keystone XL Pipeline August

A federal judge for the District of Montana has ordered the Trump administration to conduct a more thorough investigation on the revised route of the Keystone XL Pipeline. The pipeline would transfer up to 830,000 barrels of crude oil per a day, presenting a grave risk to water resources, wildlife, and human health.

2 • www. cs. org

Global: UN Special Rapporteur Releases Report on the Criminalization of Indigenous Peoples September

UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Victoria TauliCorpuz, has released a new report revealing a surge of persecution and violence against Indigenous Peoples globally. Tauli-Corpuz attributes the crisis to the rise of private, commercial, and profit-driven businesses that aim to extract natural resources on Indigenous territories.

United States: Interior Department Denies the Mashpee Wampanoag Nation Trust Status September

After more than two years of legal limbo, the United States Interior Department announced that it would not keep the 320 acres of land entrusted to the Mashpee Wampanoag by the

Obama administration in 2015. The announcement marks the first time Native land has been taken out of trust since the “Termination Era” of the 1940s through the 1960s, a major blow to Tribal sovereignty.

United States: Rosebud Sioux Tribe and Fort Belknap Indian Community File Suit to Rescind Keystone XL Presidential Permit September

The Rosebud Sioux Tribe and the Fort Belknap Indian community are suing the Trump administration for failing to comply to historical treaty boundaries and bypassing a thorough environmental review, and are demanding that the court rescind the permit granted for the Keystone XL Pipeline while freezing further construction. The U.S. State Department issued a presidential permit in 2017 to construct and operate the pipeline, reversing two previous decisions by the Obama administration.

Ecuador: Historic Legal Victory for Kofan People October

On October 22, the Kofan people of Sinangoe in the Amazon won a precedent-setting legal battle to protect the Aguarico River. The Provincial Court charged the government with not consulting the Kofan, denounced the mining operations for violating rights to water, food and a healthy environment, and cancelled all 52 gold mining concessions, freeing up more than 32,000 hectares of rainforest from environmental devastation.

Colombia: Court Rules Community Referendums Cannot Stop Extractive Projects October

On October 11, Colombia’s Constitutional Court ruled in a five to one vote that Indigenous communities cannot use popular consultations as a method to stop extractive projects, reasoning that the State is is the owner of all resources in the country’s subsurface.

Advocacy Updates Canada: Save Teztan Biny (Fish Lake)—Again!

British Columbia Supreme Court Denies Tsilhqot’in Nation Legal Challenge against Taseko Mines The Tsilhqot’in Nation is rallying a public campaign to call on the government of British Columbia to do “the right thing” after the Supreme Court announced its decision to deny the Nation its legal challenge seeking to reverse a mining exploration permit given to Taseko Mines, Ltd. The permit authorizes the comprehensive drilling, road building, and excavation program

by Taseko, which is located near Teztan Noby and Nebas, an area that holds cultural and spiritual importance to the Tsilhqot’in. The ruling undermines a previous decision by the government of Canada that rejected Taseko’s New Prosperity Mine proposal in 2014. Two independent federal panels recognized the unique significance of the location to the Tsilhqot’in, and it became a focal point for the two rejections.



Panama: Revoke Repressive Laws IACHR Demands Answers from Panama Over Land Titling on Indigenous Lands In October, the InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) held a public hearing on the theme of collective land titling in Panama.

It was attended by civil society organizations representing the Emberá, Wounaan, Guna, Buglé, Ngäbe, Naso, and Bribri Indigenous Peoples, who gave testimony about the obstacles in the current land titling process that



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.

has resulted in the invasion of settlers on their lands, which often include ecologically sensitive areas of primary rainforests. In addition to questioning the efficacy of the State’s collective titling mechanisms, the IACHR wanted to know if there was a willingness on the part of the State to include Indigenous Peoples in the management of protected areas, and if protected areas in Panama could be mined, since the petitioners had indicated that collective land titling was being withheld to provide resources to extractive industries.

They asked for more details regarding the legal requirements for prior impact studies for development projects, and inquired about the State’s work on business and human rights and whether legislation was being designed to ensure water security.

Cultural Survival Advocates for Chilean Indigenous Peoples’ Rights via the Universal Periodic Review In July 2018, Cultural Survival submitted a report to the United Nations that documents the failure of the Chilean Government to “respect, protect, and fulfill the rights of Indigenous Peoples.” Despite obligations to uphold the rights of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Chile remains the only South American country not to recognize Indigenous Peoples in its constitution. Due to these failures, Cultural Survival has three main areas of concern: the first is the labeling of Indigenous rights defenders as “terrorists,” which leads to their criminalization through the Anti-Terrorism Law. Secondly, there have been extensive violations by the Chilean government of the right to



Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), as Indigenous communities continue to be excluded from the decision-making process regarding the use of their land. A final point of concern is law enforcement and legislation that oppress Indigenous Peoples’ rights to freedom of expression.

Former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ Ruling Disproportionately Affects Indigenous Women Former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced in June that domestic violence will no longer be accepted as a basis for claiming asylum, a verdict that will have a substantial impact on women from Latin American countries.

Sessions’ decision reverses a previous immigration appeals court ruling which granted asylum for an abused woman from El Salvador. In his ruling, Sessions wrote that domestic abuse is a “private violence,” not one perpetrated by the government, thus it does not and should not qualify for consideration. The only exception is if an asylum seeker can prove that the government is unable to protect her from the abuse and condones the violence. Sessions also argued that asylum is based on protecting a person from a social group, not one based on a personal relationship. Cultural Survival’s recent report on the state of Indigenous women’s rights in Mexico and Guatemala reveals that gendered violence disproportionately affects Indigenous women.



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

Cultural Cultural Survival Survival Quarterly Quarterly December 2018 • 3

indi geno u s a rts

Frank Waln gave a powerful performance to kick off Cambridge’s inaugural celebration of Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

Busting Myths

Frank Waln Commemorates Cambridge’s First Observance of Indigenous Peoples Day Agnes Portalewska (CS STAFF) “

I

am a storyteller; I tell the stories of my people. Indigenous Peoples descended from some of the best storytellers in the world. Our stories survived genocide, and our stories survived occupation,” Frank Oyate Teca Obmani (Walks With Young People) Waln (Lakota) said as he officially opened Cambridge, MA’s first Indigenous Peoples Day Celebration on October 5 in Harvard Square at Winthrop Park. Just before Waln, Hannabah Blue, Navajo poet and spoken word artist, made a guest appearance on stage with her powerful poem, “It’s Trendy to be Indian.”

Before performing his first song, “Remembrance,” Waln gave a short introduction to its significance: “I was taught

4 • www. cs. org

recently by an elder that remembrance is something that is very important to remaining grounded. We need to remember who we are and where we come from, the people and places that made us. By remembering those things, those that came before us, it helps us to remain rooted and grounded. The fact that it’s 2018 and this is the first Indigenous Peoples’ Day Celebration in Cambridge...we need to do better at practicing remembrance of the land we’re living on. This is a song about who I am, where I come from, and how I got here today.”

In 2016, the Cambridge City Council voted unanimously to celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day on the second Monday of October. This name change from Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples’ Day is part of a growing movement across the country to change the narrative of history towards a All photos by Jamie Malcolm-Brown.

recognition of the survival, resilience, diversity, and strength of Indigenous Peoples, who are among us as residents in Massachusetts, New England, the United States, and the world. Cultural Survival, along with local partners the North American Indian Center of Boston, Indigenous Peoples Day MA, and the United American Indians of New England, worked together with Cambridge Mayor Marc McGovern’s office to launch a public celebration of Indigenous Peoples and their rich histories, cultures, and resilience by bringing Frank Waln to Cambridge for a public concert.

Waln is an award winning Sicangu Lakota hip hop artist, producer, and audio engineer from the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. A recipient of the Gates Millennium Scholarship, he attended Columbia College in Chicago where he earned a BA in Audio Arts and Acoustics. Among his professional accolades are three Native American Music Awards, the 3Arts Grant for Chicago Artists, and the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation 2018 National Artist Fellowship for Artistic Innovation. He has been featured in The Fader, Vibe, NPR, Paper Magazine, ESPN, and MTV’s Rebel Music. Waln travels the world sharing his story through music and presentations focusing on healing and reconnecting to our roots.

Speaking about the challenges he faces as an Indigenous person—symbolic of what too many Native people face every day—Waln told the audience that he finds himself on a very different path now than where he started from. Originally a pre-med student and Gates Scholar at Creighton University in Omaha, Waln said, “I studied pre-med because I didn’t think I could follow my passion of music, I didn’t think I could use my gifts to help people. I was very wrong. It took me a while to figure that out. I landed in Chicago where I went to art school. In the first week I was there, something happened that changed my life forever. I was in the elevator of the dorm building I was living in in downtown Chicago. I come from the country—there is one stoplight on our whole rez, which is about the size of Rhode Island. It was a big culture shock for me to be in the city. I get on the elevator and this girl gets on with me and she’s not Native. She’s like, ‘you have really pretty hair, what are you?’ And I’m like, ‘thank you, I’m Lakota.’ She didn’t know what that meant, so I said, ‘I’m Native American.’

And she looked at me with the most confused look on her face and said, ‘you guys are still alive?’ Just think about that!

This college educated adult...there’s a lot of adults in this country that think we don’t exist. They’re living on our land

that was colonized, 99.8 percent of our people wiped out.

Imagine that, not even having an identity. People think we don’t exist. I started realizing that whether it was books, classrooms, media, film, music—it was all stories about Native peoples written by non-Native people. A lot of times it was people who had never set a foot in our communities, they were literally making stuff up. When I moved to Chicago I realized that 99 percent of my conversations with non-Native people were about dispelling myths that white men made up about Native people. [So] I decided to use my music, my gift, to just tell people about who I am and where I come from.”

Waln’s song, “What Makes the Red Man Red,” was born out of that experience. “I wanted to flip racism on its head,” he said. “I remember when I was a kid watching Disney’s Peter Pan, there was a scene with the Indians in Neverland. We captured Wendy...for some reason they’ve always got us capturing white women. We didn’t really do that. The Indians were acting like less than human, savages. I was a boy on the reservation, a Native child watching that cartoon and I was really into it. Then it got to that scene and in my mind I was like, no Natives I know act like that, is that supposed to be me? It didn’t dawn on me that that was supposed to be me. To me that was like TV Indians, like this made up, fake thing. But when I left home I realized that’s what the world thought about me, that’s what the world was being taught about me, that I was savage, that I was less than human. I wanted to do something with one of those racist Disney songs, and there’s a lot of them. I found the Disney Peter Pan soundtrack on vinyl in Minneapolis. I took it home, sampled it, made a beat, and I made a new song.”

Waln also spoke of his gratitude to his mother, who raised him as a single parent and performed a song about her bull riding years in her youth. He spoke about the Lakota language and the reasons why his grandmother, a residential school survivor, did not pass the language to her children and grandchildren, and about his journey of relearning the language and singing in the language. At the end of the show, Waln took the time to greet a long line of fans, signing autographs and taking photos. The spirit of the concert echoed Blue’s words: “When we bring people together in spaces like these, it is incredibly healing...healing for ourselves and for the land.

We are taking over spaces that were traditionally not for us, that excluded us, and we are reclaiming them, renaming them.

We are overpowering the systems that kept us from them.”

Frank Waln (center) with Cultural Survival Cambridgebased staff.

Cultural CulturalSurvival SurvivalQuarterly Quarterly December December 2017 • 5 2018 • 5

women th e wo r ld m u st hear

The Women Behind Biodiversity Conservation and Climate Change Adaptation Alejandra Pero

T

he Global Environment Facility Small Grants Programme launched the global component of the Indigenous Peoples Fellowship Initiative at the Climate Change Conference in Marrakesh, Morocco in November 2016 and at the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Conference of the Parties in Cancun, Mexico in December 2016. Four Indigenous women representing four regions were selected through a competitive process as the GEF Small Grants Programme’s first ever global fellows. These women are carrying out work in the areas of biodiversity conservation and climate change adaptation. The global fellowship aims to develop the capacity of Indigenous leaders by supporting their advocacy work on global environmental and sustainable development issues, and advancing the work of their communities, organizations, and networks at the national level. The initiative responds to a need expressed by Indigenous Peoples in consultation for higher level skills and capacity to better represent themselves in policy settings, as well as in development and financial planning dialogues.

Thingreiphi “Athing” Lungharwo (Tangkhul Naga), Northeast India

I am a member of the Naga Women’s Union, made up of 21 Naga Tribes in Northeast India, and I am committed to work for people who struggle to live in peace and dignity. As a traditional knowledge holder, I focus on issues related to food security and gender, community natural resource management systems, biodiversity conservation, climate change adaptation, and resilience. I began my career as a natural resource management organizer and a project technical officer in India’s Northeastern Region Community Resource Management Project. I’ve also worked with the Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact based in Thailand, and the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity, a network of Indigenous Peoples that facilitates their full and effective participation at the Convention on Biological Diversity.

6 • www. cs. org

The focus of my fellowship is on biodiversity conservation and the contributions of traditional knowledge. As Indigenous women, we struggle to make our voices heard within our own communities. In most cases we are not represented in decision making bodies, and even less represented in natural resource management, even though we play important roles in biodiversity and traditional knowledge conservation, which is closely linked to Indigenous identity and culture. Through this fellowship I have built connections between local advocacy and global processes on biodiversity conservation and related issues. The fellowship gives me visibility and recognition, and has created an opportunity to collaborate with a national forum that works on sustainable mountain development, the Integrated Mountain Initiative. Through this platform, we are actively working with the State govern- ment in reviewing the State Action Plan on Climate Change Version II for integration of traditional knowledge. I have also been mentoring youth in research and project management related to biodiversity conservation and environmental protection, and am monitoring the performance of elected representatives on safeguarding the interest and rights of Tribal people at the local level.

Edith Bastidas (Pastos), Colombia

I am a lawyer specializing in constitutional and parliamentary law, which has served to strengthen my work promoting and defending the rights of Indigenous Peoples. I have held various roles in both the public and private sector related to Indigenous Peoples, like manager of the Council on Indigenous Affairs in Antioquia, and researcher and director of the Center of Indigenous Cooperation. I have accompanied processes led by the National Organization of Indigenous Peoples of Colombia, the Movement of Indigenous Authorities of Colombia, and MALLAMAS, an entity that works for the promotion of Indigenous Peoples’ health, where I have provided judicial support in the defense of Indigenous rights.

For 18 years, I have been following local, national, and

international policy related to the Convention on Biological Diversity and the rights of Indigenous Peoples, in addition to issues linked to climate change, right to health, the protection of Indigenous territories, environment and natural resources, and traditional knowledge. I am the focal point in Colombia for the Indigenous Women’s Network on Biodiversity in Latin America and the Caribbean (Red de Mujeres).

At the national level, the fellowship has enabled me to establish greater communication with these government delegations to discuss and analyze the key points of interest to Indigenous Peoples. At the regional and local levels, I have led and participated in workshops on biodiversity and traditional knowledge, climate change, and women’s issues, where the learning that has taken place is shared with Indigenous communities. These experiences have made me realize how important it is to share broadly and ensure Indigenous Peoples— especially Indigenous women—understand these issues, because there are so many processes that exist without women knowing, participating, or giving their consent. Strengthening work at the grassroots level is so important, which is what I plan to emphasize in my work moving forward. I also plan to observe the effectiveness of the protection measures discussed at the international and national levels when they are implemented.

Edna Kaptoyo (Pokot), Kenya

I am a climate and gender justice advocate who is passionate about advocating for climate policies that respect Indigenous Peoples and women’s rights at national and international levels.

My community, the Pokot people, practice agro- pastoralism. Over the years I have witnessed the adverse impacts of climate change like droughts and decreased freshwater. I have also seen how communities are struggling to cope with these climate-related changes and how they are excluded from decision making. For the last 10 years I have been involved in defending environmental and Indigenous Peoples’ rights at the national level. I believe that people and nature are one; we cannot discuss one without the other.

As the executive secretary of the International Alliance of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples of the Tropical Forests, my role is to support members from different regions to advocate and promote Indigenous Peoples’ issues and rights at national, regional, and international policy arenas on climate change, biodiversity, and sustainable development.

The focus of my fellowship has been on Indigenous women and climate change. Engaging in national, regional, and international policy spaces and conference side events has enabled me to shape my understanding of the intersectionality of issues of human rights and environmental rights, and see that Indigenous Peoples’ issues and voices aren’t separate from the current political and environmental crises. These platforms provide an opportunity for others to learn from my perspective as an Indigenous woman. Each day while I interact with different Indigenous communities and other constituencies at national and international levels, I acquire new skills that

inform the work I do. For example, I have been empowering Indigenous women groups to understand the UN Sustainable Development Goals, climate change policy and the implication it has on their livelihood, and the need for them to influence local development planning in their communities. Already, Indigenous women’s groups in West Pokot, Narok, and Marsabit communities are engaging with their leaders on local sustainable development agendas and planning and advocating for gender and climate responsive actions.

Zahra Ouhssain (Amazigh), Morocco

I am from Rissani, an oasis environment located in southeast Morocco. I am a journalist with the Amazigh national radio network and a producer and host of several radio programs in Amazigh on different themes related to language, culture, and the environment. I also work for various community radio networks, such as Climate Radio, for which I covered the UNFCCC COP22. As a journalist I had the opportunity to collaborate with the oasis communities in identifying traditional practices for preserving biodiversity, and I produced a program that addresses the traditional knowledge of the oasis and its contributions to the fight against climate change. In 2016, I received a prize from the Royal Institute of Amazigh Culture for my radio programs on these issues. I also coordinate the women’s committee of the Amazigh Network for Citizenship that fights against the discrimination of the Amazigh people in Morocco. I have represented Amazigh women and women journalists in many international and national forums focusing on the rights of women and Indigenous Peoples.

This fellowship will allow me to carry out my journalistic convictions, and to create a committee that will specialize on issues related to the environment and the monitoring of climate change; the committee will have the task of sensitizing citizens, particularly women, to the importance of conserving natural resources. I will work to develop the capacity of journalists and other relevant actors to raise awareness on climate change and water resource management, and encourage a debate on the need for Indigenous Peoples’ right to live in a healthy environment and have access to clean water. Through the media, people are made aware to act, to respect their environment and natural resources, and to fight against different forms of degradation. I plan to develop radio and television programs in the Amazigh language on the protection of the environment and climate change.

—Alejandra Pero works with the UN Development Programme-implemented GEF Small Grants Programme.

Learn more about the Global Environment Facility Small Grants Programme at sgp.undp.org.

Cultural Survival Quarterly December 2018 • 7

i ndi geno u s k n ow le d g e

Indigenous-led fund are weaving a new model in philanthropy that respects their cultures, worldview and selfdetermination.

Indigenous-Led Funds Seek to Decolonize Philanthropy Rucha Chitnis

I

nstitutional philanthropy, in a nutshell, is a Western construct. Often it can seem transactional, likened to a business deal when funders strategize about returns on investment and the ever-present question of scale. Wealth remains in the hands of few, who are disconnected from the realities of Indigenous communities fighting oil pipelines, extracted mining, and large-scale development projects.

Newly released statistics confirm the reality of the unrelenting violent attacks against Indigenous Peoples defending their way of life: in 2017, nearly four environmental defenders were killed every week for standing against ranchers, poachers, mines, and large infrastructure projects.

While some funders are now embracing a narrative of “equity” in philanthropy, the actual practice requires an honest self-reflection on power dynamics, understanding how wealth is accumulated and learning how colonial systems continue to thrive in both insidious and explicit ways. Breaking patterns that are solidified by class and white privilege is not an easy feat. Sharing power requires humility. To put it simply, it’s not all “Kumbaya” at well meaning philanthropy unconference circles. As Melissa Nelson (Chippewa) of the Turtle Mountain Tribe in North Dakota and president of the Cultural Conservancy explains, “So much of the financial wealth of philanthropic dollars actually comes from Indigenous lands, resources, and labor that was extracted in very harmful ways.

Reimagining wealth is also a form of restitution and healing that is needed in our world today.”

8 • www. cs. org

On the weekend leading up to Indigenous Peoples Day, the International Funders for Indigenous Peoples (IFIP) convened a historic gathering in Santa Fe, NM of Indigenousled funds to dialogue on creating a culturally appropriate model of giving that prioritized their values, wisdom, and self-determination. IFIP advocates for resourcing Indigenous solutions and building respectful partnerships between Indigenous Peoples and the philanthropic community. Suzanne Benally (Diné and Santa Clara Tewa) and Jim Enote (Zuni), both Indigenous leaders in philanthropy, shared stories of their homelands and pueblos and a long history of giving in Native communities, where reciprocity and relationship building continues to sustain connections and build trust.

“Less than one percent of philanthropic giving from top ten U.S. foundations reaches Indigenous communities,” said Benally, executive director of Cultural Survival. “Native philanthropy has an abundance of knowledge and practice in place. It’s important that we find ways to collaborate.” The convening brought together over 20 Indigenous-led funds from Australia, East Africa, Canada, the United States, and Mesoamerica, among other regions. Delegates highlighted examples of Indigenous communities seeding innovations, building renewable energy projects that are communitybased, and creating holistic economic and education models to lift up their people and sustain their cultures. “It is critical that philanthropy recognizes Indigenous Peoples as innovators, scientists, educators, and thought leaders, who are driving local solutions to build resiliency from the ground up,” said Lourdes Inga, executive director of IFIP. All photos by Rucha Chitnis.

The leadership of Indigenous women was front and center at the convening. “As Indigenous-led funds, we are transforming the paradigm of resources. It’s not just about money. Our framework is about mutual investments and respecting intercultural models of giving,” said Teresa Zapata, executive director of International Indigenous Women’s Forum, the world’s first Indigenous women’s fund. The delegates underscored the importance of redistributing resources and advocating for moving large funds from philanthropy to Indigenous-led movements and networks. “We need to re-center Indigenous ways of knowing and giving. Our communities know how to ethically steward the Earth. We have to reject charity models of giving and de-center whiteness,” said Kris Archie, executive director of the Circle on Philanthropy and Aboriginal Peoples in Canada.

Native people in the U.S. also talked about the need to acknowledge the historical trauma of genocide, alongside the mining and extractive industries that continue to hurt their communities in the present, whether from birth defects caused by uranium mining in Navajo Nation or violence against women stemming from “man camps” set up to extract oil in North Dakota. “For too long, we have seen wealth as a banking model of numbers, which is extractive and transactional. For Native people, wealth is having clean water and our sacred seeds. Wealth is having children and elders together. It’s critical for mainstream philanthropic community to recognize the social capital of our community. We have to reimagine how we see wealth from a mainstream model, and we need to be audacious in receiving this abundance,” said Nelson.

Members of Indigenous-led funds also recognized the power of amplifying their own stories and creating a narrative of giving from their collective learning that respects their worldview. “It’s critical that we raise the visibility of Indigenousled funds in the wider philanthropic community and advocate to mobilize large amounts of dollars to them,” said Inga. The vision of Indigenous-led funds is to fundamentally transform top-down, donor-grantee relationships to that of mutual benefit and reciprocity. Accountability and responsibility is a two-way street, and is necessary for a relationship to be equal.

“These Indigenous-led funds have been created over 25 years. They are part of the Indigenous Peoples’ movement for self-determination and the environmental and women’s movement. We are doing so much at the local level that impacts the regional and global level. We need to ask for more money to build relationships and trust,” said Myrna Cunning-

At the IFIP conference, Indigenous delegates centered their knowledge systems and ways of giving.

ham, chair of the Pawanka Fund. Other delegates affirmed the need for traditional philanthropy to shift power dynamics, cultivate Indigenous leadership in decision-making processes, and fund programs where community empowerment and priorities are resourced in a holistic way. Winona LaDuke, renowned Ojibwe activist, also underscored the need to weave a new paradigm of economy, one that moves away from competition toward cooperation at a time when changing climate and accelerating environmental destruction is having a disproportionate impact on Indigenous Peoples.

Indigenous-led funds are decolonizing philanthropy.

Donors have a unique opportunity to listen, unlearn and collaborate. Jane Meriwas, leader of the Samburu Women Trust in Kenya, reminded funders that Indigenous women were capable of leading their own organizations and defining their own destiny, and that funders had an obligation to resource their organizing and movement building. Melissa Nelson added: “These organizations are boldly dismantling power dynamics in philanthropy and are simply getting more resources to Indigenous communities, who are doing so much with so little.”

— Rucha Chitnis is a photojournalist, writer, and an emerging filmmaker. Check out her work at awomanslens.com.

Indigenous funds are challenging the power dynamics in philanthropy and are redefining ideas of wealth, well being, and abundance.

Cultural Survival Quarterly December 2018 • 9

r i ght s i n a ct io n

Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the American Indian Movement Robby Romero “I was sitting in a prison, looking at the civil rights and the anti-war movement passing us by. I wanted to get out so bad to be a part of this movement. It was a new feeling out there, of a different kind of patriotism. Patriotism to human rights, to life instead of death. I wanted to be part of it. Just going to the police department en masse, there was like 200 of us.

Just two weeks before that, we were scared to go by ourselves.

We found strength in 200 of us, all Indian people, who had been beaten, mugged, arrested. Now here we were, we were going back to that same police department that arrested us and we were demanding action. It felt good to finally sense that there was power in unity, power in numbers.”

– Dennis Banks (Ojibwa), co-founder of AIM

T

his year marks the 50th Anniversary of the American Indian Movement (AIM). To understand the rise of the American Indian Movement, one must first distinguish the discrepancies between truth and myth, actuality and propaganda, history and his-story.

Today, the United States of America is the richest country in the world. With only 5 percent of the world’s population, America’s Gross Domestic Product is more than $20 trillion, representing over 31 percent of the world’s economy. Yet Native Peoples, who make up some 2 percent of

AIM flags flew high at Standing Rock, ND.

10 • www. cs. org

the current American population of 325.7 million, are among the poorest and suffer the highest rate of poverty, almost twice the national average of the United States. Neither of these statistics would exist but for the continuous theft and appropriation of Indigenous lands and resources at the hands of an immigrant government.

Before 1776, there were 13 individual colonies of the British Empire occupying Indigenous lands on the East coast of Turtle Island, known as North America. On July 2, 1776, these colonies formally declared independence from Great Britain and formed the United States of America. The reasons for their independence was carefully written in the United States Declaration of Independence. The authors of the Declaration of Independence make a profound statement: “All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” Elsewhere in the document, they also refer to “…the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.” Ever since its adoption on July 4, 1776, the United States government and its agencies have promoted a false narrative, misleading their citizens to believe that Native Peoples are merciless Indian savages, or less than human.

In March of 1824, the U.S. government established the Office of Indian Affairs in its Department of War. Its first mission was to force Native Nations to leave their homelands on a cruel, death-dealing journey of what would come to be known as The Trail of Tears. What followed was a violent onslaught of unlawfulness, dishonesty, and broken treaties, all part of an overall agenda to overrun Native lands and explicitly and brutally destroy Native Peoples. An example of this practice was the Dawes Act of 1887, which gave President Cleveland authority to sell more than 90 million acres of reservation lands to non-Natives in an attempt to assimilate Native Peoples into mainstream American society.

It is important to understand that the legality of American laws and policies towards Native Peoples did not alter the fact that they were unjust, deeply inhuman, and rooted in genocide and colonization. And so, by the dawn of a new century after the so-called “Indian Wars,” Native Peoples were hidden, forgotten, and impoverished in an oppressive and corrupt U.S. Indian reservation system. American agencies, institutions, and business, including sport and entertainment industries, spread propaganda with harmful stereotypes and demeaning mascots to help imprint their ghastly image of “the merciless Indian savages” in the minds of their citizens and the world.

Then came the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 to make Native Peoples citizens of the United States. By the 1940s, fishing rights struggles began to emerge as Native Peoples challenged the U.S. federal and state judicial system. In the 1960s, Native rights and Native civil rights movements burst All photos by Robby Romero.

forth, dramatically exposing inconsistent federal policy and ambiguous U.S. court rulings against Native Peoples. With a dual purpose to achieve both the sovereign rights of Native Nations and the civil rights of Native Peoples, in 1968, from a little church house meeting in Minneapolis, America bore witness to the rise of the American Indian Movement—and perhaps for the first time, an up close glimpse of the lifelong struggles and intergenerational trauma that is the American experience for Native Peoples.

One of AIM’s first missions was to stop the unjust mass incarceration of Native Peoples in Minneapolis. Although Native Peoples made up some 1 percent of the population of Minnesota, they made up more than 10 percent of the prison and jail population. Native Peoples are the unseen victims of a broken U.S. justice system, incarcerated at a rate 38 percent higher than the national average. We fall victim to violent crime at a rate more than double that of U.S. citizens.

When I was 13, my mother sent me to meet with the leaders of the American Indian Movement at an encampment in Diné Territory on the Navajo Indian Reservation. It was here that I first heard of concepts like sovereignty, self-determination, environmental justice, cultural rights, treaty rights, and Red Power. Over the years, the courage and sacrifices of the American Indian Movement would inspire the coming generations with a vision of freedom holding fast to traditional teachings and cultural identity.

From the Occupation of Alcatraz in 1969, the Trail of Broken Treaties march on Washington in 1972, the occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973, and the delegation of Indigenous Peoples at the International Conference on Discrimination Against Indigenous Populations in the Americas at the United Nations Palais des Nations in 1977, to the historic gathering of Native Nations at Oceti Sakowin Camp, Standing Rock in 2016—the global movement to preserve and protect the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and Mother Earth continues to play out on the international stage, giving birth to new generations of Indigenous resistance, friends, and allies.

In the historical 1974 trial, The United States v. Banks and Means, leaders of the American Indian Movement were charged with conspiracy and assault in a standoff with the FBI at Wounded Knee ‘73 and were facing consecutive life sentences plus 200 years each. At the conclusion of the 9-month trial, Chief Judge Fred J. Nichols of the Federal District Court of South Dakota dismissed all of the charges on grounds of governmental misconduct, stating that the government had

“polluted the waters of justice.” The government appealed, but the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Nichols’ decision.

With more than 500 broken treaties by the United States of America, the political imprisonment of Leonard Peltier, and the militarized assault on unarmed women, children, and men at Standing Rock, polluting the waters of justice continues to be a prolonged course of action used by the U.S. government to violate, subjugate, and trample on the rights of Indigenous Peoples and Mother Earth.

Today, in states like Louisiana, the right to protest against pipelines has been outlawed, setting a new precedent and paving the way for the tail end of the Dakota Access Pipeline, now called the Bayou Bridge Pipeline. To be complicit in the theft of land and life, environmental genocide, and the relocation, incarceration, and murder of Indigenous protectors of Mother Earth and all our relations; to turn a blind eye to the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, to overlook the kidnapping and abusive imprisonment of Native children in U.S. boarding schools, are but a few symptoms of an overall agenda to destroy Native Peoples that began in 1492 and continues today. The ends can never justify the means when they are immoral, illegal, and violent.

Many believe that reparations for the billions owed to Native Nations today for stolen land and resources would bankrupt the United States. Certainly no amount of money could ever compensate for the incalculable atrocities committed against Indigenous Peoples, Mother Earth, and all our relations, or the historical and intergenerational trauma that plagues Indian Country today. The road to freedom is a path of power. I speak not of monetary, material, or military power. I am talking about pure power, spiritual power; power to love, power to nurture, power to heal, power to endure, power to resist, power to be free.

Because of the strength, courage, and resilience of the women, children, and men of AIM, the Indigenous nations and organizations representing more than 370 million Indigenous Peoples in 7 regions of the world, and our national and international friends and allies, Indigenous Peoples around the world are at the forefront of human rights, the cutting edge of social change, the frontlines of environmental justice. We are invisible no more.

Left: Robby Romero (far right) with the late AIM leaders Dennis Banks and Russell Means.

Photo by Stacey Thunder.

Right: The struggle for justice continues at Standing Rock.

— Robby Romero (Apache) is president of Native Children’s Survival and leader and frontman of Native rock band Red Thunder. www.RobbyRomero.com Cultural Survival Quarterly December 2018 • 11

indi geno u s fo o d

Decolonizing Our Diet

Sioux Chef Salma Al-Sulaiman

C

hef Sean Sherman (Oglala Lakota) is working to draw attention to the cuisine of America’s Indigenous cultures and reclaim Indigenous food knowledge.

After mastering European dishes in restaurants across Minneapolis, Sherman shifted his focus to the recipes of his ancestors and embraced the budding Indigenous food movement. In 2014 Sherman founded a catering company, Sioux Chef, specializing in Indigenous foods that eliminate the use of European ingredients. Sioux Chef is now an Indigenousled team with a mission of revitalizing Native American cuisine. He published a popular cookbook, The Sioux Chef, which was recently named “Best American Cookbook” by the James Beard Foundation. In 2015 he launched Tatankatruck, a food truck that features Oglala Lakota specialties such as cedar and maple tea, bison, and wild rice bowls. When Sherman and his business partner, Dana Thompson, decided to open a restaurant, their record-breaking Kickstarter campaign raised nearly $150,000 from 2,358 people in 30 days—more individual contributors than any other restaurant to ever raise funds using Kickstarter. The Sioux Chef team has grown rapidly from just Sherman to 12 employees working round the clock to maintain the catering business while developing the physical restaurant.

Sherman’s long term vision is to work with Tribal communities to decolonize diets and bring access to Indigenous foods across the whole United States. Cultural Survival’s Salma Al-Sulaiman recently spoke with Sherman.

Edible wild mushrooms: chicken of the woods, chanterelles, hen of the woods.

Photo by Nancy Bundt.

Cultural Survival: Tell us about your journey into the culinary world.

Sean Sherman: I was born in Pine Ridge in the early ‘70s

and was there until I was about 13. We lived way out in the country, but I had a lot of my family still living at the reservation so we visited often. My parents split up, and my mom moved off the reservation and went back to school. I started cooking out of necessity, just because we did not have a lot of money. I was able to find a job and started working at restaurants as soon as I turned 13. I didn’t really know that I was going to be a chef growing up. I just kept working at restaurants throughout high school, college, and after college.

I went to the same university as my mom, Black Hills State University. When I moved to Minneapolis, I kept working at restaurants and became pretty good at it. I got my first executive chef job just after a few years of being in the city.

I did not go to culinary school.

I started working with the farm-to-table movement when it was barely a movement. It was nice to work directly with farmers and ranchers around me to really help me think outside of the box. It helped me explore more and more food flavors until I had my epiphany a few years later, realizing that there was no Indigenous representation in the culinary world.

It was eye-opening to have that realization that I could name 100 European recipes from English, French, Spanish, and Italian, but could barely think of 10 Dakota recipes. That made me spend a few years researching, experimenting, and reconnecting with plants until I started feeling comfortable to do dinners focused on regional and Indigenous foods, in about 2012.

CS: What makes food a good avenue to reclaim Indigenous cultures?

SS: Food is a really nice center point for people, for under-

standing and for identity. Food really defines who we are on so many levels, nutritiously, regionally, spiritually, culturally.

The removal of food systems [from Native communities] was our driving force; we are centering our whole nonprofit based on returning education and creating food access, which is something that was taken from us, like our ancestors going to boarding schools and residential schools and losing so much

12 12 •• www. www.cs. cs.org org

culture. [With] the destruction of our natural resources and disruption of land and animal and plant resources, we are lucky to have Indigenous agriculture still alive throughout the U.S. at all. A lot of us as Indigenous communities are basically genocidal survivors. It is important to talk about the history.

CS: How can Indigenous foods and wildlife help the food system?

SS: Indigenous communities all over the world have a blue-

print of how to live sustainably using just plants and animals right around you, no petroleum or anything. Much of Indigenous education centers around food: how to hunt, fish, farm, gather and process food, how to use tools and weapons and all of that. Indigenous education never had a price tag on it, so it seems ridiculous that we are kept in such a state of oppression because of lack of education. Food is the most important part of understanding Indigenous food systems because it is complicated; it is not just like going to a cooking school and learning about French techniques. There is so much diversity within Indigenous food systems all around the world that you could find commonality in technique like food preservation and cooking techniques; you know how people were grinding and drying things. We are looking at the knowledge of the wild foods and plants and understanding they are used not just for food, but also for medicine and crafting. We are also looking at agriculture and the history of agriculture, at the migration of people, and understanding the history in general of how we all ended up where we are. It’s important to utilize this Indigenous education and thousands of generations of knowledge of how to live sustainably with the plants and animals around you. That resourcefulness showcases the need for protecting natural resources and continuing this education, writing it down, and showing the value of Indigenous education over Western education.

CS: Tell us about NATIFS and Indigenous Food Labs.

SS: As we were getting ready to open restaurants, we also

had this drive that we wanted to do this everywhere. We did not want to have franchise restaurants because we are trying to return a lot of this education to the communities and make Indigenous foods a part of a daily life. We created the nonprofit, North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems, utilizing the brand Indigenous Food Labs, which we are hoping to open by the Spring in Minneapolis. Indigenous Food Labs is a nonprofit restaurant that is focused on training people to work with Indigenous foods in a restaurant scene.

All of our staff become trainers, so people learn restaurant systems, management, cooking, operations, catering, and all aspects of a full scale restaurant. We also have in the plans a culinary kitchen education center and classroom so we can teach people this curriculum that we want to design around Indigenous food, farming, agriculture, seed saving, foraging techniques, food preservation, salt and sugar fat production... cooking techniques in general. Our goal for Indigenous Food Labs is to have a large education training center open as a public restaurant and help open other smaller food entities.

Basically, we want to be a support and training center. We will help develop everything, including writing the business model and the recipes, and help them build healthy Indigenous food entities for their community that can spur jobs and help

Chef Sean Sherman in action. Photo by Elizabeth Hoover.

bring foods that are culturally relevant to their particular place, land, history, and people. Our goal is to open Indigenous Food Labs everywhere we can throughout North America, largely in the United States but also eventually in Canada and Mexico. Hopefully this will be a resource for anybody around the world to utilize similar techniques to help develop and revitalize Indigenous food systems anywhere, using restaurants as a center point that people not only go to, but learn from.

CS: How can people access Indigenous ingredients?

SS: We wanted a cookbook to give people my idea of how we

approached food and how they can similarly approach food, no matter what region they are in; not to use the exact same ingredients that we have in our region, but to look around and see what is out their back door. Utilizing that concept and thinking about wildfoods, agriculture and history, the processing and the cooking technique and why it is important to decolonize foods; to know why we have pushed so hard to remove the dairy, the wheat flour, the processed sugar, and even beef, pork, and chicken, just to prove a point that there are other protein sources out there. We see that we can start to spur Indigenous regional food hubs all over the place, because no matter where you are in North America there is beautiful Indigenous history and all sorts of different foods.

We have been able to go coast to coast and play with whatever food and history and different flavors that are in those regions, opening the doors for so much more plant diversity in people’s diets. There are so many plants that are not being utilized at all, that are completely perfect food sources, and we literally step on them all the time.

CS: What are your plans for the future?

SS: We are hoping we can start working on opening our

first Indigenous Food Labs in different parts of the country, like Albuquerque, Denver, Seattle, Boston, or Chicago, to help those respective regions to do that same work to help the Tribes around them to solidify and revitalize the food systems and to grow those economic opportunities. We are also going to be working on the next book iteration, taking a deeper look at North America as a whole.

Cultural Survival Quarterly December 2018 • 13

Respecting Our Traditional Science and Ways of Knowing

Convening participants at the meeting site, Eco-turixtlan in Ixtlán de Juárez, Oaxaca, Mexico.

Bia’ni Madsa’ Juárez López (CS STAFF), Danielle DeLuca (CS STAFF), Alma Patricia Soto Sánchez

inspiration for discussion of issues around environ- mental stewardship, traditional knowledge, Indigenous science, climate science, and Indigenous rights.

In the keynote address, Diné elder and Tribal leader limate change affects Indigenous Peoples at disproporDuane “Chili” Yazzie provided a compass for the contionate rates and impacts traditional lifeways and food versations through the traditional emergence story of sovereignty. On August 24-26, 2018, more than 60 Indigthe Diné people, expressing the need for humankind enous community members and experts from Xhidza to return to the “original instructions” of how to exist (Zapoteca), Quechua, Zapoteca, Kaqchikel, Ayuuk on this earth in spiritual relationship (Mixe), Dine’, Nahua, Otomí, Navajo, with Mother Nature. “Mother Earth Santa Clara Tewa, Yaqui, Binizá (Zapoteca), started with people of four different Oneida, Sami, K’iche, Tacana, Aymara, and Mixcolors settling around the world. teco communities met to discuss climate change, They all had the original principles traditional knowledge, and food sovereignty in and values we should live by to sustain Ixtlán de Juárez, Oaxaca, Mexico. The gathering, harmony relationships with Mother “Respecting Our Traditional Science and Ways Earth and the mighty powers of the of Knowing: Indigenous Peoples’ Sovereignty, universe,” he retold.

Lifeways, and Climate Change,” was organized Berenice Sanchez (Nahua, Otomí),

by Cultural Survival and the International IndiAssembly of Indigenous Peoples for an Treaty Council.

— Suzanne Benally Food Sovereignty president, framed The goal of the convening was to engage in a a discussion of bio-cultural impacts of climate change dialogue on Indigenous perspectives of climate change from our around the way Indigenous Peoples understand climate traditional knowledge and science; how we understand, frame, and change; as holistic rather than parceled, rooted in placedefine climate change through our cultural practices and spiritual based experiences with the natural world. In Sierra knowledge, and how we intersect with Western climate science.

Juárez, Mexico, for example, some elders refer to climate The causes and impacts of climate change for Indigenous Peoples change as “the world that is changing.” Participants and their local communities were also discussed. The meeting site, discussed what we have been experiencing in our Eco-turixtlan, an eco-forestry project wholly owned by the local territories: the loss of plants and animals, the changes Ixtlán de Juárez Indigenous community, was a source of great

C

14 • www. cs. org

“Our mission in life, for all of us who have accepted to defend the earth, is to bring back the original teachings.”

All photos for this article by Jamie Malcolm-Brown.

in seasons and ecosystems, the disappearance of springs, the emergence of droughts, what changes in temperatures looks like. In Mexico, as one participant lamented, “there is decreased water availability for human use and for land-based activities. We are losing seeds due to the droughts, or to the rain coming at a different time. We are also experiencing seed loss due to birds that get to the fields really hungry and take them out of the ground.”

Elsewhere, such as in Chiapas and Oaxaca, the coffee rust fungus has attacked shade plantations and caused much damage, endangering vast areas of forest. In California, acorns are suffering from disease related to climate change that affects the health of trees, and by extension the food base for animals and Native Peoples, as well as contributing to wildfires. And in the Arctic, Aslak Holmberg (Sami), member of the Sami Council, reported that “this summer was exceptionally warm and dry; there were forest fires. When the forest burns, it destroys the grasslands of the reindeer, affecting not only this year’s availability, but many decades ahead. For salmon fishers, the water levels were very low; the presence of salmon changes due to all this.” Cultural Survival’s executive director, Suzanne Benally, offered a summation of the conversations: “We understand climate change as the set of events and extreme alterations of the different natural phenomena related to the climate that causes drastic effects on our planet.

Climate change puts us and our social, cultural, spiritual, and economic environment at risk.”

The arrived-at consensus is that humankind’s spiritual relationship with Mother Earth has been deeply damaged in the prevailing Western neo-colonial culture, and that the separation of human beings from Mother Nature is a root cause of the current climate crisis we face. Humankind broke the sacred link with nature, and has abused and exploited the natural world that provides us with everything that we need.

As one participant framed it, Western ideology has drifted far from the original teachings, from the reality. “They don’t see anything wrong in drilling for oil, extracting uranium and coal and gas, destroying the earth in the process. Internal colonialism has made it so that this Western thought is not only coming from the outside, but also from some of us.

Communities get divided in front of development projects, and sometimes we get greedy and irresponsible with the Earth.”

As Indigenous Peoples, discussion is needed among our communities and our youth not only about sustainable land management, but also incorporating our traditional lifeways.

Underscoring this point, another participant said, “If we are doing spring restoration, we also include cultural protocols in the process, and we introduce stories and keep our connection to sacred springs in this process.” Changes in the climate reflect changes in our stories, our songs, our ceremonies, our dances, our spiritual traditions. Traditional knowledge has to be maintained, but it also has to be updated accordingly with new experiences.

In roundtable discussions, facilitators Daniel Pascual (K’iche), coordinator of Comite de Unidad Campesina in Guatemala and Gabriela Linares (Zapotec), member of the Union of Organizations of the Sierra Juarez of Oaxaca, Mexico, guided conversations about the important role of land rights in Indigenous Peoples’ work toward combating climate change. The right to manage our traditional lands

is an essential foundation upon which all of our lifeways, traditional knowledge, and wellbeing rests. Other presentations gave specific examples of communities working sustainably towards food sovereignty in ways that benefit both the earth and local economies. These included shade-grown coffee, seed saving, and the promotion of Indigenous plant foods and medicines, along with networks and support for small farmers. In one such example, an Indigenous and small farmers cooperative in Tlaxcala, Mexico, who found their crops plagued by grasshoppers, solved their problem by returning to traditional practices of harvesting the grasshoppers for consumption.

“Our traditional economics is that we do not change our surroundings, but we change our behavior to fit the surroundings. Trees bring the rain, and we have a lot of traditional knowledge related to the forest. We have to keep that knowledge and conserve our forest to help the environment and help the circle of life. We believe that the model of food sovereignty is a model that must be ecologically, socially, economically, and culturally appropriate; it must be part of the right to self-determination that all peoples have,” said Andrea Carmen (Yaqui), International Indian Treaty Council executive director.

Communities continue producing their own food, preserving the seeds, and exchanging them between people.

Indigenous Peoples in Mexico are using the strengthening of tequio (collective work) and knowledge to revitalize native horticulture, including new irrigation systems and returning to organic production and the use of greenhouses with controlled use of water. “We need to recover the organic, spiritual cropping of our traditional crops, not only for their traditional value, but also for their medicinal importance and for what they represent in the general well being,” stated a participant.

Some of these crops, like quinoa, cañihua, amaranth, and different varieties of tubers, have been exploited and overpriced and need to be reclaimed to our livelihoods and production systems.

Concluding the convening, a consensus-based Outcome Document outlined the participants’ perspectives and position on Indigenous Peoples’ rights and responsibilities regarding climate change, traditional knowledge, and food sovereignty.

Indigenous communities are facing changes in practices and daily life, recovering, reformulating, and transforming our traditional knowledge. We relate to nature as a way to obtain our livelihoods, but the way we relate to our environment also represents mitigation and adaptation measures for climate change. We are participating in local, national, and international forums to defend food sovereignty, biodiversity, climate, and Indigenous rights. We seek not only the recognition of our ways of life and knowledge, but to be involved in the decision making processes, and to discuss ways to mitigate and adapt to the new conditions that climate change is creating.

— Alma Patricia Soto Sánchez is a researcher at Conacyt/ Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social Pacífico Sur in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Read the Convening Outcome Statement at tinyurl.com/ycpwb4dq.

Cultural Survival Quarterly December 2018 • 15

Voices from Ixtlán de Juárez . . .

Excerpts of interviews conducted at Respecting Our Traditional Science and Ways of Knowing event

Aslak Holmberg (Sami) member of the Sami Council, Finland

I

am from the northern part of Europe. The land of the Sami encompasses most of Norway, Sweden, part of Russia, and Finland. It’s a very cold area, an arctic or subarctic region. There are many lakes that get frozen over. We have lots of snow on the ground, white gardens; very long winters, very light and short summers, not a lot of sunlight. But the winter has been getting much shorter, and spring is becoming longer. We’ve had a lot of irregular weather with very low or very high water levels. Last summer was exceptionally warm. These irregular weather patterns are happening during winter, and the rain in the winter is affecting the pastures.

I’ve been working occasionally with the Sami council as a youth representing the council. When the Paris Agreement was being made, I was involved with youth politics representing the Finnish youth organization. After participating in this, little by little I have been receiving more invitations to participate. The Paris Agreement is a global agreement to stop or slow down climate change, to force the States to do something If you want to see some change, you can change your own behavior and lead by example. Also, be mindful of your actions and how they impact the environment and climate.

I think it’s really important to acknowledge that there will be changes; some things we cannot stop. So it’s [our responsibility] to educate ourselves and know what kinds of changes could happen in our communities and environments, so that we can prepare for what’s to come.

Berenice Sanchez (Nahua/Otomí) presenting on food sovereignty in Mexico.

16 • www. cs. org

What I came to learn already in the first days is that people might not be aware that there are Indigenous Peoples in the north of Europe, that there are Indigenous People that are white. That’s something I have also come across before. We share a similar kind of history of colonialism and marginalization with Indigenous Peoples all over the world.

Cultural Survival Indigenous Community Media Youth Fellows (L–R): Ignacio Contreras Diego (Nahuatl), Zyania Roxana Santiago Aguilar (Zapotec); Joaquín Yescas Martínez (Zapoteco Xhidza) interviewing Aslak Holmberg (Sami).

Andrea Carmen Valencia (Yaqui) International Indian Treaty Council Executive Director

T

he issue of food sovereignty intersects with other issues. This is one of the four main issues we address at the International Indian Treaty Council, along with human rights, environmental health, and treaties, together with international legal regulations. The issue of food sovereignty is very important; it is one of the principles that contributes to the self-determination of our peoples, because without such sovereignty it is not possible for us to feed our children. It is not only about the food itself, it is also spiritual. For the Maya, for example, corn is not only the great food that nourishes our body, but corn is also the first source of creation. The introduction of genetically modified corn in Guatemala is a problem especially if it is not understood that corn is the spiritual base of the Maya people; the problem is not solely a matter of nutrition or the economy of the communities. We are dealing with an issue closely linked to the right to land, water, the seeds themselves, and the problem of climate change and environmental pollution, together with the fight against extractive industries.

For years we participated together with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in the matter of food security. Now we have a committee with the participation of the Indigenous Peoples themselves where they can present their complaints, but above all contribute to set concepts born of several questions: What is sustainability? What are human rights? What is the protection of the environment? We have participated in global conferences on climate change and we have noted the good handling of data from Western scientists, but Indigenous Peoples have their own science, connected since ancient times to the observation of the biological cycles of Mother Earth.

Our science can be combined with other forms of knowledge in our communities and in the international field.

On one occasion I was in the house of Anselmo Valencia, then leader of the Yaquis, and he took me to the back of his house where he showed me a little bit of little black corn.

He explained that everyone prefers to grow yellow corn and has neglected the cultivation of black corn, corn that needs very little water and whose technical management has been transferred from generation to generation. Here is an example of our science to be shared with the world.

Cultural Survival Quarterly December 2018 • 17

Voices from Ixtlán de Juárez . . .

Excerpts of interviews conducted at Respecting Our Traditional Science and Ways of Knowing event

Celia Alicia Gomez Carrasco (XapotEca) Yureni A.C., Ocotlán de Morelos, Oaxaca, Mexico

I

work in an environmental and human rights organization. One of the reasons I decided to come to this event is because the topics we are working with coincide with the issues that are being addressed now. We are a group of women who are working with environmental issues, with the objectives of human rights and environmental justice.

I joined the association because of my thesis topic, which has to do with the impact of climate variability on maize crops in acampesino community in the Sierra. When I joined the association I started to relate with people who shared my concerns and could contribute to my research. Events such as this one address issues such as climate change, food sovereignty, and traditional ways of life of communities.

I’ve seen how food sovereignty has been undermined in the community where I come from, Ocotlán de Morelos. Now it is a community with more and more merchants, so much so that the production of food has been put aside. There are farmers, but they are now a minority. The issue of food production is one of little importance, almost ignored. Worse, large companies have appeared, like certain wineries, that supply you with food.

Having gone to live in the Sierra Juárez made me reflect on what is happening to us in Ocotlán, why we are not producing food. Establishing a contrast between my town of Ocotlán and the Sierra Juárez motivates me to start taking action in favor of food sovereignty. If it is not done, we will have difficult conflicts. We already have problems, so much so that Ocotlán is part of the Association of United Peoples for the Defense of Water. The idea is to be able to rationally manage the resource of water in favor of the common good.

Ocotlán is close to another place that is completely agricultural, so we have to do something. I do not know yet what it will take to reinvigorate agriculture in the short and medium term; but I am interested in planting. It’s real that my family sometimes lacks food and that water is bought

in carafes. It is a situation that has become a common experience. When there is no water, when it’s over, we will not be able to buy it anymore. What will we do? You have to be aware of all this.

Preparing meals for the convening participants based on locally sourced ingredients.

18 • www. cs. org

Suzanne Benally (Navajo and Santa Clara Tewa), Cultural Survival executive director, summing up the day’s conversations.

Emigdio Ballón (Quechua) AGRICULTURAL DIRECTOR, PUEBLO OF TESUQUE

I

n Bolivia, I studied agronomy with a specialization in genetics, graduated as an engineer, and I worked as the national coordinator of the Andean Crops Program. It is clear that our ancestors have done for thousands of years what we learn in college about selection and all those questions. You can see it with corn, its flavor and color. [For example], the Jope corn is a small corn that grows only three feet in height, and the quality changes with quite large ears. For me there is nothing comparable to traditional crops. Our grandparents already knew organic agriculture; they did not use pesticides.

In 1974 or ‘75, an event was organized in the Lipes community called the National Quinoa Festival, and I shared a bedroom with a professor at the University of Colorado.

We exchanged opinions, and this was how the the quinoa farmers’ cooperative was organized. I ended up going to the United States to do research on quinoa and amaranth grains.

In the United States, I worked with a small NGO that devoted itself to the collection and trade of seeds but had to close due to lack of funds. Our idea was to distribute these seeds for free, but it did not work and in the end a corporation bought the seeds. It is part of the first company of organic seeds in the United States, perhaps in the world.

Later I worked with a film producer on medicinal plants knowledge that I acquired from my parents, grandparents, and my mother in particular, who had a lot of knowledge in medicinal plants. She was a healer. Some Native friends from the United States suggested that I work with them in a community called Tesuque in New Mexico, and I have been with them since. I am currently the director of the natural resources program. We created a seed library and the documentary film, Seed: The Untold Story.

I met an Argentinian man who came to Seeds of Change, a company I helped found, and I gave him seeds to take to Argentina. He passed through Mexico and Guatemala and left seeds in those places and others. He brought seeds to Huicholes brothers and he always stays in Peru.

Indigenous Rights Radio Producer, Rosy Gonzalez, (Kakchiquel Maya) interviewing Emigdio Ballón (Quechua).

The seed bank was an achievement. In the Tribe where I work every year, the council and the governor have changed; some have supported us and others do not. There are a number of difficulties, but in spite of that, when you believe in divine power, things done with good intention come to a conclusion.

Thanks to some foundations, like the First Nations Development Fund, the seed bank could be built. We have solar energy, rescue and harvest water, a fruit dryer made with solar energy, and the seed library is made of recycled material and and runs on sustainable energy. The walls are made of bales of straw, so we do not need an artificial system to maintain the temperature.

Who controls the seeds, controls life. I know because Alejandro, the Argentine friend, walks the seeds through other territories where I deposit them. The seed bank is very important. You do not have to have all the seeds, but the most important ones for the use of our communities. Food sovereignty is to produce what we eat, what our grandparents ate, which is what has kept us alive.

Cultural Survival Quarterly December 2018 • 19

Enjoying a cup of coffee that was locally produced and shade grown.

Berenice Sanchez (Nahua/Otomí) Assembly of Indigenous Peoples for Food Sovereignty President, Mexico

I

was involved in a national effort to consult Indigenous Peoples of Mexico about their positions in relation to climate change [to ensure] our knowledge and traditions were taken into account. Speaking of climate change in academic terms with an economic focus has been a challenge, because for us, the issue is not so complicated. I do not know if this complexity is created intentionally to keep us away from the subject. Our traditions and daily experience with climate might not be academic or done in the cold offices of meteorologists, but Indigenous Peoples have always depended on the full understanding of the seasons to survive and have accumulated knowledge throughout the centuries based on observations.

Everything, absolutely all the factors, has been observed and interpreted to predict the dance of the rains, the droughts, the frosts, the winds, the light, the moon, the sun. Indigenous Peoples enjoy the tradition of reporting the climate and understand, based on these reports, the ABCs of what we now call climate change. We know of birds that migrate to our forests; some of these bird species have not even been registered by the national authorities. For us, this bird is a carrier of knowledge that has been cemented with our observations.

We have specific knowledge about our territories, and in the face of the current climate crisis we can deduce responses originated in our communities. What we offer is science, because we have systematized and interpreted these observations.

It is very important, the sharing of responsibility that affects Indigenous Peoples. Indigenous Peoples cannot be accused of causing the current crisis, nor can we accept that our forests have become a dumping ground for carbon emissions. Our territories should not be considered a garbage

20 • www. cs. org

Indigenous Rights Radio Producer, Rosy Gonzalez, (Kakchiquel Maya) interviewing Berenice Sanchez (Nahua/Otomí).

dump. We must be fair in assigning responsibilities to those who have the greatest impact with their carbon emissions.

For example, the United States must assume the greatest share of responsibility; the same goes for Switzerland, Germany, and Mexico. It is incongruous with reality that these responsibilities are charged to Indigenous Peoples.

The strength of Indigenous Peoples is found in our traditions, in our devotion to Mother Earth, in our wisdom, in our spirituality. This is a small light for the rest of humanity.

This fight, while dangerous in Mexico—one you can get killed for—must also be carried on by our children in memory of our grandparents, so that these same young people do not get lost in modernity with their cell phones, but always return to the common house that we have built over many centuries.

Voices from Ixtlán de Juárez . . .

Excerpts of interviews conducted at Respecting Our Traditional Science and Ways of Knowing event

Rafael Avendaño (Mixteco) Cooperativa del Caracol Púrpura, Pinotepa de Don Luis, Mexico

W

e have worked this trade of purple snail milking for many years; it is a millenary tradition of extracting purple dye from the snail that our ancestors left us. I am the third generation of my family in this profession, and we face the serious problem of the overharvesting of this mollusk by the people who live in the area. We are the carriers of the knowledge and technique of how to relate to the purple snail. The Mixtecos keep the tradition of respecting the land, the sea, and the moon, with which we work according to their cycles and their relationship with the sea. Biologists and anthropologists have learned from us the empirical knowledge that our ancestors left us. Books have been published about our knowledge in this subject and in other fields.

In 1982, Indigenous Mixtecs sued a Japanese company, Purple Imperial, which arrived in Mexico a short time before to extract the dye from the mollusk. Soon, their activity resulted in massive deaths of the snail. Fortunately in 1985 we had a victory with the recognition of Mixteco efforts to conserve the environment, and we were authorized to legally enter Huatulco National Park.

As Indigenous people, we have the best techniques to live in harmony with nature, how to work the land without hurting it, how to live with animals without killing them, and how to fulfill our food needs without harming trees. We have a lot of knowledge and skills, such as the engravings on jícara fruits. Today, we face a very serious problem: people are coming to the area to harvest the purple snail, which is considered a delicacy. What will happen in two or three years when the purple snail becomes extinct? What will happen is that it will end a millenary tradition of Indigenous Peoples. For us, the Mixtecos, the purple color is sacred, symbolizing the purity and fertility of Mixtec women.

Rafael Avendaño (Mixteco) presenting Cultural Survival with a piece of art made by a local Mixteco artist.

We want to educate the people of the area and local restaurants, especially the people who do not know the importance of the purple snail in Mixtec culture. We are aiming for a 50 percent reduction in the consumption of the snail. Based on a public awareness campaign, talks, posters, radio spots, and a triptych we are doing, we can achieve this percentage. Humans are very quick to destroy. We have been fighting for the snail’s survival since 1985 and have done it with our own resources, with our own money, using the money we make from selling our engraving toward our legal fees. Thanks to a Keepers of the Earth Fund grant, we hope to continue generating a positive impact in this campaign.

Listen to our Indigenous Rights Radio Program on Food Sovereignty!

Indigenous Rights Radio Producer Dev Kumar Sunuwar interviews Dr. Phrang Roy, a Khasi biodiversity activist from Shillong, North-East India, on food security among Indigenous Peoples.

Visit: bit.ly/2zRfcHN

Listen to an interview with Tunda Lepore, Massai Activists from East Africa, Kenya, about the gradual loss of elder members of the Maasai community and its impacts on transmitting Indigenous knowledge.

Visit: bit.ly/2QGtORA

Cultural Survival Quarterly December 2018 • 21

i ndi geno u s k n ow le d g e

Made in the Shade Mixe Coffee Farmers Cultivate Sustainability

Paula Reyes Pérez in her element on her beloved land in San Jose El Paraiso, Oaxaca, Mexico. Photo by Cristian Juárez.

Bia’ni Madsa’ Juárez López (CS STAFF)

P

aula Reyes Pérez is a 68-year-old Ayuuk (Mixe) woman living in the mountainous community of San Jose El Paraiso, a part of the northern highlands of Oaxaca, Mexico. Oaxaca is the most culturally and biologically diverse state of Mexico, but it is also one of the poorest in the country. Reyes is a coffee producer with two coffee farms, one in the ta’ag naax, or the zone next to the river, and another in the këjx wiin (slope area, near the community). Reyes has been a tireless single farmworker even before she was married, and later widowed 10 years ago. She goes out several times a week, accompanied only by her machete, to visit her coffee farms. On the days she goes to the farms, she gets up in the morning, goes to the mill, lights the stove, and prepares her tortillas and food that she wraps in a napkin to take with her.

22 • www. cs. org

On her way, Reyes greets her fellow townspeople. Upon arriving at her coffee farm, she walks through it and cuts the trees that do not have space to grow, supports the trees that are not growing well, and prunes a branch here and there.

She knows her coffee farm like the palm of her hand. Singing, she checks the color of the leaves and notices the smells that evoke dry or rainy times. In each season she does different tasks to maintain the coffee farm. Sometimes she takes a young coffee plant and transplants it; sometimes she takes one that has germinated on its own and places it somewhere with enough space to grow. This tireless dedication to her plants is why, when the coffee rust fungus almost put an end to the production of coffee in the village, Reyes was still harvesting.

Reyes’ work is much more important than she imagines.

Her coffee farm, together with that of her neighbors in the town of San José El Paraíso, conserve many species of trees; 85 in total, and almost the entirety of the remaining medium subperennifolia forest (the original forest type in this area) in the community. Although coffee is native to another continent and was introduced to the Mixe mountains only about 100 years ago, it was well embraced, as it could coexist with one of the most sacred things for the Mixe people: the mountains. The trees that grow on the coffee farms are kept there for many reasons, some without “explicit importance,” to use an economic term. As people in the community say, some trees are of no use to humans, and are just there to be eaten by little animals. This respect for other lifeforms is a main factor contributing to the high biological diversity of coffee farms in the region.

Coffee farms are an important part of family and cultural life in the San Jose El Paraiso community. Community members collect firewood from trees, such as tuut kop—always from fallen or pruned branches of old trees, never from young and strong trees. They harvest edible wild leaves, as well as fruit such as ujty (avocados), tsa pox (lemons), and tsaj tsuuky (oranges) that are planted among the coffee trees. They gather raw material as wood for different uses, such as pi’k maxy used for shovel handles; medicinal plants such as ëëk to cleanse the kidneys or the nëmu’um to cure fever; and the pa’aj teyk tree for use in ceremonies.

Coffee is harvested collectively in the community. At the end of the year the people get together to help each other.

Neighbors, family, friends, compadres, and churchmates agree to help harvest the coffee in one person’s coffee plantation, and then that person helps the others. In this way, the work is distributed and makes it possible for single women like Reyes to continue producing coffee. Coffee could not be harvested without the effort of women, as they are responsible for maintaining collaborative relationships in the community.

“Coffee is as if it belongs to everyone, because we all cut it.”

— Paula Reyes Pérez

Photo courtesy of Angélica Portales.

Reyes, along with the producers of San José El Paraíso and all the shade grown coffee producers in the world (who are mostly Indigenous people from small communities), benefit the whole world when they grow their coffee. Unlike the mechanized coffee plantations where coffee is grown without shade or with only one type of tree, a Mixe coffee farm is made up of coffee trees, dozens of other tree species, and animals, whose ecology is similar to that of a forest. Maintaining bio-diversity and ecological relationships with attentive care, these coffee growers maintain the temperature of the environment, clean the air, retain soil and avoid erosion, recharge the groundwater, generate oxygen, and capture carbon.

When Indigenous communities manage coffee farms, there is a positive impact on the environment; unlike management by large companies, which too often results in eliminating most, if not all, other species and dramatically changes the local ecology.

Despite the great benefits of coffee and its careful tending and the invaluable knowledge involved in cultivating it, coffee production faces problems. Certification processes are complex

and expensive. Although it is produced organically, small producers do not process and sell a finished product because the machinery needed for grinding and roasting the beans is very expensive. Further, coffee commodity prices are extremely variable and depend on the world market, which generates economic insecurity. Coffee rust fungus has damaged many coffee plantations and caused losses of more than 50 percent of the coffee plantations, which has considerably reduced the harvest in the community. To improve the health of coffee farms it is necessary to plant new plants, but the costs are high and young labor is in low supply because of migration.

Still, in spite of these challenges and the complexity of its production, Indigenous growers like Reyes continue walking in the mornings to their coffee farms, tending the trees and the animals that live in them, so the rest of the world can start their day with a cup of coffee. The next time you drink a cup, remember to ask yourself: did my coffee grow in the shade?

Who produced it? Does the producer earn enough? You can help make sure this is so by buying coffee from small producers and cooperatives that is shade grown and fairly traded.

Cultural Survival Quarterly December 2018 • 23

I ndigeno u s C o m m u nications witho ut B orders

Indigenous Peoples of Central America Demand Laws that Favor Community Broadcasting Above: Community radio journalists from all over Central America gathered in Panajachel, Guatemala, at the third meeting of the regional network.

Photo by Nati Garcia.

Cesar Gomez and Nati Garcia (CS STAFF)

E

veryone has the right to freedom of expression; to hold, seek, and share ideas without interference.

Indigenous Peoples have been stewards of communication, passing down knowledge orally through many generations. They are experts of their media. Community radio has been a growing element in Indigenous Peoples exercising their rights and revitalizing their cultures, languages, and traditions.

The Central American Indigenous Community Radio Network convened in Panajachel, Guatemala, August 8–9 to commemorate the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples. It was the second gathering of the Central American Indigenous Community Radio Network, just two years after its inaugural gathering in Panama, and the outcome was impressive. More than 60 representatives of community radio stations from Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama exchanged experiences about the advances and setbacks of community radio broadcasting, the rights of Indigenous Peoples to freedom of expression and access to their own media, and the criminalization and imprisonment of community journalists in their countries. Participants also reviewed and approved a regional strategic plan for the Network.

Democracy demands equality of civil and political rights for all citizens. UNESCO has stated that radio frequencies are a shared heritage of humanity, and governments are required

24 • www. cs. org

to grant and administer them equally, without discrimination.

However, this requirement has not been met in several countries in Central America. Indigenous Peoples continue to be excluded and discriminated against when accessing radio frequencies, denying them the right to freedom of expression.

“Information is power,” said Eva Tecún, an attorney at Tz’ununija’ Indigenous Women’s Movement in Guatemala.

“Community radio stations have questioned colonialism, and at the same time have strengthened the identities, cultures, and languages of Indigenous Peoples. Community radio stations have put forward the need and right for Indigenous communication as a tool for Indigenous Peoples’ development, where conventionally communication was seen as a field where only professional journalists could participate.”

Indigenous Peoples in communities around the world have recognized the importance of locally owned and operated media as being crucial for self-determination, as well as a key tool to strengthen the use of Indigenous languages and other elements of their cultures. Indigenous communities in at least 81 countries have invested their own local resources to establish and maintain community-run media outlets. Many of these communities have chosen radio as the most practical medium. However, several nation states do not have the appropriate laws and regulations to give legal authorization to Indigenous community radio stations.

In 2016, responding to the need for solidarity and cooperation between Indigenous communities across international borders, 35 representatives from all seven Central American

countries gathered in Nargana, Panama, at an event hosted by the autonomous government of Guna Yala, to lay the groundwork for a regional alliance of Indigenous community radio stations. Indigenous radio stations face similar challenges irrespective of what nation state encompasses their traditional territories. The representatives of the participating radio stations, along with several accompanying NGOs, including Cultural Survival, Fundacion Comunicandanos, World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters, Voces Indigenas de Panama, and Asociacion Sobrevivencia Cultural, created a strategic framework and set of goals for the Network.

The recent meeting in Panajachel is a significant step in the continued growth and consolidation of this network, and Indigenous youth were particularly visible. With the diaspora of Indigenous knowledge and practices, community media has been an outlet for the youth; the increase of youth participation in community radio is much needed for many Indigenous communities. When discussions are held around frequency licenses, demands for protection for Indigenous journalists, and State accountability for freedom of expression, youth must take part in those conversations because they are the ones that are most impacted and will be the next leaders. It is important for youth to take leadership in the struggles community radio is facing now, and in the future. The gathering created this opportunity for the emergence of future youth voices.

Cultural Survival initiated the Indigenous Community Media Youth Fellowship project for Indigenous youth to gain access to media, especially community radio, to strengthen their cultural practices and exert their rights of freedom of expression. Two youth fellows were invited to attend the meeting: Raciel González Rojas from Boruca Cultural Radio in Costa Rica, and Delia Marisela Maquin Cucul from Radio Comunitaria Xyaab’ Tzuul Taq’n in Guatemala. Both participated as emcees for the gathering and led a few ice breaker activities. Rojas was elected as a board member for the Regional Council of the Central American Community Radio Network, representing Costa Rica, which developed a document outlining the challenges community radio faces in the current contexts. Law and communications professionals were invited to weigh in regarding the situation Guatemala and Mexico, including Cristian Otzin of the Association of Mayan Lawyers of Guatemala; Socrates Vásquez of Jenpoj Community Radio in Tlahuitoltepec, Oaxaca, Mexico; and Tecun.

Otzín emphasized that Guatemala is reluctant to democratize the radio spectrum because it currently benefits a privileged minority who label community stations as ‘pirate’ and illegal, comparing them with organized crime. In 2011, a case was presented to Guatemala’s Constitutional Court questioning the auction system, which is currently the only mechanism in place to legally acquire radio frequencies. The Court pressed the Congress in 2012 to pass a law respecting Indigenous Peoples’ rights, which has not advanced in the legislative body.

Parallel to these actions, the Public Ministry has misapplied criminal law statutes to justify raids against community radio stations and to silence the voices of the people by confiscating transmission equipment and imprisonment of community journalists.

In spite of this dire scenario, since the establishment of the Network, progress has been made in each of the seven

member countries. In Belize, where a single Indigenous station serves the southern part of the country (where most of the Indigenous population lives), a group of community journalists have been trained to report on Indigenous rights issues.

In Honduras, 17 Indigenous radio stations have organized themselves into an Indigenous Radio Roundtable to work together on common issues. In El Salvador, communities have been in discussions with the government about opening up frequencies to Indigenous communities for the first time.

In Panama, where the current law technically allows for Indigenous organizations to obtain a broadcast license, communities have been frustrated by bureaucratic obstructionism.

Two Indigenous communities have completed all of the required preparations to obtain broadcast licenses, but were rejected on technicalities. In protest, the autonomous Indigenous government of Guna Yala went on the air with an “experimental” radio station for a few days last year and again in October. Many challenges still remain. However, hopeful examples of positive changes to obstructive broadcasting laws do exist. For example, Mexico recently changed its broadcasting law to allow for Indigenous communities to obtain licenses.

“What are the things that makes us different as Indigenous radio journalists?” asked Vásquez in his opening remarks, which highlighted the struggle of Indigenous Peoples throughout history and how Indigenous communication is not only carried out between human beings, but among all living beings. In Mexico in the early 1960s, Indigenous people began to communicate through magazines, newspapers, and radio production centers. During the commemoration of 500 years of invasion of America, among their stated demands were the right to autonomy and the means of communication. Later on, with the Zapatista uprising in 1994 and the signing of the San Andrés Peace Accords, the right to communication was guaranteed.

The same scenario has played out in several countries, as government and businesses have sought ways to keep Indigenous Peoples from their own means of communication and to protect their private communication enterprises. They argue that there are no radio frequencies available and that that broadcasting rights have to be obtained through public auctions that go to the highest bidder. Instead of protecting the well being of citizens, governments have sided with communication monopolies promoting undemocratic laws, extending their use of the radio airwaves indefinitely without taking into account Indigenous Peoples. This is a serious violation of freedom of expression and international human rights standards, such as ILO Convention 169, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and the American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The meeting of the Central American Indigenous Community Radio Network showcased the reality of Indigenous Peoples of the region, and in so doing, highlighted why it is necessary to strengthen community media and address the exclusionary and discriminatory policies that impede their rights. The Network’s strategic plan emphasizes the defense of freedom of expression and the promotion of national and international actions to demand responsible State legislation and public policies to democratize media in favor of Indigenous Peoples.

Cultural Survival Quarterly December 2018 • 25

B a za a r a rtist:

Communicating through thread

Timoteo Ccarita

T

imoteo Ccarita is an Andean textile artist from the community of Pitumarca, Peru. “Textile art dates back to the pre-Inca period in the district of Pitumarca,” Ccarita says. “It has never been considered an art, but rather a means of communication through iconography.”

At the Cultural Survival Bazaars, he showcases traditional Andean textiles and tapestries.

Traditional Andean textiles embed iconographies and interpretations of the Andean cosmovision, observation of the stars, traditions and customs related to rituals and energetic synchronization of spirits, apu (mountains), pachamama (Mother Cosmos), teqsy muyo (Mother Earth), auquis (spirits), qhaha (energies), volcanoes, the sun, earthquakes, wind, and vibrations.

“The traditional weavings in Pitumarca have maintained original designs and symbolism for thousands of years. Symbols are profound mysteries embodied ethnographically in each ancestral textile, transmitted from mother to daughter,” Ccarita says.

Ccarita’s path has not been an easy one. After he was abandoned by his father, his mother became blind and out of necessity taught him the art of weaving. “After the death of my mother, when I was 15, I used this art as a means of survival. During the ‘70s my community was abandoning the traditional handmade process because of the introduction of industrial yarn and synthetic dyes. I started working to keep traditional textile art alive, maintaining the original techniques in wool preparation, dyeing, and weaving of alpaca, vicuña, and sheep fibers.”

As Ccarita explains, traditional handmade processes take time. “First, the wool is sheared from the animal and hand spun into yarn with a spindle, which is suspended in the air and twirled until the yarn is strong enough to tolerate the strains of weaving. The weaver meticulously spins the wool until the yarn is impeccable and has become a fine, spongy ball. The wool is then dyed with natural dyes made from various plants, minerals,

Photo by Andrea Delgado Céspedes.

Timoteo Ccarita giving guidance on an intricate weaving pattern.

26 • www. cs. org

Timoteo Ccarita at the Cultural Survival Bazaar, Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, December 2017.

and even the juice from tiny squashed insects that produce a bright red color. The fiber of the alpaca is not dyed but left in its natural color, which is white, gray, or shades of brown and black, then woven into a heavier yet softer material that is much warmer for the wearer.

“Weaving llikllas (rectangular, handwoven shoulder cloth) or chalinas (shawls) is more tedious, requiring great skill, forethought, and mental calculations. Vertical and horizontal strands of yarn are carefully arranged by counting the correct number of threads, which are meticulously integrated into the fabric with a llama bone. The interface between the vertical and horizontal threads produce the desired width of bands of subtle reds, yellows, or blues. The lliklla’s plain color bands are interspersed with vertical bands of intricate, multicolored geometric Quechua iconography.

Chullos (hats) and chuspas (bags) are hand-knitted. The same handmade threads are used, but they are softer and less twisted than the other threads.”

Ccarita has trained weavers in Ccapacchapi and has founded 19 weavers’ associations in several communities, improving the quality of life of poor communities in the Andes. “Nowadays,” he says, “I teach the weavers how to weave, and I also weave. I dye yarn and oversee the spinning of the wool. I prepare the warp and woof of the threads in the looms before weavers starts weaving. I oversee the progression of each piece until the finish. In Pitumarca, we work together to organize ourselves better, with more than 132 weavers throughout different communities.”

According to Ccarita, artists in Peru are discriminated against because of the way they dress and for using Indigenous languages.

“We don’t have the technology required to spread and promote our knowledge. Big companies, industries, merchants, and designers receive more support than the true artisans who are always marginalized because they are traditionalists. They want us to adapt to their concept of fashion and the market, rather than promoting our traditional culture. They want us to produce or design as a fast fashion company. Big companies and fashion designers copy our traditional designs without any economic compensation to us.”

This is especially problematic, he says, because “textiles are more than our main economic activity. It is our means of communication of our cultural identities. We see our textiles as an opportunity to fight against poverty and discrimination and to keep our cultures alive.”

Join us at this winter's Cultural Survival Bazaars: December 15–16: Cambridge Rindge & Latin School, Cambridge, MA December 21–23: Prudential Center, Boston, MA Visit bazaar.cs.org and facebook.com/culturalsurvivalbazaars for more info.

Ke eper s of th e E a rth F u n d Partner Spotl i ght

Nat i o n to Nat i o n

Comunidad Maya Pixan Ixim, Omaha, Nebraska heard without using technology,” he declared. From there, the delegation visited Olintepeque, Quetzaltenango, where representatives of the Omaha and of the K’iche’ people, he Comunidad Maya Pixan Ixim are members of the Chuj, Popti’ Akateko, and Q’anjob’al, exchanged views on the Q’anjob’al Maya of Guatemala living in diaspora in importance of the union of the Indigenous Peoples in Latin the United States. After years of living in Nebraska, America, environmental struggles, and the importance the traditional ancestral government of the Q’anjob’al, of local ancestral governments. which also includes the Akateko, Chuj, and Popti The main objective of the exchange was the visit to the Maya Peoples, has developed a bilateral relationship Q’anjob’al homelands. After several hours of travel from with the American Indian Omaha Nation. This Nation to Quetzaltenango to Huehuetenango, a ceremony was held Nation relationship is grounded in the UN Declaration on to enter Q’anjob’al lands at the sacred site Kab’Tzin, known the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Article 36. popularly as Captzin. With prayers and a short speech, the From September 21–28, 2018, leaders of the Omaha Omaha and Maya Q’anjob’al members, accompanied by Nation travelled to Guatemala for a historic summit between representatives of other Maya people, made stops in San Juan the two traditional governments. Their objectives were to Ixcoy and San Pedro Soloma. The reception of the delegation commemorate and spread awareness of the UN Declaration by the Q’anjob’al people was very moving, as a large crowd on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; witness the ceremonial came to receive them with flowers and pom (incense) while visits of elders of the Q’anjob’al Maya government to sacred the tun and chirimía announced their arrival. Everyone met sites; and continue to mark Maya territory by visiting and in the communal hall, where the head of the Nation took the praying-consulting sacred sites on the future of the Q’anjob’al opportunity to speak about the pride of belonging to a Maya Maya Nation, and furthering intergovernmental dialogue on people and the importance of the power Indigenous Peoples how to implement Indigenous Peoples’ human rights for the possess. benefit of the Q’anjob’al Maya on Omaha Nations Territory Over the following three days, visits were made to sacred with emphasis on immigration and economic development sites to perform exchange ceremonies and share Maya spirituprograms. Cultural Survival provided funding for transporality. For the Omaha delegation, a visit to a ceremonial center tation costs through the Keepers of the Earth Fund, and is that took several hours on difficult access roads was one of producing radio programs based on event coverage through the most important moments of their visit: “Although it was our Indigenous Rights Radio program. a difficult trip, we were able to make the journey because we The tour began on Kaqchikel lands in Tecpán, Chimalwere inspired by the strength of the men, of the women, who tenango, where the delegation visited the ruins and held a took their young children, and of the elderly, who, despite ceremony that gave them first connection with one of the their age, managed to do the walk with us.” largest Maya communities in Guatemala, the Kaqchikel. The On the last day of the visit, important agreements between connection that the Kaqchikel people felt with the Omaha the two Peoples were made. They committed to strengthening was so great that one of the Maya elders, Cristóbal Cojtí, each other through their sacred ceremonies; to implement decided to join the tour and travel to the West for subsea program of economic development based on regenerative quent encounters. agriculture; to secure memberships for Akateko, Chuj, Popti, The next stop was San Andrés Xecul, Totonicapán, where and Q’anjob’al Maya Nations on territory of the Omaha the delegation met the K’iche’ people. Chairman of the Nation; to organize youth exchanges; to Omaha Nation, Michael Wolf, gave a speech strengthen ancestral music and arts; and to all present, without a microphone. “Our To learn more about to seek recognition from the City of Omaha lifeways have changed so much that now we the Keepers of the and the State of Nebraska for the Maya have the need to use a machine so that our Earth Fund, visit: Nation within the city and state level Comvoice is heard. We must learn to speak loudwww.cs.org/koef. mission of Nebraska for Indigenous Issues. ly, so that our thoughts and feelings can be

Diana Pastor (CS STAFF)

T

Chairman of the Omaha Nation, Michael Wolf with members of the Pixan Ixam delegation, addressing Q’anjob’al and Mam people in San Juan Ixcoy, Guatemala.

Photo by Diana Pastor.

Cultural Survival Quarterly December 2018 • 27

i n memo r ia m

Spirit, Generosity, and Leadership Suzanne Benally

(CS Executive Director)

R

Sarah Fuller

eflecting on the past year at Cultural Survival, I am grateful for the success we have experienced in our programming and for having moved through the challenges we faced as an organization. I am also deeply aware that leadership in the executive director role is only successful when interconnected throughout the organization and interdependent on the wisdom and experience of staff and board members. The late Sarah Fuller, who served as Cultural Survival’s Chair of the board of directors (2008– 2017) was an admirable woman leader and mentor who shared her knowledge, wisdom, experience, and most of all, her courage and strength. Sarah was a pioneer and inspiration for women in business and led an impressive career. She was instrumental in supporting the leadership of our organization and the board of directors, and guiding the growth and future of the organization. Sarah opened herself, as well as her Little Compton, Rhode Island home, to Indigenous artists who would often stay with her while participating at the Cultural Survival Bazaars.

One year after Sarah’s passing, on this rising morning overlooking Puget Sound from Whidbey Island, as I think about how we might honor Sarah’s legacy and the gift she brought to Cultural Survival, I am reminded of her spirit and generosity. I am probably in the most fitting space to write and reflect about Sarah, which is in a place of solitude where

I can look up at the sky, out over the ocean, through the forest, and reach out to capture the essence of the natural world into my thinking and feeling as I write this. Sarah loved the outdoors, attested to by her stories of camping and fishing with her husband, Bill, along some of the grandest rivers in the western United States. When I became the executive director of Cultural Survival, Sarah expressed her support and desire to strengthen the organization’s work through an environmental program. She recognized the importance of the environment and its ecosystems, especially what they held for Indigenous Peoples, along with her own love and respect for the natural world. We discussed the ways in which Indigenous Peoples, who comprise five percent of the world’s population, are living in the world’s richest areas of biodiversity and are working to protect their lands and territories in the face of immense challenges from resource extraction, development, and climate change. While environmental issues were already central to our advocacy work with Indigenous Peoples, we began to conceptualize what more we could do to address the issues and impacts of climate change, and Sarah began to think about how to raise funds to support the initiative.

What emerged was an initiative in which Cultural Survival brought together Indigenous Peoples, scientists, policymakers, students, educators, community based people, and environmental and conservation organizations to address the challenges of understanding and responding to a changing and variable climate, extreme weather events, and research and policy needs. In April 2017, we convened a three-day symposium in Boulder, Colorado: “Pathways from Science to Action.” The goal was to facilitate dialogue and discussion among diverse stakeholders working towards inclusive solutions and cooperative models in addressing climate

Sarah Fuller (second from left) hosting Cultural Survival Bazaar artists in her Little Compton, RI home (L-R): Cilau Valadez (Wixarika), Wendy Larsen, Veronica Domingo (Shona), Bernard Domingo (Shona), and Sierra Henries (Nipmuc).

28 www.cs. cs.org org 28 •• www.

All photos courtesy of Hawk Henries.

Enjoying a summer afternoon with the families of Cultural Survival Bazaar artists (L-R): Lisa Henries, Veronica Domingo (Shona), Sarah Fuller, Bernard Domingo (Shona), Wendy Larsen. Bottom row: Danae Laura, Cultural Survival Bazaar program manager.

change by integrating Indigenous science and Western-based climate science. Over 140 participants from around the globe convened for dialogue and strategies for action focused on cross-cultural approaches for adaptation solutions to climate change through collaborative efforts between the science community and Indigenous Peoples, educational institutions, and local communities, in an effort to build just climate pathways.

In August 2018, over 60 Indigenous community members and experts gathered to discuss climate change, traditional knowledge, and food sovereignty for the second environmental convening in Ixtlán de Juárez, Oaxaca, Mexico. This year’s focus was “Respecting Our Traditional Science and Ways of Knowing: Indigenous Peoples’ Sovereignty, Lifeways, and Climate Change.” The goal was to engage a dialogue on Indigenous perspectives of climate change from traditional knowledge and Indigenous science, and how Indigenous Peoples understand, frame, and define climate change through their cultural practices and spiritual knowledge.

Intentionally, the convening was held in an Indigenous community, on the issues, causes, and impacts of climate change for Indigenous Peoples and their local communities, and to engage and explore how their knowledge intersects with Western climate science.

Involving Indigenous Peoples in climate change initia- tives is one potential solution for increasing the resiliency of Indigenous communities and addressing climate change on a broader scale. The perspectives and knowledge of Indigenous

Peoples serve as an invaluable source of knowledge for climate change adaptation and mitigation. Sharing this knowledge and shifting the narrative to understandings of interconnected and interdependent living with Mother Earth and with each other, is key to mitigating climate change and restoring balance in the world. For participant Alicia Sarmiento Sanchez (Nahuat) from Petlacala, Mexico, "These events that Cultural Survival has organized hold so much value in strengthening our knowledge and permit space for Indigenous farmers in the community to share our knowledge and traditions.They also allow us to learn from others, and that strengthens us.

Beyond the financial assistance to participate, Cultural Survival also supports processes which are greatly important— processes of co-existence between one another, the community, and Indigenous people are much needed, because it makes us feel that we are not alone—in fact that we are many."

Sarah would be proud to know that her shared vision of engaging an environmental initiative at Cultural Survival is being realized. Through her philanthropy and funding, she respected the importance of reciprocal relationships with Indigenous Peoples and their communities. Sarah’s passion, generosity, and dedication to Cultural Survival’s mission lives on in our work as we envision a future that respects and honors Indigenous Peoples’ inherent rights and dynamic cultures, deeply and richly interwoven in lands, languages, spiritual traditions, and artistic expression, rooted in selfdetermination and self-governance.

CulturalSurvival SurvivalQuarterly Quarterly December 2018 • 29 Cultural

Six easy ways to support Indigenous Peoples and Cultural Survival this giving season

1 2 3 4 5 6

Make an online donation to Cultural Survival and save a tree!

Become a Monthly Sustainer. Set it and forget it.

Help us spend more resources on programs with Indigenous Peoples.

Give a gift subscription of the Cultural Survival Quarterly to someone you love.

Donate online or call the number below.

Invest in future generations.

Include Cultural Survival in your estate plans and leave an important legacy for future generations.

Visit www.cs.org/ plannedgiving

Give appreciated stock!

Save on capital gains taxes by donating your appreciated stock and other securities today.

Be social.

Like us on Facebook

(facebook.com/ culturalsurvival) and follow us on Twitter (@CSORG) and Instagram (@cultural_survival).

Tell three friends about Cultural Survival and invite them to become members.

Volunteer.

We need volunteers for events in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Santa Fe, and Boston.

Visit www.cs.org/ volunteer

Donate online at cs.org/donate Call us at 617.441.5400 x18 Thank you for all you do. You make our work possible every day!