Anyone who has had a close relationship with a pet like a cat, a turtle, a dog, or a bird, will jump at this question with a resounding; Yes! While they can’t all be like a Border Collie that has learned hundreds to thousands of words and sentences, we know first hand about their spark of intelligence and affection.
In biology, this question becomes a tricky one. Traditionally Biologists were urged not to anthropomorphize animals and assign them what were considered “uniquely human” traits like emotion, thought, and consciousness. The practice has been considered speculative and unscientific, even though examples that require very little speculation are ever more abundant.
One particular speaker at the upcoming Bioneers conference in October, Dr. Carl Safina, has dived into this world of animal behavior. As a marine biologist, Carl Safina began his career researching seabirds. Through his work, he became a MacArthur, Pew, and Guggenheim fellow. He developed into an ecologist and marine conservationist as he increasingly found himself debating on the side of conservation. Eventually, he was pulled back to the science of animal cognition through his abundant curiosity.
“Like many of us, I have wondered what thoughts and emotions motivate animals to do the things we see them do,” Carl Safina writes in an online question and answer session, “ I went to the heart of this by asking animals the question that for a scientist was forbidden fruit: Who are you?”
In his talk, titled “We Are Not Alone; What Animals Think and Feel,” Dr. Safina will explore animal consciousness, self-awareness, and empathy and the link to how that helps us protect the wildlife habitats of our animal cousins. Perhaps he will even answer the age old question, “does my dog really love me?”
Carl Safina will address a keynote talk at the 2017 Bioneers conference and he has a message for you. Watch the video below and buy your tickets to Bioneers now! Early-bird rate ends on July 31.
Yesterday’s news on the United States withdrawing from the historic Paris Climate Agreement reinforces what many have known for a while now– that Donald Trump ran on a dangerous, short-sighted, and oppressive campaign. It is no surprise that everything he and his “swamp-filled” administration have done since assuming the Presidency is take whatever progress has been made and fought for over the better part of the last 60 years and sell it to the highest billionaire willing to profit from it.
As a young adult who has grown up with the internet as the backdrop for my world-expanding experience at home, I’ve had the privilege of access to content and information previously inaccessible to so many. With that access comes the reality of being exposed to the best and worst of society. Being educated and having enough common sense as a millennial to realize that we only have one planet to live on for the foreseeable future, I have enough common sense to know that we are going to suffer the consequences of climate change in my lifetime and in the lifetimes of the children I one day hope to have.
The retraction from the Paris Climate Agreement triggers and angers me. However, I am not alone in that anger. That anger is felt to this same degree by everyday people who also feel small in comparison to the federal government. Some of these same angry people in turn have channelled their frustration and taken more leadership than even that same government on some of the most critical issues of our time, in this case Climate Change.
A quote from Margaret Mead comes to mind when evoking the newly awakened reality of the nation: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
As a young person who will eventually need to deal with the adverse effects of a warming planet and all the climate issues that ensue because of it, I see my peers shoulder to shoulder, genuinely pissed off. Yet that anger has not been confined to an empty void, limited to 140-characters. It has been the catalyst to promote an outpouring of love and resilience that has become the source for sustainable energy used to resist and fight against these destructive policy decisions.
It has even shown up in top business leaders around the country which, as a young adult who has to deal with those choices, provides a level of relief that even some of the corporations which could benefit from the withdrawal have chosen to go against the decision.
Still it can be easy to fall into a sense of powerlessness, but if I have taken anything away as an activist, warrior scholar, defender of Mother Earth, and fighter for social justice reading Mead’s quote, it is that the response by Pittsburgh’s Mayor Bill Peduto, and other city and state leaders across the nation, to the withdrawal is yet another step towards a much larger fight that will need our collective energy, time, and above all, belief. For after all, it is our planet too.
There are two great Will Allens in organic agriculture. One is a 6’7” former professional basketball player and founder of Growing Power in Milwaukee, the renowned urban agriculture training center. The other Will Allen is an organic farming pioneer and activist who started out as a professor at UC Santa Barbara, but was fired and jailed for his anti-Vietnam war activism. No longer able to work in academia, he took up farming following in his father’s footsteps.
Will’s zeal for justice and reform was transferred to agriculture. He founded the Sustainable Cotton Project (SCP) in 1990, which helped farmers transition to organic while reducing farmworker exposure to pesticides. SCP created markets for organic cotton selling to major manufacturers like Patagonia, Esprit, Levis, Marks and Spencer, and Nike.
Understanding that war creates more victims than heroes, Will became a founding member of Farms Not Arms (now the Farmer Veteran Coalition), which helps veterans heal from the trauma of war by training them for jobs in agriculture.
Will moved from California to Vermont to farm and became active in the Vermont GMO labeling law campaign. He farms with his wife Kate Duesterberg on 40 acres, producing a diversity of vegetables and fruits, grains, oil sunflower, dry beans, and ornamental and cut flowers. The farm has a certified kitchen producing organic products, and an organic coffee shop. The Cedar Circle Farm educational program hosts over a thousand school kids each year.
I sat down with Will at the 2016 Eco Farm Conference to talk about his work with Regeneration Vermont that promotes climate-friendly agriculture, social justice for farmworkers, stewardship of the natural environment and the production of healthy food. At the age of 80, Will is still a vital and transformative force, steadily pushing the food system to be more accountable, more in tune with nature and to be in service of human and ecosystem health.
We are delighted to announce that the renowned Canadian-born/Switzerland-based author, anthropologist and activist Jeremy Narby, one of our favorite people on the planet and one of the most spellbinding speakers ever to grace our main stage, is returning to give a keynote address at Bioneers in 2017 after several years’ absence.
Jeremy has a nearly 30-year track record working with indigenous peoples in Peru as the sole Amazonian representative of the Switzerland-based international NGO, Nouvelle Planète, an organization deeply influenced by the world-renowned humanitarian and Nobel Peace Prize winner Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) and his ideas on the “Ethics of Reverence for Life.”
Jeremy has been highly effective in his backing of many initiatives by and for the indigenous peoples of Amazonia in such domains as: land titling, self-determination, bilingual education, sustainable resource use, preservation of plant knowledge, environmental monitoring of petroleum companies, and of course the protection of the integrity and biodiversity of the tropical rain forest. Jeremy has carried on this extensive, remarkable activist work discreetly, so his accomplishments on that front are not widely known.
Jeremy (who studied history at the University of Kent at Canterbury and got his doctorate in anthropology at Stanford) is far more well known internationally for his authorship of some groundbreaking books and his thought leadership in seeking to reconcile indigenous wisdom traditions with modern scientific approaches to knowledge. He is uniquely well suited to this pursuit because he is a rigorously trained anthropologist and highly literate in several contemporary scientific fields, but he also lived among the Ashaninca in the Peruvian Amazon for several years and became immersed in shamanic ways of seeing the world, which impressed him by their profundity and sophistication. His profound respect for both these seemingly irreconcilable cognitive systems has driven him to make it his life’s work to seek to find common ground between them, something he has done with extraordinary originality, insight and clarity.
His books include:The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and The Origins of Knowledge;Intelligence In Nature; The Psychotropic Mind: The World According to Ayahuasca, Iboga, and Shamanism (with Jan Kounen and Vincent Ravalec); and the collection: Shamans Through Time: 500 Years on the Path to Knowledge (co-edited with Francis Huxley). Jeremy also sponsored a few experimental expeditions that brought small groups of molecular biologists and other scientists to the rainforest to experience indigenous knowledge systems and visionary plants. One of these journeys was captured in a documentary film, Night of the Liana.
We hope you can join us in October to hear one of the most brilliantly original thinkers of our time. Here’s a clip of Jeremy’s talk at the 2005 Bioneers conference.
Just Us 4 Food Justice is a daylong intensive that takes theory and practice and blends them into Praxis. The program will use the framework of Social Permaculture- using ecological permaculture principles and applying them for social good and community building. We will weave together the elements of self-love, meditation and mindfulness, food sovereignty, culture and skill-building activities.
Led by Permaculturist Pandora Thomas with breakout sessions led by holistic health educator Brandie Mack, Ceres Garden Manager Sara McCamant, and Forest Fein of the Mindfulness Program for Urban Youth.
Youth will have the opportunity to gain an understanding of social permaculture, how it can be used to improve their lives, and how it is useful in designing solutions to challenges within their organizations and communities. At the end of the day we will all make dinner together in Ceres’ commercial kitchen.
The event will take place at Ceres Community Project in Sebastopol, CA
9:30am – 7:00pm June 23, 2017
Lunch and dinner will be provided.
This is a free event, but space is limited. If interested in participating please send over a brief paragraph describing your organization, the work it focuses on, and what it hopes to gain from participating in this food justice intensive over to ernesto@bioneers.org or youth@bioneers.org.
We will respond within one week if your group has been accepted to participate in the intensive.
New Mexico has a multi-cultural legacy of traditional food and agriculture. Native American and Hispano community leaders, academics, farmers, activists and government officials speak to this legacy and how it informs the dream of a healthy statewide food system.
What do Hawaii’s Poet Laureate, a MacArthur Genius, and the 2016 recipient of the National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award have in common?
They are all featured presenters in the 2017 Bioneers Indigenous Forum.
Organized by our all-Native Indigeneity Program staff, and advised by our Native Board members and allies, the Bioneers Indigenous Forum has long served as a place for Indigenous intellectuals, activists and community leaders to convene in a safe, intercultural space to foster critical dialogue around environmental threats and social injustices Indigenous peoples experience. Indigenous voices and world views have always been critical to Bioneers’ mission to share practical solutions to the world’s most pressing issues, and since 1993, we have hosted such luminaries as Winona LaDuke, Oren Lyons, Robin Kimmerer, and Tom Goldtooth.
Tom Goldtooth, Executive Director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, speaks from the heart at the 2016 Indigenous Forum Panel, The Art of Intergenerational Activism.
The 2016 Indigenous Forum brought us powerful and emotional stories about the horrifying aftermath of Canada’s boarding school system in a panel about Truth and Reconciliation, and the first-hand accounts of what it’s like on the front lines at Standing Rock in our Indigenous Rising panel.
In 2017, the Indigenous Forum will continue the tradition to bring to light issues often ignored by the mainstream media, but are so critical for all people to learn.
Across 3 days, we will be focusing on three themes: Frontline Solutions, California Indian Survival, and Pacific Connections. Panelists representing over 20 tribal nations will present innovative, heart-breaking, and inspiring programming that will make a lasting impression on the spirits and minds of those who will join us.
Here’s an overview of our incredible line up:
Friday, October 20: Frontline Solutions
From Alcatraz to Standing Rock, Indigenous activists have long been recognized as at the forefront of innovative and effective movements. Our first panel, “Reclaiming Indigenous Worldviews: Implementing the Rights of Nature in the Bay Area and Beyond,” explores ways that First Peoples’ traditional worldviews can be adopted into Rights of Nature policy to protect natural systems for all peoples. Our second Friday panel, “Fighting Racism in School” is near and dear to our hearts, as we feature some of the most incredible teenagers we know, who will come together to share personal stories of successful battles to bring the real history of America into the classroom and to abolish dehumanizing Indian mascots once and for all.
Saturday, October 21: California Indian Survival
California Indians are the most culturally and linguistically diverse in all of North America. California has the largest Indigenous population in the US, and Los Angeles has the second biggest urban Indian population in America (just after New York City). Yet, people in California and across the broader US are woefully ignorant of the massive genocide and cultural revitalization that have taken place in the state. Through two powerful back to back panels, California Indian elders, leaders, and storytellers come together to tell the truth about surviving generations of kidnapping, slavery, and mass murder, and the healing power of traditional storytelling.
Sunday, October 22: Pacific Connections
As an Alaska Native, I grew up hearing stories about knowledge passed across thousands of miles of Pacific Ocean for generations, knowing that I was somehow connected to Hawaiians, Maoris, and other peoples across the Pacific. Yet, neither the mainstream public nor even other Native peoples not living along the Pacific Rim are aware of the rich body of shared knowledge about the seas and how they have changed over millennia. Our First Sunday panel, “Pacific Connections: Indigenous Approaches to Climate Change from Tanax Amix to Aotearoa,” brings together culture bearers from across the Pacific to share first-hand observations of the effects of climate change and explore how Indigenous seafaring traditions, knowledge and connections can launch innovative solutions and inform policy. For the first time ever performed on the West Coast, our final event will feature a special performance, “The Story of Everything,” by Hawaii’s Hawaii’s Poet Laureate, Kealoha. His epic, multi-media feast for the soul explores life’s biggest questions—“Where do we come from?” “Where are we going?”—drawing from sources as diverse and yet interconnected as astrophysics, disco, biology, Michael Jackson, and the Kumulipo.
We hope that you are as excited about the line up as we are! Want to know more? Download a complete description of the 2017 Indigenous Forum panels and speakers.
Psst: We have much more Indigenous programming planned for the 2017 Bioneers conference –from arts installations to main stage speakers, and our annual TEK one-day intensive. Keep an eye out for more updates.
As Ever,
Alexis Bunten (Aleut/Yup’ik) and Cara Romero (Chemhuevi)
In the midst of a world that seems to be violating all things we hold sacred, we turn to our Bioneers for hope and inspiration. Today we lift the voices of those who’ve been stifled within our current system, celebrating the resilience and survival of our Earth and those who honor her.
Winona LaDuke, the renowned indigenous rights leader and two-time Green Party U.S. Vice Presidential candidate highlights the struggles of indigenous peoples to protect their food sovereignty, restore their food systems and protect their cultures and foods from genetic modification.
It is possible to have a worldview that is not related to empire, and that’s very important for where we need to be going.
Severn Cullis-Suzuki, daughter of David Suzuki, graduated from Yale with a B.S. in ecology and evolutionary biology, and is on track to outpace her father as an activist. She founded a children’s environmental group at age 9, addressed the Rio Summit at age 12, and hasn’t stopped since, starting several groups and project and becoming a dynamic, luminous light in a new generation of eco-leaders. In this talk Severn discusses our responsibilities toward future generation; how to heal our disconnection from nature and each other; and how to draw from the best of ancient traditions and modern innovation to build a sustainable future.
Each of us has the power to inspire and influence.
Adrianna Quintero, a Senior Attorney at the NRDC and founder/Executive Director of Voces Verdes, says that if we want to have any chance of succeeding in securing a healthy future and a livable planet, it’s time to re-imagine the environmentalist. All of us have a connection to nature, and we need to embrace a new vision that reflects the realities of our time and the growing diversity in our country. As the U.S. moves toward being a minority majority nation and the Latino population asserts its very high commitment to environmental concerns, more and more of us need to feel welcomed and a part of the movement – even if we’ve never been on a hike.
We need diversity to thrive: in our movement, our nature, our thoughts, our voices. We need to welcome those in and find our connectedness – there are so many common threads.
The award-winning Canadian journalist, international activist and best-selling author (The Shock Doctrine, No Logo) depicts climate change as more than an “issue.” It’s a civilizational wake-up call delivered in the language of fires, floods, storms and droughts. It demands that we challenge the dominant economic policies of deregulated capitalism and endless resource extraction. Climate change is also the most powerful weapon in the fight for equality and social justice, and real solutions are emerging from the rubble of our failing systems.
Our challenge is less to save the earth from ourselves, and more to save ourselves from an earth that if pushed too far has ample power to rock, burn, and shake us off completely.
Erica Fernandez, a remarkable eighteen-year-old environmental justice activist and Brower Youth Award winner, helped mobilize her diverse community in Oxnard, California to defeat the placement of a liquefied natural gas facility just offshore.
Let our voices rise for a better world.
How are you celebrating Earth Day? We’re following you, Bioneers.
As you may already know, Xiuhtezcatl Martinez is now a member of the Bioneers Board of Directors. The burgeoning young hip-hop artist is one of the main voices of his generation in the fight against climate change. As part of Bioneers’ celebration of Earth Day 2017, we talked to him about why it’s important for young people to be engaged in matters they care about. He also shared his biggest victories throughout his journey as an environmental activist.
Feeling inspired? Then share this with your friends and support us in elevating the voice and message of a generation!
Bioneers: How did your relationship with Bioneers start? Xiuhtezcatl Martinez: I think I was invited to speak at Bioneers for the first time in 2012 or 2013. It was such an incredible opportunity to be immersed in a community where there’s a strong representation of youth and of Indigenous peoples, I was stoked by that. I hadn’t really seen that in a whole of other places, Bioneers really captured the importance of diversity of ideas in this movement. It was fun, it was beautiful, it was one of my first times in California and I continued to return ever since. From the organizers to the attendees, everybody was stoked to be a part of this monumental shift.
Bioneers: Why is it important for you to be a part of our Board of Directors and how will the organization benefit from it? Xiuhtezcatl: For me, it’s important to be a part of the Board of Directors because I think I’ll both learn a lot and gain a lot of experience from this. And I think I also have a lot to offer as far as bringing a fresh, young perspective to a lot of the ideas. I think that the future of this movement begins with youth and therefore we need to begin bringing young people further into the decision making process than we have traditionally done.
Bioneers: You started your activism journey really young. What urged you to get involved? Xiuhtezcatl: I think what got me super interested in engaging in environmental and climate activism and all of this when I was younger was just the deep connection and respect I have for nature. I love being outside, I love being in the forest, in the mountains. My father taught me to have a really significant connection with that and this is such an important thing. I think that once I began to see the actual impacts that humans were having in our environment it really pushed me to fight to protect what I love, which in this case was Earth, was the environment. I had that sense of connection that allowed me to realize the importance of fighting for something that I believed in.
Bioneers: Why is it important for youth to get engaged in causes like fighting climate change? Xiuhtezcatl: Climate change is primarily affecting young people and is going to primarily affect this younger generation in the future, not the adults, because the adults will be gone when the greatest impacts of climate change are felt. I think there’s such a critical connection between youth and the state of action on climate change. I think that more young people need to be involved because first of all, we’re powerful and our voices need to be heard. We’re passionate, we’re entrepreneurs, we’re creative. The way we think about movements and issues like these is really out of the box, diverse, and this movement needs that. I think we need to break down the barriers and the walls that identify climate change purely as an environmental issue. It’s about human rights, it’s about our future, it’s about justice. Young people have a really important role in changing the entire conversation about climate change with the understanding that the importance of solving this issue is building and creating a multi-generational, diverse, creative solution-based movement. And that it’s gonna come from the youth because what we are fighting for is nothing more than our future.
Bioneers: What were your biggest victories in this fight so far? Xiuhtezcatl: Two different lawsuits. One of them being the class-action lawsuit against the US Federal Government. Essentially, in this lawsuit we’re asking for massive primary recovery plans to be put into place by our government because of their failure to defend our constitutional rights from adverse climate impacts. A motion to dismiss was filed by the US Government and the fossil fuel industry, but after that two different judges signed on with us, with the youth, that we have the right to file a lawsuit, that our government does have the responsibility to protect us from climate impacts, that a sustainable climate is a fundamental right for young people. So that was a huge win that we had and we’re now taking this on to court.
There were different wins locally in Colorado as well such as banning fracking in five different municipalities and transitioning my own personal community in Colorado to getting off of a power grid controlled by Exxon Energy.
Another one is the birth of the Earth Guardian movement, how it went from just a handful of small crews, to thousands and thousands of people across the planet engaged and excited about making a difference in the world and using their passions to create change. I guess the biggest victory that I’ve seen is individually inspiring people to act and do a little be more and be better. Yes, we can change laws but the biggest thing you’ve got to do is change the hearts and minds of people and from then the movements that will create the big changes will follow.
Bioneers: Who are your biggest idols? Xiuhtezcatl: Van Jones is one of the most inspiring spokesman of our times. He’s very involved in the environment, in politics, in racial and social justice, economic justice. I’m super stoked to have him really engaged in this movement. A lot of my other idols are artists as well, musicians and people who use their platforms to talk about important issues and about change – Kendrick Lamar and Joey Badass being two of them. There’s a lot of cool people out there, the power of using art to influence change is huge.
Bioneers: What should youth be paying attention to now? Xiuhtezcatl: Youth should definitely be paying attention to Bioneers. Bioneers is a huge step forward in the climate justice movement and the evolution of human consciousness. Their whole movement really creates incredible things in humanity today, building solutions looking to the kind of world we want. Especially for young people that want to be involved in the world, I think that Bioneers is definitely something to keep track of.
My organization Earth Guardians is also super cool for youth that want to get involved. I think it’s important to look at it as an opportunity and a platform to engage and use your passion to do something about the problem you care about. Go to the website and reach out to us to get involved.
Our Children’s Trust is involved in getting young people engaged in legal actions to address climate change particularly and different environment solutions.
Looking at energy too, I think it’s cool to check out this project called The Solutions Project to check out the implications of transitioning to 100% renewable energy.
And there’s plenty more out there. Go Google, search it out, there’s a lot you can find out.
On April 18, 2017, the Bioneers Indigeneity Program was honored to present our Native Youth Leadership Program at the #genindigenous Northern California Convening hosted by Native Americans in Philanthropy. A part of the Generation Indigenous initiative launched by President Obama in 2014, the purpose of the gathering was to bring together Northern California Native youth organizers and funders to dialogue around shared goals for improving the lives of Native youth and cultivate the next generation of Native leaders.
We shared the story of how the Bioneers’ Indigeneity Program has grown in five short years from an initial cohort of 4 Native youth participants to 125 who we are able to support in terms of transportation, lodging, healthy food, and innovative cultural arts and leadership programming.
We were proud to announce our program’s launch from an event-based leadership retreat to a year round resource of information and networking opportunities for Native youth passionate about social and environmental justice, as well as educators and community leaders looking for Native American curriculum developed by Native organizers, artists and educators.
We live-tweeted throughout Program Manager, Alexis Bunten’s presentation, who shared impact through powerful youth testimonial videos and a program report.
We were also incredibly excited to use this special event to make a special, early bird announcement of our excited 2017 Indigenous Forum lineup which features panels on Indigenous Communities and the #RightsofNature, California Indian youth fighting racism in schools, #Californiagenocide and survivance, traditional storytelling, climate change across the Pacific and must more…
We hope many of our colleagues, old and new friends will come join us at the 2017 Bioneers Conference and at the world renowned Indigenous forum.
As Ever,
Cara Romero (Chemehuevi), Indigeneity Program Director
Alexis Bunten (Aleut/Yup’ik), Indigeneity Program Manager
Cara Romero, Indigeneity Program Director, receives the Yawa’ Award alongside San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, Chairwoman, Lynn Valbuena.
On Tuesday March 28, the Bioneers Indigeneity Team was presented the prestigious Yawa’ Award from the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians. The award gala, Forging Hope, was held at the National Orange Show in Highland, California and hosting awardees, tribal leaders, and dignitaries including city mayors and heads of Goodwill Industries, the Boys and Girls Club, the Girl Scouts and many more non-profits.
From Left to Right: Sedonna Goeman-Shulsky, Indigeneity Associate; Ernesto Reyes, Bioneers Youth Program Manager; Alexis Bunten, Indigeneity Manager; Cara Romero, Indigeneity Director.
A term meaning, “to act from one’s beliefs,” Yawa’ embodies the giving spirit of the Serrano peoples. The Bioneers Indigeneity Program was recognized in the “special projects” category for its ongoing commitment to provide opportunities for Native youth to participate in, network at, and be empowered by attending the annual Bioneers Conference and world-renowned Indigenous Forum.
Established in 2011, with a cohort of 4 youth, the Native Youth Leadership Program has grown to provide scholarships to over 100 Native youth and their chaperones. 2016 experienced the largest cohort yet, with the most comprehensive programming to make the conference a welcoming and safe space. Attendees represented 44 tribal nations from across Northern and Central America, with 14 California Indian tribes represented.
Native youth leadership program attendee playing music in front of the Native youth art space at the 2016 Bioneers Conference.
We consider the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians a key partner to our work as it grows to impact more Native and non-Native peoples around the world. At the Gala Awards ceremony, we expressed our deep gratitude to the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, who have supported the vision of the Bioneers Indigeneity Program’s Native Youth Leadership Program since it first began.
We finished our speech with a sneak peek of the next stage in the growth and sustainability of the Native Youth Leadership Program. We’re proud to announce our expansion from an event-based program to a year-round resource for Native youth, their parents, and teachers through our social media presence, original curriculum development and special events. Keep an eye out for upcoming announcements.
The idea that a feature of nature, like a river, is a living being might seem like a strange concept to some, but it is nothing new to Indigenous and other traditional peoples around the world. While the Western philosophical system is underpinned by the idea that man is separate from nature and in dominion over it, Indigenous philosophical systems tend to conceive of humans as a part of nature, often in a stewardship role to help maintain its balance.
The “Rights of Nature,” which codifies this Indigenous philosophy, has been in the news lately. On March 15, the the New Zealand parliament passed the Te Awa Tupua Bill, which granted the Whanganui River the rights of legal personhood. Less than a week later, on March 20, the Ganges, and Yamuna Rivers in India were also granted legal personhood status. Should these rights be threatened by human activity, legal cases on behalf of these rivers can be brought before a court to uphold their rights.
“Recognition of personhood rights are an important step forward toward the recognition of the full rights of the rivers to be healthy, natural ecosystems. Such rights would include the rights of the rivers to pure water, to flow, to provide habitat for river species, and other rights essential to the health and well-being of these ecosystems.”
For more, read CELDF’s press statement on the Uttarakhand High Court decision.
A woman in sunrise prayer in the Ganges River, by Nanak26
Though the political and historical contexts underpinning each policy
decision are different, all three rivers share these basic features in
common:
— The local peoples have a deep spiritual connection with the rivers, and consider them as living entities.
— Since colonization, these rivers have been highly polluted by toxic chemicals released into them from farming and industry.
— Local people’s ability to steward the rivers have been violated through commercial interference (pollution, diverting water, over-fishing, etc.).
Indigenous Foundations
Because the Whanganui decision influenced the Ganges and Yamuna ruling, it’s important to understand the role that New Zealand’s Indigenous Maori people played in catalyzing the legal personhood status of rivers (the Whanganui directly, and Ganges and Yamana indirectly). In a brilliant turn of events, Maori claimants wielded the Western legal system, essentially formed to protect the property of the “have’s,” on its head to recognize the Rights of Nature.
By granting the Whanganui River the rights of legal personhood, the Te Awa Tupua Bill affirmed the Maori relationship with the river as a life force of its own, a spiritual place of cleansing and renewal that must be protected for the sake of its own existence. If this seems like a radical idea to pass through a national governing body, it is. The bill came on the heels of the 2016 Whanganui River Settlement between the Crown and the Whanganui Iwi [Maori tribe]. Marking the longest running legal case in New Zealand history, the case closed 148 years after Maori made a settlement claim for land surreptitiously alienated from them. As part of the settlement, the Whanganui River was granted full legal rights, $30 million was provided to restore its health, and $80 million in redress was granted to the Iwi.
The Original Whanganui River Claimants
The testimonies of countless Maori helped the court to understand that the river and the people are inexorably intertwined, that the process of colonization disrupted both the river and the people’s health, well-being and ability to survive. Because the river and nearby lands were wrested from Maori stewards in a less-than-legal manner (and we can’t go back in time), the settlement became a symbolic means to remediate for the irreparable damage done –the lives lost, systems disrupted, and cycles broken involving the river and all that depends upon it. To learn more, check out the trailer for the moving documentary film, Te Awa Tupua – Voices from the River (2014).
We are witnessing a shift in global consciousness
Indigenous peoples’ understanding of the Rights of Nature is a part of our worldviews, reflected in our languages, songs, art, traditional economies, and customary law. But you don’t have to belong to an Indigenous tribe or practice Hinduism to understand that nature has a right to exist.
Rights of Nature is a growing movement of like-minded allies from every culture, background and walk of life, as our colleagues at CELDF have proven through their work with communities around the world. Nearly ten years before the Whanganui, Ganges and Yamana rivers gained the rights of personhood, Ecuador and Bolivia adopted Rights of Nature provisions into their constitutions. In the US, more than three dozen communities have now enacted Rights of Nature laws, with communities now joining together in several states to drive such rights through state constitutional amendments.
Until we are able to shift mainstream perceptions of nature from something to be exploited to something to be protected for the benefit of generations to come, this strategy could at least buy us time to protect parts of the planet from immediate, and specific threats. Inspired by the the Ho-Chunk Nation, the first U.S. tribe to vote to amend their tribal constitution to include the Rights of Nature, the Bioneers Indigeneity Program is partnering with CELDF to share this groundbreaking legal strategy with tribal partners. We feel that with our deep knowledge of natural systems combined with sovereign legal status, Native American peoples are in a unique position to advance the Rights of Nature. Stay tuned for more updates from the Indigeneity team!
Cara Romero (Chemhuevi) and Alexis Bunten (Aleut/Yup’ik)
