Organization Supported
Indigenous Environmental Network
IEN is an alliance whose shared mission is to protect the Sacredness of Earth Mother from contamination & exploitation. Organizing campaigns, direct actions, capacity building, initiatives to impact policy, and building alliances among Indigenous communities, tribes, and allies.
Leaders of the Resistance
Indigenous and tribal peoples are the original or historical stewards and inhabitants of a region, and their descendants, with a proud and time honored ethos transcending today’s profit driven notions of “property” rights or land “ownership.” A distinct culture, identity, and lifestyle intimately connected with the land on which they have long lived.
Christopher Columbus wrote the following in his diary, before becoming notorious for his brutality against the same Indigenous peoples he described upon landing on Hispaniola:
“Of anything they have, if you ask them for it, they never say no...
Rather they invite the person to share it, and show as much love as if they were giving their hearts...”
Wisdom traditions teach both the notion of dualism (the inextricably linked two sides of the same coin), and the ultimate possibility of rising above this state of apparent conflict. To me, Indigenous peoples, and their history, are the very embodiment of this greater truth, or whole.
The history of Indigenous peoples is deeply interconnected with the history of colonialism. To fully understand either one, you must start by reflecting on the other. And like the most aspirational wisdom teachings and traditions, the sage voice of Indigenous peoples pleading for all to live in harmony with Mother Earth, the fight against climate change and for human dignity, is a call to all of us to rise above the dualistic thinking which has brought people and planet into crisis.
It is inspiring to witness the solitary resistance, and the fight against injustice endured; slavery, oppression, and genocide. For more than 500 years, Indigenous resistance proudly connects Powhatan, Hatuey, Túpac Amaru II, Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, to Che Guevara, the Red Power movement, CONAIE in Ecuador, Zapatistas in Mexico, Via Campesinas, and the countless ongoing struggles in every corner of the globe, today.
“Areas of the world projected to experience significant negative effects from global changes in climate, biodiversity, ecosystem functions and nature’s contributions to people, are also areas in which large concentrations of Indigenous Peoples and many of the world’s poorest communities reside”
Indigenous: Protectors of the Earth
Beyond the monumental fights for legal recognition and protection, and to save their cultures from extinction, Indigenous peoples are leading the fight to save all life on this planet. Across Brazil, Ecuador, Honduras, Guatemala, India, Canada, Mexico, Bolivia, and the US, Indigenous peoples are leading the way. Against de-forestation, the fossil fuel industry, pollution of air and waterways, the evisceration of habitats supporting biodiversity, and institutional economics of injustice.
For tribal communities intimately interconnected with ecosystems for millennia, man-made climate change is an existential and deeply felt spiritual threat, and is uniquely personal.
… and the cause for Hope:
The United Nations highlighted that Indigenous peoples are “custodians of 80% of the world's biodiversity” today. There is no greater steward of ecosystems than Indigenous peoples, with cultures rooted in the spiritual ethos of interconnectedness and sacredness of all life. The contrasting value systems between Indigenous peoples, and narrow-minded corporate profiteers, are on different planets—one literally leading to the upcoming colonization of a second.
When “solutions” proffered to address man-made climate change consist of monetization and speculative trading of carbon sinks and pollution credits, it is clear there will be no “rising above,” just drowning or burning from within.
As the Indigenous Environmental Network wrote in their open letter during CA's climate change summit of '18:
“You can not commodify the Sacred.”
There is another path.
One rooted in the miraculous and mysterious, the harmonious and hollistic, the sage and the sacred. Indigenous and tribal peoples, whose teachings and traditions have long inspired resistance against all odds, and provided an eloquent voice for Mother Earth, are now nurturing vibrant movements benefiting all life.
In 1781, Tupak Katari, leader of the resistance of Bolivia's Aymara against Spanish colonialism, declared before his execution:
“I will return, and I will be millions.”
Q: Will you be one?
Wine Industry and Indigenous Slavery
“California’s Wine Industry was Built on Slave Labor, ” by F. Dinkelspiel, 6/’17
Recent Indigenous context :
How Northern Consumers and Financiers enable Bolsonaro’s Assault on the Brazilian Amazon,” a report from Namati, 2019
”Lost tribes, the 1,000 km Mission to protect an Amazon village”, Guardian UK
Brilliant Photo essay project, “ Indigenous Autonomy and Resistance in Mexico “ by Scott Brennan in Washington Post, 4’19
“For the past six years, photographer Scott Brennan has been spending time with indigenous groups in Mexico that hope to preserve their ancestral homelands and culture by forming their own semiautonomous governments.”
“15 other Indigenous struggles you need to know about”
Current Problems facing American Indians, WikiBooks, 8/’18