Upstream - Documentary #13: Stories of Indigenous Resistance and Regeneration (Documentary)

Episode Date: March 22, 2022

Standing Rock was a pivotal moment in regards to Indigenous resistance — but it was just one in a long line of battles that Indigenous peoples have been fighting against the twin forces of colonialism and capitalism since first contact. In this episode, we’re taking a deep dive into Indigenous resistance against colonialism, capitalism, and climate change — from the Amah Mutsun’s fight to save their most sacred site in California to the Wet’suwet’en’s battle against a gas pipeline on Canada’s western coast, and then up into the North American tundra and across into Northern Europe’s arctic circle where the Inuit and Sámi peoples are fighting to save the ice that they rely on. What parallels lie between the struggles of the Amah Mutsun Costanoan Ohlone, the Wet’suwet’en First Nation, the Inuit, and the Sámi peoples of northern Europe? How have the forces of capitalism and colonialism led to the destruction of Indigenous lives, land, language and culture? What can tens of thousands of years of a diversity of Indigenous insights, knowledge, and wisdom — along with a more modern amalgamation of Indigenous-Marxism — teach us about it? And what invitations for paths forward can we take to lead us to a future committed to solidarity, healing, and ecological restoration? Join us in exploring these questions with guests: Valentin Lopez: Chairman of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band of the Costanoan Ohlone Eleanor Castro: Amah Mutsun Costanoan Ohlone Elder Sleydo' (Molly Wickham): Member of the Wet'suwet'en Nation and spokesperson for the Gidimt’en Checkpoint Sungmanitu Bluebird: Oglala Lakota activist, researcher, writer, member of The Red Nation and the host of the Bands of Turtle Island podcast for The Red Media Sheila (Siila) Watt-Cloutier: Canadian Inuit activist, political representative for Inuit, International Chair for Inuit Circumpolar Council, and author of The Right to be Cold Beaska Niillas: Northern Sámi traditional handicrafter, hunter and gatherer, activist, Sámi school kindergarten teacher, politician, and the host of the SuperSápmi Podcast Florian Carl: Indigenous ally and member of the Cloudberry Collective Alberto Saldamando — Indigenous Environmental Network’s Counsel on Climate Change and Indigenous and Human Rights Music by: Chris Zabriskie Qilaut (Sylvia Cloutier) A. Paul Ortega and Joanne Shenandoah G. I. Gurdjieff and Thomas De Hartmann as performed by Cecil Lytle Douglas Spotted Eagle Thank you to Cerberus Star for the cover art. Upstream theme music was composed by Robert Raymond. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you and the Guerrilla Foundation. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support Also, if your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on social media: Facebook.com/upstreampodcast twitter.com/UpstreamPodcast Instagram.com/upstreampodcast You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcast and Spotify: Apple Podcast: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/upst…am/id1082594532 Spotify: spoti.fi/2AryXHs

This episode was made possible with support from the Gorilla Foundation and listeners like you. Please visit upstreampodcast.org forward slash support to support us with a reoccurring monthly or one-time donation. It helps keep this podcast free and sustainable, so please do that if you can. Also, before we get started, please take a few seconds and go to Apple Podcasts to rate, subscribe, and leave us a review there. It really helps get upstream in front of more eyes and into more ears. Thank you. And now on with the show. Imagine that you're standing on the bank of a river.

All of a sudden, you notice someone floating by who's drowning. You immediately jump in to save them, but as soon as you pull them to safety, you notice another person who's also drowning. You also pull them to safety. But pretty soon, you notice that the river is full of drowning people floating towards you. You yell for help. You get people to jump in with you to save them. But at some point, when the drowning people keep coming, some of you have got to go upstream to find out why all of these people are falling in in the first place. You are listening to upstream.

Upstream. Upstream. Upstream. A podcast of documentaries and conversations that invites you to unlearn everything you thought you knew about economics. I'm Dela Duncan. And I'm Robert Raymond. Join us as we journey upstream. To the heart about the economic system and discover the kind of niche stories of game-changing solutions based on connection, liberation, and prosperity for all. My my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my your cause My my your neck

I know my My my hey I know my name Oh oh oh oh So what land are you on? We are on Mootson Alonie territory My name is Panhand Kyle, your woman's Sarah's roots. So welcome to Mootson Alonie territory. Thank you for being in

community with us. It's October 10th, Indigenous People's Day, and we're gathered in a park plaza for a rain-dance ceremony at Mission San Juan Batista. The ceremony is being hosted by the Indian Canyon Mutsun and the Amamutsun tribal bans of the Costa Nuan Aloni, the native people of what's also known as California's Bay Area. This gathering is intended as a collective prayer for rain, something that California doesn't see too much of these days being in the midst of an unprecedented and multi-year drought. But the ceremony is also meant to bring together community in defense of an ongoing battle that the moots and peoples have been a part of.

A battle to save their peoples' most sacred sight. A place called Yurostok in California to the Wedson Qua River a thousand miles up the coast and then deep into the Arctic, this episode of Upstream will share stories of social, cultural and environmental harm committed against indigenous peoples and their lands. Their resistance efforts against these harms and insights and invitations for paths forward committed to solidarity, healing and ecological restoration.有黑有黑夜有黑有黑有黑夜 有黑夜 為有黑有黑有黑 有黑夜 為有黑有黑有黑 Today's walk was historic. We're in as a people of this area, ever stood and walked. We're being indigenous people of this area, who came here for this

long. It's two years earlier and we're at Yurostok, or Sargent Ranch as it's known to the colonial majority, just a few miles south of Gilroy in Santa Clara County. The Amamitsin are holding another ceremony here, one which marks the end of a five-mile march, a kind of pilgrimage which began earlier in the day at Mission San Juan Batista. For thousands of years, long before European settlers ever arrived in California, the Amamutzen held sacred gatherings on this site, a place which is now under threat of being destroyed and turned into a 320-acre open pit mine, where

sand and gravel will be extracted and turned into concrete, used to fuel the never-ending developments of strip malls and suburban sprawl that now defines this region's landscape. This is why hundreds of people are gathered here, at the foot of the lowland slopes and iconic golden hills that roll through this part of California to take a stand. I want to tell you today was historic. What you witnessed is many of our members coming together with the public. My name is Valentin Lopez, and on the chairman of the Amma Muteson Tribal Band, our tribe is comprised of the descendants of the indigenous peoples that were taken to mission San Juan Batista and Santa Cruz. Sergeant Ranch was known in our times as Yurostok, and Yurostok translates to the place of the big head.

And our big head dances were the most important and most sacred dances of our tribe. And so this right here is actually a sacred site. And the developers just plan on tearing down that site and just monetizing our most sacred site. We are fighting to stop that. Our tribe has been here for 10, 12, 15,000 years. And if you think of that in terms of generations, that's 800, 900, perhaps a thousand generations or more that our people have been here. And

we've been holding ceremony on these lands here for a very long time. Because this is a sacred site, we had four villages in this vicinity. And those four villages are jobless to ensure that those mountains maintain their sacredness and keep the lands prepared for sacred ceremony. ceremony. For the past 150 years or so, Yurostok has changed hands several times. During California's Mexican period, the land was granted to two German brothers by the governor of Alta California, Jose Castro. Later, it was purchased by a man named J.P. Sargent, who turned it into a 1200-head cattle

ranch. The land remained in the Sargent family until more recently, when a series of unsuccessful development projects from casinos to golf courses landed the property in bankruptcy court. It was then that the current owner, the debt acquisition company of America, an investor group that specializes in purchasing and profiting off of foreclose properties, bought the land at auction. It wasn't long after that they announced their plans to extract gravel and sand from the mountains on the property, essentially turning them into giant pits in the ground. A approval of the Sargent Quarry project is contingent on a number of factors that are still pending.

There is currently an ethnographic study taking place, along with an environmental impact report being compiled by the County of Santa Clara's Department of Planning and Development, which keeps getting delayed. For the time being, the fate of the Amamutzen's most sacred site remains unknown. Your stock is just a part of what has happened to our people. Eleanor Castro is an Amamutzen elder. They want to destroy our land, but the more I see it, they want to destroy everything for money.

Everything is about money. The quarry would also have obvious ecological impacts. According to Project Yorostok's website, the Sargent Quarry Project would eliminate approximately 248 acres of grassland habitat for the California Tiger Salamander and the California Red-Laked Frog, both federally listed threatened species, while also degrading their breeding habitat in the ponds adjacent to the quarry operations. The loss of grasslands would also impact the American Badger and birds of prey that forage in the area such as the golden eagle, the northern harrier, the prairie falcon, and the burrowing owl.

In addition, quarrying would destroy approximately 33 acres of California live oak woodland, an important roosting and foraging habitat for many native species. It's just so sad that people want to destroy everything and for many, for not realizing that everything is sacred, the plants, the animals, the people, the insects are all part of each other and are related to each other. If the Quarry Project goes through, it would be just one in a long line of many injustices wrought upon the California Indians by the colonial majority. The destruction and domination of California Indians never ended. It just evolved. And we evolved today to what we see. A lot of that is the destruction of our cultural and sacred sites.

Mount Ummanum is a perfect example for that. Mount Ummanum is a place of our creation, and our creation story tells us that it was there that creator made all life forms that we see today, the forelegged, the birds, the fish, the plants, etc. It's a sacred place to us and it's a place where our people would go to pray. Whenever we pray, we go to mountain tops. So that we're closer to Creator, but our most serious and most important prayers always happen at Mount Ammanum, because that's when we were closest to Creator. Our people did that for thousands and thousands of years. Mount Ammonum is one of the tallest peaks in the Santa Cruz mountain range. It's got a large white structure on top of it, which from the valley below looks like a weird white cube. Mount Ammonum towers over Silicon Valley, and the box that sits on top of it is actually a radar tower

that was part of the Elmoden Air Force Station that operated there from 1958 to 1980. They actually leveled off the top of the mountain, the mountain which is the center of the Amamutsen's cosmology, to build this military base, which was then abandoned by the military after the Cold War ended and closed to the public because of the hazardous materials, like asbestos, black mold, and lead paint, which was used on structures like the radar tower. The summit of Mount Aminum was cordoned off for decades after that, but in the last couple

of years, the area was finally cleaned up and turned into a public park. Although there are some plaques there now, which provide information on the aloni, the radar tower is still standing, a symbol of colonialism, of militarization, of the genocide of indigenous peoples. There was actually a big fight over whether the radar tower should stay up, but despite the fact that it was actually more expensive to seal off and restore it than to demolish it, and despite the wishes of many of the Alma Mutsun, the Silicon Valley community,

including entities like the Santa Clara County Historical Commission, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, and everyday citizens, lobbied and pushed to preserve the radar tower, to keep it up there, a top-mounted ummanum, a salute to militarism, a nod to empire, a commemoration of colonialism, as an iconic part of Silicon Valley's history and skyline. Mont-Ummen, the place of our creation story, was just desecrated. That radar tower was there for less than 25 years, I believe. Our history there goes back 12, 14, 15,000 years.

And yet, the County of Santa Clara recognized Mount Umanum as an important county heritage site for the military. Totally ignored our 12, 14, 15,000 year history there, completely ignored it. It wasn't important, wasn't valued. 25 years of military presence is more important than 15,000 years of Native American presence. That's what I mean when I said that we've been ignored, forgotten, have no value in our history means nothing, means nothing. Of course, this kind of devaluation of aloney lives and culture is just part of a much longer legacy. Whenever the colonizers came, the Spanish and the mission period, the Mexican period, and the early California American period. They had no respect, no regard, no value for Native American culture, spirituality,

environments, traditions, customs, ways, et cetera. It did not matter to them our history or our past They just came in to take the land take the resources and Here in California actually the governor of California in the very first day to the union Said that there will be a war of extermination against the California Indians said that there will be a war of extermination against the California Indians that is to be expected. And then one of the very first treasury bonds passed by the state of California

was to pay for the extermination of California Indians. And with that money, they paid bounties and they paid military excursions up into the mountains primarily to hunt down the Indians and to kill them. The violence inflicted on the California Indians during the early California American period was horrific. Men, women and children were often hacked to death with hatchets. Bounties were paid not just for scalps, but for entire heads.

Vagrancy laws were passed during this period which allowed the services of unemployed Indians to be auctioned off to white settlers. Native children were often kidnapped and sold as apprentices. Not surprisingly, it's estimated that the California Indian population went from 150,000 before 1849 to fewer than 30,000 in 1870, an 80% loss in just 21 years. So I know my history of my people now and all people's that when the colonizers came here, they found natives here and we weren't less than human. And it continues today, you know, we're nothing to the government, really, but we are human. And it continues today, you know, we're nothing to the government really, but we are human and we're still here after all these years, after the mission is closed and they

try to destroy us. And our tribe was spread. We had no land left, we have no language left, we have no anything left, so we did the best we could, but yet they continue to try to enslave us. There's been no regard for our spirituality and our culture. The destruction and domination of Native Americans never ended. It just evolved and it evolved to what we see today, where the destruction of our sacred sites, our cultural sites, our important sensitive cultural sites are being destroyed. And that's what's happening at Urestock.

Urestock is being destroyed today, and it's being sponsored by county government. If this happens, it will show that the perpetrators who destroy our territories, who committed genocide, collected bounties, kidnapped and murdered, those times still continue, those were the perpetrators. Today the perpetrators are the cities and the counties in the state of California and the federal government who allow the destruction and domination of Native American culture, Native American spirituality, the destruction of our environment. The quest for money and profit and greed drives people to ignore and dehumanize and to look to wipe out and destroy people just so they

can continue their profits. That happens for all tribes, all tribes. We are in ceremony. You must wait. We have water protection ceremony happening. This is a sacred water that we are in ceremony with. What are your intentions? You are not. Now you're in civil content of a court order and be arrested. Do you understand? Hey, my mom. Where's the elder here? The elder. The elder. They're the elder. They're the elder. They're the elder. They're the elder.

We're a thousand miles up the coast from Urestock in the mountainous wilderness of what Soetin territory, also known as British Columbia, Canada. Oh, no! Oh, no! Oh, no! Oh, no! Oh, no!

On November 18, dozens of heavily armed Royal Canadian mounted police, or RCMP officers, raided what's known as the Gidemton Checkpoint, the Gidemton being one of the five clans of the Wittsowatin Nation. The Wittsowatin land defenders have been protecting their territory from TC Energy, a Canadian energy company that wants to build the Coastal GasLink Pipeline, a $400 mile, $6.6 billion pipeline through their territory, transporting fracked gas to the Canadian coast, where it will be shipped off to Asia for market. Parts of the coastal gasling pipeline

would require drilling in Wutsoetin territory, specifically drilling under the headwaters of the Wudston-Qua River, or the Blue and Green River, a year-long salmon-spawning site that's sacred to the Wutsoetin. Wutsoetin! Wutsoetin!

Wutsoetin! By you blockading this roadway and preventing coastal gas from conducting their operations? You are in breach of that injunction. You're all under arrest. I'm not blocking the road. 15 people were arrested in this particular invasion of Githemton land, which is just the latest of three heavily

armed raids. Police, which include not just the RCMP, but also community industry response groups, which are specialized teams of police, specifically designed to protect industry from indigenous grassroots resistance to industrial projects, use canine units, helicopters,

and assault rifles to violently arrest unarmed indigenous water protectors on their own land. It's quite a traumatic experience. I think that it's one thing to have a gun pointed at your head and to have a tacked dog's ready to attack you to be hearing the dogs barking. This is Slado, whose English name is Molly Wickham. She's a member of the Grizzly Bear House, which is one of the houses of the Giddhamton clan of what Soatin Nation.

Slado is the spokesperson for the Giddhamton checkpoint. In this last raid in November at Coyote Camp, at the drill pad site, the police used axes and chainsaws to cut down the door of the tiny home that I was living in, that I was in in order to arrest me and others that were with me. And so it was quite a traumatic experience. It's not something that was surprising

based on how they've interacted with us before. But it's quite another thing to be an indigenous woman on my own territory where I belong where my ancestors have been for thousands of years and then to have that violence done against me and then to be removed in handcuffs taken off of my territory and brought four and a half hours away and spending five days in city cells before even seeing a judge. So the intimidation and harassment in the violence is definitely increasing at the hands of the police because they are determined to push this project through and to do that by

any means necessary. If it were to be constructed on their land, the coastal gasoline pipeline would threaten the wood sewatin in many ways. Aside from being an important source of water, the forests around the wets in Kwa have provided medical and herbal remedies for generations. The stones along the river banks are used in their sweat baths, and the Koho Chinook and Steelhead Sam and Runs have been an integral part of the Wetzowatin diet and culture. The liquefied natural gas pipeline, which would cut right through the heart of the sacred land, has been in construction now for a couple of years. But TC Energy has never gained the consent

of the Wetzowatin hereditary chiefs. When this pipeline first came about and was first proposed to our communities, we had a series of all clans meetings. So we have five clans in our nation. Each clan is responsible for different pieces of territory, different clan territories that are spread out throughout the 22,000 square kilometers. And each clan has the full jurisdiction and authority to make decisions on their territory.

We are aware of the health of the land and how it is doing on a regular basis. And so we can make those informed decisions. Trudeau has never stepped foot on our territories. Trudeau does not know. John Horgan does not know. None of the government officials actually know the territory that they're talking about and that they're making decisions about. We do because we're there and we live there and we see it on a daily basis. And so when we make decisions, it is based on information of actually knowing the land

and knowing what it could sustain and what it can't sustain. And so that's how our decisions were made about this pipeline. And that's how all of our decisions are made about our territories, is by having that intimate relationship with the land and with the animals and all of the other things that have to be sustained from that land and those waters. And so we had a series of meetings over several years

to discuss the benefits we talked about about the history of the land, the health of the land. We had hired our own scientists to come in and talk about what those lands could handle. These were informed decisions about our territories based on our traditional knowledge, based on the history of the land, and based on the future,

all of our future generations and thinking about those people as well. And so we made those decisions according to our clan governance system. And so we are upholding our law. It is in progress that it is working for us and the only thing that is stopping us is militarized our CMP.

Although the violence against the Wetzowatin is much more explicit, this is really the exact same colonial machine that destroyed Mount Umanum and which threatens to destroy Yurostok. In California's Bay Area, the forces of capital are relying more heavily on pens and paper, on client politicians. But here in the remote parts of British Columbia, in a region much less in the spotlight, the settler colonial state has no qualms about leveraging the full force of militarized state violence

in the pursuit of profit. There's such a huge intersection between colonization and capitalism and racism that it's okay to forcibly remove indigenous peoples from their land if it's for profit, if people see that it's going to benefit them. This project isn't going to benefit anybody in so-called Canada. Nobody is going to heat their homes from this fracked gas that would flow through these pipes. This is going to be exported. The government's already invested billions and billions of dollars into this project in tax cuts and loans. It's not benefiting our economy, it's not going to benefit people directly on the ground.

And so people need to wake up and see that this is all for capitalist greed. And we're not going to let them get away with funding genocide against Indigenous people. Upon suffering beyond suffering, the Red Nation shall rise again, and it shall be a blessing for a sick world, a world filled with broken promises, selfishness, and separations. A world longing for light again. I see a time as seven generations when all the colors of mankind will gather under the sacred tree of life, and the whole of Earth will become one circle again. In that day, there will be those among the Lakota who will carry knowledge and understanding of unity among all living things. And the young white ones will come to those of my people and ask for this one's love.

I'm in Takaiepe, Miyama Glow, Lakota. Hello, my relatives. I am a Glow, Lakota. My name is Shumanitu Bluebird. I'm a 23-year-old researcher and indigenous archivist as well as activists, researcher, writer, people calling me a journalist. I think that's a stretch. But overall, you know, I'm just an indigenous person trying to get our voice out there. I'm a member of the Red Nation and the host of the bands of Turtle Island podcast for the Red Media as well as co-hosts for the

Yodid series on the Red Nation podcast. And I'm also the author of the We Will Remember Audio documentary that comes out in 2023. What you heard Schumani too reciting just a few seconds ago was the 7th generation prophecy, first spoken by the Lakota leader Crazy Horse, which speaks of a time thought to be seven generations after first contact with Europeans, when indigenous youth and allies from all races would come together to bring forth a new age of healing and rebirth for indigenous peoples. Standing Rock represented this prophecy coming true to us, you know, you had to kind of, you know, take a step back and ask what is prophecy. We're not saying like this was destined to happen, but just the

trajectory of history and what things were happening. Many of our elders during colonialism said things like, there will come a time where white men will have to choose between destruction and salvation, which is what the Red Nation is basically here to point out, is that we've come to a point in our history where we either reconcile the destructive nature of colonialism, which has only progressed and further contradictions to create capitalism, imperialism, patriarchy, white supremacy. These are all different, like amalgamations of the same monster that represents just different

ways of ruling class intends to maintain control over a population, I guess. The red nation, which Shumanity is a member of, is a coalition of native and non-native activists, educators, students, and community organizers, advocating for native liberation through revolutionary socialism, anti-imperialism, and queer indigenous feminism. Capitalism is the root of a lot of these issues. Capitalism is built

through colonialism. Colonialism serves as a means to export misery from the imperial core to third world countries. We're past a point of colonization and into the point of imperialism, where we're at the highest stage of capitalism, and that it's expanding into these markets in order to devour as much as it can in order to keep itself going. It's important to conceptualize this in terms of, you know, 500 years ago, there was no white man here. Colonialism wasn't a thing, and we had completely different systems of politics and different social relations and so the Red Nation attempts to address you know imperialism, colonialism, capitalism through a Marxist analysis

but not one that falls prey to the hero worship and book worship that a lot of European Marxists tend towards or orthodox Marxists, I should say, we instead introduce indigenous praxis into the question because what we have is 500 years of experience and revolutionary resistance against colonization. We're continuing 500 years against colonization. We're continuing 500 years of Indigenous practice and we're informing it with 150 years of Marxist theory plus Indigenous theory. The Red Nation Manifesto has listed a 10-point program that outlines their demands. The points include the end of disciplinary violence against all native and oppressed peoples, access to appropriate education, health care, social services, employment and housing, an end to colonialism and capitalism, and the

reinstatement of treaty rights. We're on the front lines because without the domination and like stealing of our land, none of this would really be going on. It's a long-lasting domino effect that we're seeing the seeds that were sowed so long ago finally being reaped. And the reason we want to reinstatement of treaty rights is because 83% of biodiversity is protected

by indigenous people. And we only have control of 10% of the is protected by indigenous people. And we only have control of 10% of the land on Earth. And most of that land is Bolivia, which is an indigenous country. So, and reinstatement of treaty rights represents a reinstatement of protections for the wildlife and ecosystems that are part of those treaties.

The indigenous struggle isn't just about indigenous people. Our struggles are your struggles. We want our lands to be protected. Those lands are the lands that feed you. Those lands are the lands that give you water. Those lands, the lands that your, everything come from. There is no people without a land. There's a million reasons why the repatriation of native lands and lives and the protection of non-human relatives is important, but a lot of it is that it's just restorative to the environment.

The Red Nation has also put out a visionary platform and practical toolkit called the Red Deal, Indigenous Action to Save Our Earth, which is a call for climate action that goes beyond the scope of the U.S. colonial state. And I'm reading from the book itself here, is a program for Indigenous liberation, life and land. An affirmation that colonialism and capitalism must be overturned for this planet to be habitable for humans and other than human relatives

to live dignified lives. The red deal is not a response to the green new deal, or a bargain with the elite and powerful. It's a deal with the humble people of the earth, a pact that we shall strive for peace and justice, and a declaration that movements for justice must come from below and to the left. Politicians can't do what only the mass movements can do. We didn't get the Civil Rights Act because of a politician. You know, we got the Civil Rights Act because people all over the United States acted out

in various ways in order to express that they needed change, they wanted change and it needed to happen today. Instead of, you know, a couple of big protests, a couple of few riots, this was stuff happening one after another, after another people don't realize how quickly these things were going and how organized people were. And we need to get to that point again as the left. And the mass movements of like DAPL,

it can't rely on these singular offense. It needs to be a constant movement. It needs to be always going, always building, and becoming stronger and stronger. We're standing at the construction site of the Dakota Access Pipeline. It looks like there are at least three bulldozers that are to people surprised at this moment,

actually bulldozing the land. The water protectors at Standing Rock, who are resisting the Dakota Access Pipeline, or DAPL, marked a defining moment of indigenous resistance and land defense. 2016 has been called the Year of the Water Protector, but it was just part of a much broader movement of indigenous resistance efforts across North America, including due

to desert rock, uneastotin camp, Keystone XL, Idol No More, Trans Mountain, Enbridge Line 3, Save Oak Flat, Bayou Bridge, Kumaye Defense Against The Wall, Winna Muka Camp, and many more. In fact, according to a report titled Indigenous Resistance Against Carbon, published by the Indigenous Environmental Network, an oil change international. Indigenous Resistance alone has stopped or delayed significant levels of greenhouse gas pollution. Indigenous resistance and the victories against fossil fuels kept 6.56 billion netric tons of CO2 from the atmosphere, which is one quarter of the emissions for the U.S. and Canada combines.

Alberto Saldemando is the indigenous environmental networks council on climate change and indigenous and human rights. He's also co-author, along with Dallas Goldtooth, of the indigenous resistance against carbon report. Indigenous Resistance Against Carbon Report Indigenous Resistance and victories against oil pipelines, against coal mines, against extraction actually kept carbon out of the atmosphere, so that our victories really contribute to the struggle against climate change. The report that Alberto Co-authored examines 26 Indigenous Frontline struggles against a variety of fossil fuel projects across

all stages of the fossil fuel infrastructure development chain over the past decade. The authors of the report quote, cherish these struggles, not only for their accomplishments, but for the hope they instill in the next seven generations of life, a hope that is based on spiritual practice and deep relationship with the sacredness of Mother Earth. Indigenous peoples, they have a connection to the land, they have a spiritual cause, well as a material connection to the land,

the land provides for them, and they make sure that the land continues to provide for them by seeking an equilibrium with their environment, so that their activity does not affect negatively the environment that sustains them. When we talk about natural laws, it's not like creator came down and said here, you gotta do this or,

it's not like this biblical kind of law, but it's nature's feedback. You're harming me, stop what you're doing, or you're helping me. When you restore the salmon and the game starts coming back and the forest regenerates really in relation to the salmon, it's nature's response to us. It is a response. It may not be carved in stone, but it's a response nonetheless that we listen to, and I think

more and more people are listening to what nature is telling them, that they live in the world, in the world with other beings, with other biodiversity, plants as well, and that in order to sustain ourselves, we have to sustain nature. I think we have to listen to nature, and we have to listen to the earth. It's the voice of the earth that teaches us. That's really where those values lie, where that faith lies. So by taking on this new perspective, this is a new paradigm of sustainability and abandoning the neoliberal view of development. We don't want development, we want sustainability. And that's what we're shooting for, I think, in helping frontline communities in their

struggle, we're also contributing to their sustainability, their food security, their food sovereignty, their environments, their biodiversity. It's just woven together. All of these things affect each other. And so we're out there trying to uplift the frontline communities. We're trying to create an international movement.有後 飛來後 飛來後 有後 有後 Yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, Having lived very traditionally, there was a very strong bond and connection to the land and to the ice and to a way of life. The ice is a life force. I was born in a little Hudson's Bay Company post when the traders were up in the Arctic into a very small, knit, small community, small family, which was basically empty except

for the Hudson's Bay Company. Most of my community when I was born were still living out in outpost camps. And that's my humble beginnings, traveling only by dog team in the winter and canoeing the summer. We were very traditional in our ways, hunting and fishing and gathering. And then at the age of 10 I was sent away. For school I was one of those kids that were sent away very young, to be deprogrammed and reprogrammed, so to speak. That was quite traumatic. I spent two years away, and with a family in the three years at residential school,

and three years at a high school in Ottawa, Ontario, for a total of eight years away from home. This is Sheila, Sheila Wat-Cruzier, back home in the North because my language does not have the SH sound. I am known as Sheila, S-I-I-L-A, and I am an advocate for environment, cultural rights, and human rights for enuity of the Arctic. But for all of us, really, I do a lot of the work on issues of environmental degradation of the Arctic and climate change as it relates to the rest of us and how interconnected we all are. The Little Hudson's Bay Company town that Sheila was born in

is located in Nunavut, a massive sparsely populated territory in the far north of Canada marked by vast expanses of tundra, craggy mountains, and remote villages accessible only by plain or boat. This territory was formally given back to the Inuit for independent governance by the Canadian government in 1999. Sheila is a fierce advocate for the rights of the Inuit of the Arctic. She is an elected representative of her people, a right livelihood award-loriot, an influential force behind the adoption of the Stockholm Convention to ban persistent organic pollutants which accumulate heavily in Arctic food chains,

and is the author of the book The Right to Be Cold, which is about her life and the effects of climate change on inuit communities. We thrive in the cold, our wildlife thrives in the cold, therefore becomes very thick and rich. You know, like it's all of those things that we thrive in. We're not just surviving in it, we're thriving in it. And so once the ice starts to form, it becomes our highways to our environment and our hunting grounds. And so it really is about transportation and mobility for us as well. And when that starts to become through

curious because of the thinning ice and the inability sometimes to read the conditions of that ice and our the thickness of it, then it becomes an issue of safety and security first and foremost. And so we've got seasoned hunters falling through the ice who would have been normally be able to read those conditions, but because it's forming so differently underneath, where you can't see it, then it really starts to minimize the remarkable ingenuity of Inuit culture. When we go out to hunt, there is that whole technical aspect that our young people learn, of course, in terms of reading the conditions of the ice, the conditions of the weather, how to be productive in terms of a hunter, to be a proficient provider,

and become a natural conservationist. But you're also being taught your character, your character of being able to be bold under pressure, how to be impatient, how to not be impulsive, how to be very focused and meticulous and determined. Oftentimes, women in silence are in meditation, almost cleaning the animals and the skins. The men waiting for seals in a yogic position for hours is a meditative state. All of those skills that lead to sound judgment and wisdom,

and what we call selectorumir in my language is the hallmark of Inuit culture is to be selectu-yuk-wise in all that you do. So we're losing all of that as the ice goes as well. And the inability to count on the decades and a millennia of incredible traditional knowledge is being lost in that process. So it isn't just about the ice that's leaving, it's the wisdom that goes with it that we are really fighting for and defending. By demonstrating how unchecked greenhouse gas emissions don't just impact the ecology of the Arctic, but also violate the human rights of the Inuit, Sheila's work is an important contribution to climate change discourse by highlighting

how those who are contributing the least to climate change are those who are the most at risk. The contours of climate change are often shaped along class and race lines. People of color, people with lower incomes, and indigenous peoples are being most impacted by its effects. As a people who have been so colonized and so oppressed and suppressed, we are dignity and self-worth have been eroded and leading to the addictions and all of the things that happen, you know, with the consequences of trauma, we are now turning to our culture, which is an important piece for us to be able to stand back on our feet,

on solid ice, pun intended, and be able to find the ways to combat the violence, the abuse, the suicides, the highest suicides in North America comes from my own community, the Inuit community of the world. And so all of these things are really interrelated and interconnected. And so I always come from that place and space within my own spirit to say, this isn't just about the ice and polar bears. These are about us trying to defend, not just our way of life to be able to continue to hunt and provide the nutritional, highly nutritional food for our communities, but also the scales that are required for our children to be able to combat, not just the stressors of the land when you're a hunter, but those scales are

very transferable to the modern world. And so those are the clear connections that exist in our world that we are fighting to maintain and to bring that back. And so I say, culture is the medicine that we seek in our world to bring us back to those places of strength and dignity and self-worth. But it's also the fact that I say that I think it's indigenous wisdom that is also the medicine, the world seeks in terms of gaining back that sense of how to deal with these unsustainable businesses and activities that we have been in for so long that is at the root cause of climate change to begin with.

The impacts of climate change are being observed earlier in the Arctic and with more severe consequences than in the rest of the world. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Arctic is warming at a rate more than twice the global average. The average surface air temperature over the Arctic last year was the seventh warmest on record, and the eighth consecutive year that the temperatures were at least one degree Celsius above the long-term average. The warming of the Arctic and the resulting decline in Arctic sea ice over the last 40 years is one of the most iconic indicators of climate change.

Our future, the future of Inui, is tied to the future, to the rest of the world, and our home is a barometer for what is happening to our entire planet. If we cannot save the frozen Arctic, and we really hope to save the forest, the rivers, the farmlands of other regions, and a frozen Arctic allows us to continue to choose our own future, determine for ourselves how our economy and culture will develop, and a frozen Arctic also allows the same opportunity to the rest of the world instead of spending trillions of dollars simply to offset the impacts of a melting Arctic.

What happens in the Arctic doesn't stay in the Arctic, the Arctic is the cooling system for the entire planet. It is the air conditioner, if you will, and because that's breaking down, it's causing all of these disruptive behaviors all over the world. No saamikilli mun livchenka, teoskealekki, ja taas nikilli ja hoivuos saamikilli munnan peskanilla, samisee, rehellä, goras. So, that would be the way I introduced myself. That was North and Sami. I just said where I'm from. I'm from a sap, me, Norwegian side of sap, me, from a place called Hilagur.

And my name is Baskanegdas. Baska is a traditional Sami handicraftor, hunter and gatherer, activist, Sami school, kindergarten teacher, and politician. He is also the host of the SuperSopMe podcast, committed to decolonization, reclaiming Sami ways, and advocating for Sami self-determination. The Sami are an indigenous people

who have inhabited Sopni, which today encompasses large parts of northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, and parts of Russia for thousands of years. A substantial number of their population lives in villages in the high Arctic. Beginning in the 18th and 19th centuries, the governments of Norway and Sweden started to assert their authority more aggressively in the north, and 19th centuries, the governments of Norway and Sweden started to assert their authority more aggressively in the north, and targeted the Sami with Scandinavization policies aimed at forced assimilation, regarding the Sami as a backward and primitive people in need of being civilized, and imposing Scandinavian languages as the only valid languages of the

kingdoms, effectively banning Sami language and culture in many contexts, particularly in schools. Traditionally, the Sami have pursued a variety of livelihoods, including coastal fishing, fur trapping, and sheep herding, but their best known means of livelihood is reindeer herding. Basically the Sami culture is built around and upon the relationship with reindeer. Because of the Arctic climate, the cold and how far north we are, reindeer has always been here helping us survive. The rain there has shaped our culture in a fundamental way.

Without the rain there there wouldn't have been sammys. It's a deep deep and old old relationship. Without the rain there if the rain there goes away, our foundation for our culture will go away. And when a foundation of a culture goes away, well, then you don't have any ground anymore, and probably that culture will go extinct. We ask, basically, how climate change is impacting the Sami. Climate change is very much affecting, especially Indigenous peoples, it seems. In SAPMI, we have Tämä on myös seuraavaksi, että se on tullut tullut. Sitten me on tullut tullut tullut. Tämä on tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tullut tull on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on tullut, että se on there because of the numbers basically starts to death. The land has always provided for the

reindeer but not anymore because of climate change. So that's maybe the biggest impact or the most visible impact right now because now those winters come year after year after year after year and it takes a heavy heavy toll on both the herders, the rain dares, and also the Sami economics of this. It's not strange that people haven't heard about the Sami because it's part of the colonial project to render indigenous communities invisible. Florian Karl is a Germany-based indigenous ally and member of the CloudBerry Collective, which works on climate justice issues by supporting marginalized frontline communities such as the SAUME. For example, this year, they measured one of the coldest temperatures ever in history, like in recent decades at least, minus 43 degrees if I remember correctly. And there's also some days, like in the middle of the winter that it starts raining. And this is something that should not be the case.

It's unheard of, basically. When I was there in 2020 for a collaboration that we did during the Yacht-Machwintern market. At some point we had like minus 26 degrees or so. And then the next day I was driving into town. And suddenly it was plus 6 degrees and it was raining. And as I was driving there, it just hit me like, I had to stop and I turned the car over to the side because realizing that and feeling this in my body that this is the climate crisis happening right

now here in this place, yeah it really makes you realize that we are not talking about a climate crisis as something that will happen in the future, but that is actually already here. So Sami elders, and knowledge holders don't know how to address this and nobody knows really what to do about this, because what happens is that the rain kind of drains on the snow and then it builds this thick layer of ice basically when it gets cold again. And so the reindeer who are at this time of the year mostly in the forests, they can't find the food anymore. And then in the end starve. This is a massive problem. Next to of course a huge variety of problems that they have to face

due to the colonization like forests, clear cards, mines, infrastructure, and all these kind of things. What are the most recent fights for the Sami has been against just like with Yurostok, a mining project. This time an iron mine being proposed in a region known as Galuk in northern Sweden. The mine would threaten the reindeer who graze in this region while also threatening the Lila-Lul River, an important water source for a hundred000 people in this region. As Florian mentioned, this is just one of many assaults on the Sami being waged by the

forces of capitalism and colonialism. Another important aspect of the Cloudberry Collectives work comes through their recognition of the responsibility for those of us who are part of the Colonial Majority Society to work with our communities to decolonize internally. This work includes critical whiteness work, anti-racist work, and anti-colonial work. It's a lifelong process to engage in decolonial anti-colonial work in that regard because these are structures that have been set up centuries ago and these are categories that we are born into that none of us have chosen like this but that we need to both individually and collectively address.

And I think as part of that, thinking from a more like decolonial or enter-colonial perspective, means to recognize also the privileged positions that some of us have. And so within the CloudBerry Collective, for example, next to the work that we do internally and within our communities, but also in collaboration, we actually also have started a mutual aid fund, for example. And this is one way for us where we are trying to give back stolen resources in a broader sense, or return resources, as you could say, to marginalized

communities that have been accumulated under our privileged positionality, like in the structures that come with this for centuries already. The Cloudbury Collectives Mutual Aid Fund is one example of the remade creation or reparations movement to restore sovereignty and cultural legacies for indigenous communities around the world. Other examples include land back initiatives to return land to indigenous hands and paying a rent or a land tax to indigenous communities on whose land people live and work. In one example, Seattleites in Washington State make monthly rent payments to the Duwamish tribe in a project called Real Rent Duwamish. Just outside of Seattle is also the home of another rematriation initiative. The Puyallup tribe recently launched an effort to rename the towering Mount Rainier and give it back its original

name, Mount Tacoma, from the native language, Toshosid. Remetiation encourages those with access to land and wealth, to recognize their place in the lineage of Lantheft and Genocide, to repair the harm colonialism has done and continues to inflict on indigenous peoples, and to contribute to social, cultural and ecological healing. I mean, I think that as part of colonization, there is less really intrinsic mode of denial about in colonial majority societies to recognize the dystopias that we are living in today and that these are basically the utopian fantasies of our ancestors come alive today. And that's something that although it's around us everywhere in the houses that we build, in the cars that we drive with, it's like very materials, nothing abstract or so, but it's very hard to somehow connect the dots in the end of the day for us

to recognize some of these underlying values also that come with this very anthropocentric and believing in the idea of modernity or progress of the superiority of the Western people basically. the superiority of the Western people, basically. We need to dismantle the value system that capitalism is built upon. Here's Beska again. We need to have a new set of values that guide us through this world, through this life, that don't require this forever climbing, forever trying to achieve something, but to understand that you have all you need on the land, from the land, with the land. If you only take care of the land and take care of the relationships you have with the

beings on the land, both those you see and those you don't see. And I believe the problem is when it becomes this grotesque hypercapitalism that we have joten se on, they are killing cultures, they are killing the land, but they don't care. This is so problematic on many, many levels. On a human level or a personal level, people growing up are learned from this machine, this capitalistic machine, with commercials, with values through the school system, ja seuraavaa seuraavaa, että se on kertaa kertaa, että seuraavaa, että seuraavaa, että seuraavaa, että seuraavaa, että seuraavaa, että seuraavaa,

että seuraavaa, että seuraavaa, että seuraavaa, että seuraavaa, että seuraavaa, että seuraavaa, että seuraavaa, että seuraavaa, että seuraavaa, että seuraavaa, että seuraavaa, että seuraavaa, että seuraavaa, että seuraavaa, että seuraavaa, että seuraavaa, että seuraavaa, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, että onko, onko, että onko, onko, että onko, että onko, onko, että onko, onko, että onko, onko, onko, onko, onko, onko, onko, onko, And that's maybe that's the most heartbreaking when people give up and just lay down and think that the fight is not worth fighting anymore because it's of no use. We are fighting so hard to reclaim and bring back our languages, our practices, our culture, our traditions.

We also run a kindergarten, a Samy kindergarten, and every time one child turns from Norwegian and starts to speak Samy, that's really, really, that's great. Whenever we manage to take those small steps that the colonial states have been using hundreds of years to erase from us, when we manage to take it back tiny bits by bits, then it's all worth it. Oh, the way you say Father is Apa, the way you say God parent is he, weas, the way you say father is Aapa, the way you say God parent is he weas. The way you say grandson is Aapa, mother is Anna, and son is in Nis. Here's Valentin Lopez again, chairman of the Amamutzen Tribal Band. Where we are today is we are at Cascade Ranch, which is about 25 miles north of Santa Cruz on Highway 1. Cascade Ranch is inhabited by members of the Amamutzen Tribal Band as part of a land stewardship

project. There are post-it notes peppered all over the interior of the house on objects like door knobs and the fridge with words from the Mutz and language written on them. It's a little trick they're using to help themselves and other Amma Mutz and members staying at the house to relearn their ancestral language. Like proficient would you say you've both gotten at this point or valve? You're pointing to valve. Really? There's no fluent speaker. We have one person now who may be a fluent speaker who's close, you know, but we went almost 90 years without a fluent speaker. And when there's no fluent speaker,

it's hard to learn. You know, we have the words on paper, but how do you do that? So we worked with linguists from UC Berkeley University of Arizona, UC Davis, and other universities as well. And we put a dictionary together, it took us 19 and a half years to put a dictionary together. And we have a decent years to put a dictionary together and we have a decent grammar book, a very good grammar book actually. So we're working on language and it won't be long before we have slow speakers brought back to our tribe. The Amamutsin land stewards are part of the Amamutsin land trust while defending attacks against their sacred cultural and spiritual sites like Yurostok and Mount Aminam, the Amamutsin are also focused on cultural and ecological restoration efforts,

taking proactive steps towards building a sense of tribal identity, through teaching their history, practicing their culture, and reconnecting with the land. Programs range from cultural relearning efforts such as storytelling and ceremonial practices to conservation and environmental education initiatives, including archaeological and fire research. Well, our Amamut Sanatras was established in 2012. And the goals of our land trust are to preserve and protect our cultural and spiritual and sensitive sites.

It is to do research, to help us restore the indigenous knowledge of our ancestors. There's an education component to allow us to teach our tribal members of our traditional knowledge of attending caring for the plants and the environment and then the fourth component is to have an actual stewardship core where we have our tribal members out on the lands actually working to help us restore the landscapes back to the conditions they were before first contact. There are many ways that returning land stewardship to indigenous communities is helping to restore ecosystems. For example, the Amamitson Land Trust is

researching and restoring traditional native burning methods, which could help the state reduce the risk of extreme wildfires. For thousands of years, the Amamutzen have been lighting prescribed methodical fires across the central California coast. These practices were banned by the Spanish colonizers starting in the mission period, and since then, California's wildfires have been intensifying. 2020's CZU Lightning Complex Fire, for example, was one of the most destructive fires in state history, as well as the largest fire in recorded history for the Santa Cruz Mountains. It almost burned down Cascade Ranch.

Native stewards are currently working on regularly engaging in prescribed burns, a practice which has multiple benefits, from promoting native wildflower biodiversity to mitigating the impacts of climate change. Now whenever people talk about climate change, they always talk about loss of biodiversity. And we are actively working here to restore biodiversity. So our land trust is recognized as kind of changing the way that these lands are steward, before stewardship meant, you know, put a fence around it, put a path there, and call it stewardship, you know, but our people, they've actively managed and take care of the lands, the plants, the animals, and they develop a lot of

techniques and strategies, including the prayers and the ceremonies and the understanding that it's an important intimate, loving relationship with all many things that we have and we need to get back to that if we're going to save Mother Earth. I think what better people than inleep themselves who are already natural conservationists to be out there on the land and ice being the guardians, the sentinels, how deeply affirming that would be for our hunters, who's remarkable and genius-money just so undervalued, and what better way to reclaim what was taken from us, our pride, our dignity, our resourcefulness, our wisdom, we are after all the inventors of the Hayak, you know, that boat that is replicated worldwide. You know, we can build homes of snow warm enough for babies to sleep in and for mothers to burp in. This is ingenuity. This is incredible architecture and ingenuity and engineering at its best. So we don't want to just be victims of globalization and climate change. We have much to offer in terms of leadership, in terms of our knowledge, our traditional wisdom,

and our ability to still live in this world that is so challenging for us, but yet still be able to be out there just protecting what we love. I see these many struggles for Indigenous resistance and I just realize how big of a renaissance, almost Indigenous activism is going through. I think it's undeniable that the world needs to change. And people aren't sure how to change it. So they're looking for wisdom that can't be found in our policy makers. This wisdom is something that's learned.

And it's not learned from books, it's learned from struggle. It's learned from living it. Our laws come from the land. Our laws are inherently self-sustainable. They are sustainable for all life, not just humans. And so if we want to combat this climate crisis, we don't need to reinvent the wheel. We need to get behind this system that have proven for thousands of years that we can live in a sustainable way in harmony with all living things on this planet. When you sit

cosily in your beach house, you know, in your climate-controlled settings, while the rest of the world burns outside, these people don't have wisdom. They're not even aware of what's actually going on. You know, they live in their own world. And I think that's really why people are looking towards indigenous people now is that we've always lived in a different reality.

The caretakers are gonna be the people who are the ones preaching the truth. They're going to be the ones who have been living the truth. And that's the indigenous people who haven't denied that these atrocities have happened. We've been saying the truth for years, and it's only now people are listening. We've said that our children were being killed

in boarding schools. And it's only now that people listen. We have to look for different eyes, different wisdom keepers. You know, and that's why you have to look towards, well, I look towards my elders, but I think people are looking towards indigenous people.

And that gives me a lot of hope. With climate change coming, I ask people to try and understand that the way our people That gives me a lot of hope. With climate change coming, I ask people to try and understand that the way our people took care of Mother Earth for all those thousands of years and hundreds of generations, that is what we need to return to to develop a sustainable, healthy environment. If we're going to survive the issues related to climate change, that effort and those actions must be indigenous led. It's our native plants as our traditions of tending, as understanding the sacredness of the land, the importance of relationships with all living things and recognizing that the

water and the air and the plants etc et cetera, are all living things. We need to take care of them. It is indigenous ways and indigenous understanding of Mother Earth that will allow us to deal with climate change. ... We are the people of the world, we are the people of the world. We are the people of the world, we are the people of the world. The Thank you to all of the guests for being a part of this documentary. Thank you also to Sylvia Cloutier, A. Paul Ortega, Joanne Shenandoah, G.I. Gergiev and Thomas DeHartman as performed by Sussle Little and Douglas Spotted Eagle for the music in this episode. And thank you to Canyon Coyote Woman Sayers Roots for the Chumash Grandmother song you

heard at the beginning of the show. Upstream Thee Music was composed by Robert. Thank you also to Wolf from the Gidempton checkpoint, Florian Carl of the Cloudbury Collective, and Lou Charamonte, Jr. from South Bay Indigenous Solidarity for their support. And thank you to Cerberus Star for this episode's cover art. This episode was made possible with support from the Gorilla Foundation and listeners like you. Help support the rest of our 2022 season of documentaries and conversations by making a reoccurring monthly or one-time donation at upstreampodcast.org forward slash support.

And because we're physically sponsored by the non-profit organization independent arts and media, any donations you make to upstream are tax exempt. For more from us, visit upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter and Instagram for updates and post-capitalist memes at upstreampodcast. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. And if you like what you hear, please give us a five-star rating and review. It really helps get upstream in front of more eyes and into more ears. Thank you. 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