The Politics of the Rights of Nature

As our chance to take meaningful action on climate change diminishes, the call for the Rights of Nature to be legally recognized is growing among community activists, lawyers, scientists, government leaders, Indigenous people, and everyday citizens. Rights of Nature advocates are creating new laws that recognize natural ecosystems as subjects with inherent rights, and appealing to courts to protect those rights. 

In this excerpt from their new book, The Politics of the Rights of Nature: Strategies for Building a More Sustainable Future, Craig Kauffman and Pamela Martin analyze the politics behind the creation and implementation of Rights of Nature laws, the effects and evolution on debates around sustainable development. 

Craig Kauffman is an associate professor of political science at University of Oregon whose research focuses on the structure of authority that determines climate change policy. Pamela Martin is a professor of politics at Coastal Carolina University in Conway, South Carolina, and the executive director of the United Nations Regional Centre of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development in Georgetown, South Carolina.

“Water is life.” It gives life for all of us: humans, fish, trees, deer—indeed, all living beings. Yet the totality of this statement and the deep understanding of our connection to the planet gets lost in everyday life—in city planning, economic development, and the choices we make as individuals, governments, and communities to allow our natural world to be depleted and destroyed. In 2019, the United Nations (UN) scientific body charged with studying Earth’s biodiversity and ecosystems, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), issued a report concluding that human activity is driving the mass extinction of animal and plant species at a greater rate than ever before in human history. Existing environmental and human rights laws are clearly unable to provide for ecologically sustainable development or the health and well-being of many communities. The IPBES report notes that “goals for . . . achieving sustainability cannot be met by current trajectories, and goals for 2030 and beyond may only be achieved through transformative change across economic, social, political, and technological factors”; it defines the needed change as “a fundamental, system-wide reorganization across technological, economic and social factors, including paradigms, goals and values”. 

With the onset of climate change, prospect of mass extinction, and the closing window of opportunity to take meaningful action, a growing coalition of activists, scientists, lawyers, policymakers, and everyday people from around the world are calling for Rights of Nature (RoN) to be legally recognized in order to stimulate and guide this transformative systemic change. They are creating new laws that recognize natural ecosystems as subjects with inherent rights (implying humans’ responsibility to provide for their well-being) and are appealing to courts to protect those rights. By January 2021 at least 178 legal provisions recognizing RoN (e.g., constitutions, laws, regulatory policies, and court rulings) existed in seventeen countries spanning five continents, and thirty-seven more legal provisions were pending in ten other countries. 

Initiatives also exist to recognize RoN in international law, including the UN’s Harmony with Nature Programme and the proposed Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth (Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature 2010). RoN is supported in UN reports and General Assembly resolutions,1 in Pope Francis’s encyclical letter Laudato si’, and in the policy of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (2016). It is recognized by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (2017) and acknowledged by the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (United Nations General Assembly 2015b), the Convention on Biological Diversity (Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity 2012), and other international texts related to sustainable development. In fifteen years, RoN has gone from being a radical idea espoused only by a handful of marginalized actors to a legal strategy seriously considered in a wide variety of domestic and international policy arenas. 

Children and young people are a major part of the struggle to prevent ecosystem destruction, and they represent a hopeful future. In 2018, twenty-five Colombian young people, ages nine through twenty-five, sued the Colombian government to stop deforestation in the Amazon rain forest that was contributing to climate change, arguing that this violated their rights to a healthy environment, life, health, food, and water. The case made it to the Supreme Court of Justice of Colombia, which issued a groundbreaking ruling. Commenting that environmental degradation—not just in the Amazon but worldwide—is so significant that it threatens “human existence,” the court declared the Columbian Amazon a “subject of rights,” and ordered the government to develop an action plan to reduce deforestation to zero, with measurable strategies, and to restore the forest (Corte Suprema de Justicia de Colombia 2018). Like water, the forest is life. 

Colombia’s court ruling reflects a growing recognition that human rights, like the right to a healthy environment—which is recognized by more than ninety countries—are dependent on the well-being of ecosystems that provide the conditions for life. For this reason, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (2017, 28–29) recognized that protecting RoN is important for protecting not only the Earth’s biodiversity but also the human right to a healthy environment. 

Much is written on the philosophy and legal doctrine behind RoN, but few studies analyze the politics behind its creation and implementation or its effects on the politics of sustainable development. This book seeks to fill that gap. It tells the story of how community activists, lawyers, judges, scientists, government leaders, and ordinary citizens from around the world formed a global movement to advance RoN as a solution to the environmental crises facing the planet. It analyzes their efforts to use RoN as a tool for constructing a more ecocentric sustainable development paradigm capable of achieving the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development “in harmony with nature” (United Nations General Assembly 2015b). This book tells the story of RoN not only as a transformational norm that goes beyond traditional human rights, like the right to live in a clean environment, but also its influence on new governance models that recognize a needed shift in institutional organization and laws in order to live in harmony with Nature. 

We dedicate this book to those RoN defenders, advocates, scholars, and citizen participants who are creating transformational normative and institutional change at local and global levels. Such transformation weaves Western and non-Western (including Indigenous) ways of thinking and being into legal frameworks to lead sustainable change. We hope that our in-depth analysis of RoN laws, activist networks, and policy and governance outcomes provides a platform from which to engage serious discussions on aligning our legal and governmental institutions with our planetary needs and provides pathways for communities who are or will be organizing around such norms and legal provisions.

Eco-nomic Innovations: Building a Sustainable Economy

Recent employment numbers in the U.S. have economists puzzled. Job vacancy numbers are sky high right alongside a high unemployment rate. Businesses want to hire, but the labor market seems to be sitting on the sidelines. The pandemic disrupted many parts of our lives, and while some things are (hopefully) returning to normal, others could stand to shift entirely. Leaving aside all the political football about unemployment benefits, one basic fact is that inequality has never been higher in this country – and while Bezos is taking his rocket ship to space and thanking consumers, working class wages haven’t come close to keeping pace with inflation for many years. Could it be that folks aren’t going back to work because the jobs and work on offer aren’t worth doing?

As the page turns on summer towards Labor Day, we’re diving into just a few of the radical shifts in jobs and the economy that are coming our way. From humane workplaces that build community to the movement for Solidarity Economics to the necessary Just Transition underway as we move to a clean energy economy, what we do for work and how we go about doing it has never been more important. 

Creating Intentional Communities in our Workplaces

In an ideal work environment, people are treated as valued equals, working in safe and emotionally well-regulated workplaces. This pandemic has daylighted the ruthlessness that we have come to accept as part of work culture. Through the lens of the emotionally well-regulated social structure, we can plot a course to a healthy social and emotional ecosystem where people and projects can finally thrive.

Karla McLaren, M.Ed. is an award-winning author, social science researcher, workplace consultant whose trailblazing work on empathy is transforming workplaces. In this article, Karla highlights the problems inherent in todays’ work culture and uses transformative conceptions of emotions to introduce new understandings of the workplace.

Read more here.

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Solidarity Economics: Why Mutuality and Movements Matter

Economists often defend our current economic model and it’s disastrous effects on our planet and marginalized communities by appealing to a normative concept of “humanity”. It is assumed that exploitative and narrow class interests that arise at the expense of the earth and community is human nature. However, as the world fell into isolation and uncertainty brought on by a global pandemic, humanity showed itself capable of uniting and showing compassion for others. With the pandemic came a moment of pause – a space in which we glimpsed the possibilities of what the future can hold. 

In his latest book co-authored with Chris Benner, Solidarity Economics: Why Mutuality and Movements Matter, Manuel Pastor offers a powerful blueprint for an equitable future. In this excerpt, Manual defines the possibility and urgency of solidarity economics guided by principles of mutuality and solidarity.

Read more here.

Just Transition: A Workforce Development and Jobs for a New Clean Economy

With the given climate, the task most imperative to regaining the possibility of a liveable future is to transition from a fossil fuel based economy to a global economic system that runs on clean energy. However, this transition doesn’t come without risk when considering the numerous working-class families and communities whose livelihoods have grown to depend on jobs provided by the fossil fuel industry. Without a plan for an equitable transition that centers working class and marginalized communities, we risk replicating the unjust structures that we are trying to dismantle. 

In this panel from Bioneers 2019, four leaders answer the question, “What does a Just Transition Mean?” They outline the need for and progress towards proactive labor policies to ensure an equitable future for families and communities.

Read more here.

A Caring, Sustainable Economy for the 21st Century

​​Ai-jen Poo, one of the nation’s most effective and dynamic young labor leaders, presents the vision of Caring Across Generations, a new national coalition of 200 advocacy organizations working together for a dignified quality of life for all Americans. Its purpose is to transform some of our most fundamental social and economic challenges – jobs, long-term care and immigration – into opportunities for innovation and solutions that benefit everyone. ​​Ai-jen Poo is also the co-founder and Executive Director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, a non-profit organization working to bring quality work, dignity and fairness to the growing numbers of workers who care and clean in our homes, the majority of whom are immigrants and women of color.

Read more here.

A Just Transition: Workforce Development and Jobs for a New Clean Economy

We know that the climate imperative in front of us is to transition as rapidly and comprehensively as possible from a fossil fuel based economy to a global economic system that runs on clean energy. Among the thornier questions involved in this shift is how the bold new economic visions for this large-scale transformation can support working-class families whose livelihoods are currently tied to the fossil fuel-based economy.

“Just Transition,” is the phrase frequently invoked as the answer to this question. In this panel from Bioneers 2019, four leaders answer the question, “What does a Just Transition Mean?” They outline the need for and progress towards proactive labor policies to ensure an equitable future for families and communities. With:

This is an edited transcript from a panel hosted at the Bioneers 2019 Conference.

VIEN TRUONG: I’d love for us to start with a basic question: How do we understand what Just Transition is? 

LARRY WILLIAMS: Every community has their own specific set of challenges so communities will also define what a just transition looks like to them.

Larry Williams

People are surprised to hear that Just Transition originated in the labor movement. For some workers, “Just Transition” means their job is going to get taken away. 

Some communities and families depend on jobs within the fossil fuel industry or resource extraction in general. The question we must answer to create a just transition is: How do we end the exploitation of our planet while ensuring that we’re not putting the livelihoods of communities and families at risk in the process? 

SARAH WHITE: I think that we tend to think about Just Transition in a very narrow way as the impact on resource-dependent communities, framed as, “What happens in California to oil and gas workers if we become carbon neutral?” And that is a big question.

But we also have to ask it as a larger question for the entire transition to a low-carbon economy: How do we transition into a carbon neutral economy in a way that is just? How do we ensure that workers whose jobs may be going away or transforming are included – but also all of those people who’ve been excluded from the economy right now are also included? What does it mean to build a new clean economy that includes people who have been excluded from opportunity in communities which have borne the heaviest burdens of climate change to date? It’s not only energy sectors either. We’re talking about a transition that looks at jobs in sectors including land, water, waste, industry, transportation, health, education and more.

Sometimes I hear language around Just Transition and I worry that people think we’re simply going to take these dirty jobs and swap them out for new green jobs. The labor market does not work like that. Ultimately, it is looking at an entire diversified economy, and how we build it, and how we bring people onto it.

I define Just Transition much more broadly than most. A Just Transition is about building a clean economy with an equity lens.

LARRY: When I hear transition, I ask: Transition from what? If you read W.E.B. DuBois’ Black Reconstruction, you know that after slavery, reconstruction was a failure. Reconstruction was supposed to be an effort to move from a slavery-based plantation economy to a worker-ruled democracy. Today, we still see African Americans without jobs, doing labor in prison creating solar panels. If we’re not careful, we can risk repeating this history. 

VIEN: Larry, can you talk about the work that you’re doing, whether with the Sierra Club or union based or other places? How do we actually create more opportunity and access to communities that have not been part of the conversation?

LARRY: In order to have the skills necessary to build this new economy, for well-paid high-road jobs with health insurance and transferable career prospects, you need to have a base of training. 

This comes with challenges because clean-energy partners are very skittish about the labor movement. They believe that costs are going to be higher if their workers are unionized. But a workplace that invests in its employees will have consistent productivity and low turn-over; in the long run, you’ll actually spend less money. We put our livelihood into the work we do so we need to think about sustainability. Wages have been stagnant for the last 60 years despite productivity rising and despite the wealth of the rich going up.

Sarah White

SARAH: Part of my job is figuring out how to get the timing right so that we have the workforce we need to build this new economy, but we do not do what we did 10 years ago, which was to train a bunch of people for jobs in an imaginary green future, which did not arrive on time, and so did a disservice to a lot of people by training them for jobs that didn’t exist or jobs in a dead-end industry, career-wise. We don’t want solar sweatshops – just because it’s green doesn’t mean it’s good. 

We have an equity and climate jobs agenda in California, and one piece of that is looking specifically at how to build training partnerships across the sectors I mentioned earlier, including energy, transportation, land, water, waste, housing, etc. The answers come from working regionally and locally, from communities. The answers are not handed down by the state, no matter how much experience we have. 

VIEN: Larry, you are talking about “high-road jobs” – good pay, benefits, can support a family. I can imagine that if I were hearing about developments that might be a threat to my job, I would be scared. What are you hearing in your conversations with labor members? What should we know about where the anxieties are, and what kind of solutions they’re hoping to hear from us?

LARRY: If we’re being honest with ourselves about our movements, they’re all borne out of exclusion. Whether it’s women, people of color, Indigenous people, these movements started as exclusive movements and that can be found true today. 2017 was the first year that three out of four people who joined a union were under the age of 35. As the country becomes more diversified, so is union membership. One of those ways we’re working to get leadership to reflect that diversity is by organizing, educating people to know that they have a fundamental right to join a union. Some of the work entails challenging the white supremacy that has historically barred people from joining these unions and becoming leaders.

If the labor movement is successful in making the transition to a more inclusive formula, the problem will solve itself, because we realize that we literally can’t build a movement for a just economy without building a movement for environmental justice, racial justice, etc.

VIEN: We are now dealing with a country that is very divided, and some argue that this last Trump election was the backlash against where our future economy was headed. Especially in coal country where they feel like they are being left behind. 

Vien Truong

I will say that when I was CEO and president of the Dream Corps, I used to have a team called the Love Army. Our first campaign was to fight with United Coal Mine workers and because we didn’t confront them with the blame of pollution, we were able to work together to actually make calls to the Congress and successfully got 22,000 coal mine workers healthcare and pensions.

It wasn’t about helping the companies, it was about helping the people – that’s what this Just Transition is about. How do we make sure that we always keep in mind that it’s real people that we’re fighting for? 

Demond, I want to turn to you. You have perhaps the hardest job right now in crafting the Green New Deal, and everybody’s paying attention to it. I bet you have a bunch of people who are coming in and wanting to help you – “help you” – with thinking about various components, various parts of the economies. How have you been navigating unions, diverse communities and government interests? How are you navigating the balance of that in the crafting of this new deal?

Demond Drummer

DEMOND: We’ve always believed that the Green New Deal was bigger than one politician, one organization or one movement. It’s a movement of movements. We see our role as the “taking-it-all-the-way flank of the movement. We are going to advance the most aggressive and bold visionary version of what the Green New Deal can be. 

I don’t want people to walk away thinking that New Consensus is the one organization working on the Green New Deal. We’ve seen a number of groups take on the Green New Deal and pour their values and vision into that frame and that’s become part of a national conversation we find ourselves in the center of. 

There are people starting Green New Deal movements and conversations in local communities, in states – the list goes on and on. This is a national conversation, and we need to treat it as such. Everybody should be working on The Green New Deal.

VIEN: I completely agree with that. I want to close by saying how much I appreciate the work that you all are doing. Thank you all for giving an empathetic ear to people who need it. I hope that you lead with compassion in the spaces that you are operating in. I thank you for helping us fight for a just and sustainable future. 

Solidarity Economics: Why Mutuality and Movements Matter

In defense of an economy that destroys the planet while marginalized communities languish in the corners of society, economists often appeal to a normative concept of “humanity.” It is assumed that exploitative and narrow class interests that arise at the expense of the earth and community is human nature. However, as the world fell into isolation and uncertainty brought on by a global pandemic, humanity proved itself capable of uniting and showing compassion for others. With the pandemic came a moment of pause – a space in which we glimpsed the possibilities of what the future can hold. 

Manuel Pastor is a professor of Sociology and American Studies & Ethnicity at the University of Southern California whose research focuses on issues facing low-income urban communities and the social movements seeking to change those realities.

Dr. Chris Benner is a Professor of Environmental Studies and Sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Rooted in an urban political ecology approach, his research examines the relationships between technological change, urban and regional development, and structures of economic opportunity.

In their latest book, Solidarity Economics: Why Mutuality and Movements Matter, Pastor and Benner offer a powerful blueprint for an equitable future. In this excerpt, they define the possibility and urgency of solidarity economics guided by principles of mutuality and solidarity.

Solidarity Economics: Why Mutuality and Movements Matter is available for preorder here. 

Watch Manuel Pastor’s keynote address to the 2021 Bioneers Conference: Solidarity Economics: Mutuality, Movements and Momentum

So what do we mean by solidarity economics? As suggested earlier, we see three fundamental and interlocking premises: (1) our economy is not some abstract natural phenomenon driven by immutable forces, but rather created by people through collaboration as well as competition; (2) when we recognize and reinforce those collaborative elements, we end up with not only better social outcomes but also better economic outcomes; and (3) because some people benefit from the current system and would seek to divide us, social movements for change are critical to economic success, both because they can help shift power and because they can help build and broaden our sense of mutuality.

The first premise, increasingly emergent in the realm of behavioral economics, has to do with the conception of human nature. The general assumption by most economists since Adam Smith has been that people act purely (or at least largely) out of self-interest. For neoliberals, the good news is that the market will coordinate all that selfishness to a blissful outcome, and so limited government is the best recipe. On the left, there is often a similar take on what drives economic behavior, with the caveat being that bliss is not likely to be distributed justly; as a result, the state must act to constrain the worst instances of selfishness and so, corral our economy into serving the common good.

But as became evident in the COVID-19 crisis and in many other disaster situations, people also act out of impulses of solidarity with one another. And this is not just in moments of stress; care for one other is as much an impulse as is fear of the other, and generally the world goes better when this, rather than fragmentation, is the norm. The challenge, as articulated by economist Sam Bowles in his brilliant book The Moral Economy, is that we have structured our economic and political systems to either reward or tame self-interest rather than to promote our connection with one another.

To be fair, traditional economic models do not deny that people have impulses for mutuality, but they assume that these impulses are expressed outside the economy – in family life, neighborhoods, churches, charity work. But assuming that people check their humanity when they enter the economy creates highly problematic blinders: the resulting economic models make invisible the unpaid labor of mostly women in the home and community; they undervalue the essential human interactions in caring work that stretches across much of our service economy; and they ignore the ways that collaboration is an essential part of innovation, teamwork, and many other economic activities.

Traditional economic models are also often blind to the ways our economy is rooted in the places we live and work. Much of economic activity is rooted in locally serving industries, and in fact, the vast majority of our economy is rooted in creating, maintaining, and improving the social and physical environments in which most people live. Most work cannot happen without workplaces, even if those workplaces are home offices for some, and overall our economy cannot exist without the ecosystems on which we depend. Yet traditional economic models largely neglect our connection to place and planet, as well as our connection to each other.

Of course, one person’s (or group’s) mutuality might be another person’s exclusion. As critical race theorist john powell has suggested, our current system has devised and perpetuated in- and out-groups, often by race and place, to determine who can belong in our circle of solidarity. This sets boundaries around who should benefit from job security and social support, and who should be thrown to the market wolves – as well as which places will be thriving, gentrifying, or dying. The challenge is that when wolves are left to prowl, it is dangerous for everyone; accordingly, challenging structural racism and broadening the circle of belonging in our economy is actually in the common interest.

Manuel Pastor

This sets the stage for our second major premise: that building on a spirit of mutuality can actually lead to broader prosperity, a point also made by Heather McGhee in her brilliant new book The Sum of Us. We recognize that this runs straight up against the traditional economic perspective that inequality is necessary to incentivize and facilitate a strong economy – the classic equity–efficiency trade-off. But as we discuss in more detail in chapter 2, high levels of income disparities, racial segregation, and social fragmentation actually tend to limit the sustainability of income and job growth, both nationally and regionally.

More broadly, the evidence is increasingly mounting that our current scenario of economic inequality, structural racism, and environmental destruction is suboptimal for nearly all of us. By contrast, recognizing and reinforcing mutuality could have benefits in many spheres. If we supported the collaborative elements necessary for innovation to flourish, and reduced the unequal private appropriation of the commons, we would increase investments and steer innovations toward the common good. If we recognized collaborative contributions to our economy through a social wage, it would help reduce the tremendous economic burden of poverty, poor health, and homelessness. If we extended our sense of mutuality to the planet and future generations, we would have a healthier environment and prevent being overwhelmed by the economic costs of environmental pollution and climate-change-driven disasters.

Dr. Chris Benner

And this gets to our third premise: we will only get to that better world through active organizing that seeks to rebalance power. Mutuality and cooperation may be the goal, but getting there will require the antagonistic friction of politically defining who benefits from current arrangements and determining how to diminish their influence in order to promote the interests of the many. This dialectic of embracing mutuality as a goal and movements as a strategy is a difficult balancing act – but it must be done if change is to take place.

And this presents another challenge to conventional wisdom: economics as a discipline often proceeds as though empirical research documenting problems and outlining solutions is enough to lead policy makers to decide on a more inclusive course of action. But this perspective – thinking that racial differentials, wealth disparities, and environmental destruction are problems to be corrected – is misplaced. Such “problems” are not bugs in the system but rather features of an inequitable structure of domination that can only be disrupted by the efforts of social movements to enact solidarity at scale.

This emphasis on movements is also deeply tied to the idea of a frame, the concept with which we began this section. The newest theories of social movements talk about the importance of the construction of a shared identity through narrative understanding. We need an economic policy package, to be sure, but we also need a story. Neoliberals have a convincing one, a vision that always comes back to individuals, freedom, and markets (even if the actual results are inequality and disadvantage). We need a tale that resonates, that draws on the deep human sense that we can get through most anything if we band together, and that becomes a sort of mental default so that any economic question about a social challenge that gets asked gets a new sort of answer: mutuality and movements.

Back To School: Resources for Indigeneity Education

As students begin to return to classrooms, teachers and administrators are tasked with balancing young people’s education alongside a truly monumental set of obstacles – a global pandemic, political infighting, structural educational inequities and a mounting climate crisis. At the same time, nurturing leadership in young people has never been more important, and supporting the incredible educators who do this essential work is the pathway forward. 

This week, we are excited to highlight the one-of-a-kind Bioneers Indigeneity Curriculum project which provides free and cutting edge cultural educational resources for educators. We also learn from youth who are walking the walk, pointing out the connections between educational equity and climate justice. And, as the delta variant emerges, we revisit the National COVID-19 Outdoor Learning Initiative, which has been instrumental in supporting schools to get education outdoors. 

Bioneers’ Expanding Indigeneity Education Resources

While overall public awareness of contemporary Indigenous issues and experience is severely lacking, appropriate educational materials are in even shorter supply. To meet this need, the Bioneers Indigeneity Program, with the support of dedicated and visionary funders, has developed Indigeneity study guides and lesson plans aligned with national standards for grades 9-12+, inspired by the conversations in the annual Bioneers Indigenous Forum. These curricula offer educators an invaluable toolkit for teaching these incredibly essential concepts in the classroom.

With curriculum bundles on topics including (most recently): “Three Sisters,” “The Real Thanksgiving,”  “Water is Life,” “Alcatraz,” “Borderlands,” and “Honoring Women,” this body of work represents a unique opportunity to bring Indigenous-created curriculum into both formal education and non-formal learning environments.  Each curriculum bundle includes teacher instructions, activities, assessment, and additional materials for a week of instruction aligned to the lesson’s theme. These curricula can be accessed free of charge on our dedicated Indigeneity Curriculum webpage. 

Learn more about Indigeneity education from Bioneers here. 

Join Us At the 2021 Bioneers Conference!

How Equity in Education Can Foster Youth-Led Climate Advocacy

A clear distinction between who produces the astronomical amounts of pollution affecting our climate and who bears the brunt of its impact arises as young people push for equity in education to highlight holistic understandings of climate change. Earlier this year, a group of students led an effort in San Mateo County to rally their school district to pass a Climate Emergency declaration. After successfully organizing for the resolutions approval, the students developed climate action plans for their district. In this new interview, Lilian Chang and Katinka Lennemann, two of the students behind the effort, speak about the role of education in the push for climate justice. 

Read more here.

COVID-19 Learning Resources

The single most-read article on Bioneers.org in 2020 was an interview we conducted with the founders of The National COVID-19 Outdoor Learning Initiative, based on the straightforward idea that fresh air and outdoor learning could allow students to return to school in the midst of a pandemic. Co-founded by Green Schoolyards America; the Lawrence Hall of Science at the University of California, Berkeley; San Mateo County Office of Education; and Ten Strands, the National COVID-19 Outdoor Learning Initiative has developed a community of practice and curated a very practical library of ideas and resources designed to support you in using the outdoors for learning during the pandemic and beyond. 

See here.

The Latest from Bioneers.org:

  • Conversation with Oglála Lakȟóta Elder Basil Brave Heart: Part 1 | Basil Brave Heart is an Oglala Lakota combat veteran, Catholic boarding school survivor, author and retired school administrator from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. In part one of this interview with Hilary Giovale, Basil shares reflections about Lakȟóta lifeways and the impacts of boarding schools.
  • Conversation with Oglála Lakȟóta Elder Basil Brave Heart: Part 2 | In part two of this interview with Ogála Lakȟóta Elder Basil Brave Heart, shares his perspectives on war, healing, and patriotism. 
  • Good Fire: Indigenous Cultural Burns Renew Life | In this interview, we speak with Bill Tripp, Deputy-Director of Eco-Cultural Revitalization for the Karuk Tribe’s Department of Natural Resources, about the role of fire within Indigneous cultures as a way of caretaking land. As climate-induced fires destroy land across the U.S., Indigenous knowledge may be a guiding force in rekindling an old kinship with fire.

Feeding People and Helping the Climate

Rick Nahmias is an award-winning photographer and author of The Migrant Project: Contemporary California Farm Workers, which documents the hardships of the marginalized lives of the people who feed the country. He’s dedicated to food justice and the idea that access to healthy food is a human right. These principles led him to start a grassroots neighborhood food recovery program donating backyard citrus fruit to local Los Angeles food banks and to ultimately found Food Forward. Since 2009, Food Forward has recovered over $271 million worth of good food headed for the landfill, and fed millions of people in eight counties in Southern California, seven other states and tribal lands in New Mexico, Arizona and Oklahoma. Those efforts have had a significant climate impact. The food recovered avoided 50,000 metric tons of Co2 equivalent by redirecting surplus food from the landfill where it is a major emitter of methane, a greenhouse gas more damaging than Co2.

ARTY MANGAN: Your interest in food justice and hunger goes back to your book: The Migrant Project: Contemporary California Farm Workers. How did that project lead you to your work alleviating food insecurity?

RICK NAHMIAS: After The Migrant Project, food justice became my way to plug into the bigger issues of justice, as someone who cooks, someone who grew food, someone who had been in the fields, someone who had the privilege of being a white male and being able to use that opportunity to bring people’s eyes and ears to a story that we all are affected by. 

I continued doing photography and in 2008- 2009, and I was doing volunteer work on the Obama campaign and on Proposition 8, a California state initiative to ban same sex marriage. Prop 8 passed and it invalidated my marriage along with tens of thousands of others. I had a bizarre political/emotional whiplash; on one hand, I felt so good about a new leader, but I also felt like shit about my fellow Californians who just nullified my right to love somebody and build a life with the person I choose. It made me reevaluate my life.

I was done with eight years of having a lot of anger fuel my work, which was the only silver lining of the Bush years. It gave me something to push back on as an artist politically and as a citizen. After that, I needed to do something that was out of a place of generosity. I needed it to be smaller and more local because these huge state and national initiatives were draining. I felt like a grain of sand on the beach, so to speak. I really didn’t see how I could help those issues. 

So, I planted that seed in my head and at the same time, unfortunately, my dog was aging quickly. We would take slower and slower walks around the neighborhood, and I started noticing this abundance of fruit on trees all around my home that were going to waste, mostly citrus, but other fruits too. At that time, the Great Recession began to take hold. I thought, what if this fruit, which is in massive abundance, could get to a food pantry through the hands of volunteers to help bolster the dry goods that were coming out of food banks, which notoriously struggle trying to obtain fresh produce. I put an ad out on Craigslist. I enlisted a friend who had two fruit trees. Six people responded to my Craigslist ad, and one of them actually showed up the day of the event. She and I, over the next three weekends, harvested my friend’s backyard. We came away with about 800 pounds of citrus, which went to a food pantry about two miles away. It was just kind of the right idea at the right time and it exploded from there.

The food pantry was very grateful, and basically said, “More, please.” It was the first time in my life that there was a tailwind to an idea. There was also a live fourth dimension I was working in. I wasn’t a photographer with a bunch of glass and metal between me and my subject. It was an immediate take-fruit-off-tree, put-in-box, give it to people. There was the sense of a virtuous circle in which I became the change-maker, which is timeless; it’s biblical, literally and figuratively. It is all about sharing and giving and gifting with nothing in return but the endorphins. And it was simple, and simplicity was what I wanted after several years of very complex logistics with photography, fundraising, and managing exhibitions and putting books together. It was, what I call, fruit therapy. You get up in a tree and become a 5-year old again. At the end of it, you have half a dozen boxes of fruit that you get to give away to people. There was no downside. 

So it became my hobby and the hobby of a bunch of other kind of kooky people, and we became like a little tribe. We’d do potlucks together. We’d go out on fruit adventures in different parts of Southern California that we heard had an orchard. We would do all kinds of stuff together, and it built this community that just became this wonderful flywheel of enthusiasm and passion that multiplied. At the end of our first year, we had 100,000 pounds of backyard harvested fruit by hand. That’s a lot of fruit.  Maybe not for a professional in the field, but for a bunch of middle-class white people who don’t do this professionally and just did it on the weekends, it was a lot of food. We realized there was so much more that could be done. So that’s the genesis of it.  

Photo by Serena Creative Courtesy of Food Forward

ARTY: You mentioned food justice as one of your motivations for this work. How do you define food justice?

RICK: Food justice is ensuring that everybody has access to healthy, affordable food, period. It’s making sure that one’s economic place in our society is not an arbiter about how, when, and what you get to eat. It’s making sure that everybody gets fed.

Hunger is not a supply problem, it’s a distribution problem. It’s something within our means to eradicate. And that may sound very pie in the sky, no pun intended, but it is really true when you look at how much is grown in our fields and how much is left behind. It’s really a shameful equation.

Food justice is when you feed people, you empower them. When you starve them, you keep them down. There’s been a lot of talk in this last year around different types of justice – racial, social, etc. To me food justice overlaps with racial justice. I’ve had to remind people, even within my organization, that what Food Forward does is a racial justice action, because the food we are giving away is nourishing people who are fighting on the frontlines of racial justice struggles. Without the nutritious and healthy food that we’re giving away, they would have to seek food in other places. So we’re enabling their physical health which enables them to continue to fight. It’s an indirect correlation, but I think it’s very much there. But to be clear, I do not put Food Forward out as a racial justice organization. 

ARTY: What are some of the communities that you serve, and what’s the scope of hunger in those communities?

RICK: Los Angeles, even as recently as the 1940s and ‘50s, was the largest agricultural producing county in the country. It now has the largest food insecure population in the country. What’s even more shameful is that Los Angeles has maybe the largest number of farmers’ markets of any city in the country, over 200 weekly. We have more food flow through the LA County area – whether it’s our highways, the ports, the northern part of the county where some of the food is grown, the wholesale terminal in downtown Los Angeles – than any city in America, maybe North America if you don’t count Mexico City. How is it that we have more hungry people than anywhere else in the country? 

I want to look at this problem from every area of need. I want to know the mostly Hispanic immigrant families in Pacoima who are food insecure; I want to be able to touch the low income senior LGBTQ community in Hollywood, because they’re food insecure; I want to be able to reach the low income Asian restaurant worker community out in the San Gabriel Valley; I want us to reach farm workers in Ventura County who are food insecure and so on. Food Forward has always taken great pains to be as diverse and inclusive regarding whom food insecurity affects and whom we can back up in the sense of giving food to. We supply food to well over 350 direct service agencies. We’ve come out of a crazy year-and-a-half where we grew our produce distribution mostly through our wholesale program. That program distributes produce to eight counties in Southern California, plus seven additional states, and tribal lands reaching all the way to the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma. We take great pains to lower any barriers. 

We’re a business-to-business operation, for the most part. It’s very rare that we do in-person distributions anymore. Those are mostly done by our partners, and that’s purposeful because we want to empower them and not try to duplicate the muscles they’ve developed. From being in the trenches for 12 years with them, we know their biggest stumbling block is having a fresh produce pipeline. So, we make sure they are getting a free diverse menu of produce on a regular basis. 

ARTY: On the global scale, there’s enough food for everyone, and yet there’s something like two billion people who are food insecure to some degree. Why is that? What’s wrong with the system?

Photo by Vanessa Bly courtesy of Food Forward

RICK: The cynic in me knows that there is definitely political will behind a lot of this. If you keep people hungry, you keep them quiet, you keep them docile. Right? It’s very hard to have a social uprising or political uprising if you can’t feed yourself or your children. It also means you’re spending a lot of time looking for food rather than challenging political stances or unfair policies. I believe there is truth to that.

I also believe that there is a lot of shame around food insecurity, and that a lot of the faces of people who are food insecure are still hidden. You see a lot of food insecurity in seniors, and, in many cases, single dwellers who are shut-ins who are no longer able to provide for themselves and are reliant on programs. You also see a great lack of nourishment and food insecurity in schools. 

We don’t value the true cost of what it takes to create the food, and that’s why we are wasting a ridiculous amount of it from the farm level all the way to the consumer. The two-sided coin that Food Forward is most concerned with is food waste and food insecurity. Our solution solves both problems at the same time. In the last term of Obama, the federal government began to talk about food waste as an issue. But for four years the last administration went silent on the topic.

We hope to holistically educate people that when you throw away a box of strawberries because they got moldy in the back of your refrigerator, you’re throwing away the fertilizer that was produced to cultivate them, you throw away the water, you’re throwing away the fuel for the truck that brought them to your store, etc. It’s not a single bit of waste; there are dozens of elements that go into a single clamshell of strawberries that you’re throwing away. If the gravitas of the problem in its various realms – environmental, economic, social, biological – were truly brought out to the public, you’d see a lot less waste and you’d see a lot less food insecurity.

ARTY: At the farm level, is it overproduction that drives some of this waste?

RICK: We’re told that on average, a farmer will grow twice as much food as they need to break even. And they’ll harvest only what they can sell. So, there’s a huge amount of loss in the fields because of the lack of economic incentive to harvest the food that farmers don’t have a market for. There are these ridiculously wasteful products like romaine hearts; about 90 percent of that plant is left in the field and only the romaine hearts are sold. They chop off everything that’s not a romaine heart.  In what world does that make sense?

ARTY: There is so much surplus in the fields, but only a very small percentage of that actually gets donated through systems like yours. How can more of that food be redirected so that more hungry people are fed?

Photo by Jeffrey Dawson courtesy of Food Forward

RICK: It starts with building relationships between the source and the end user, and trying to mitigate as many midpoints as possible. I believe that farmers want to feed folks. Yes, there are a lot of big, corporate farmers, but most farmers are growing food because they want to feed people. It’s probably heartbreaking for a farmer to plow a field under. We meet up with farmers at the farmers’ markets every week to connect them with folks whom they can help feed with their surpluses. 

Our farmers’ market program has become a model for a lot of organizations. We’ve given them our handbook. The farmer has driven two hours with the produce that they’ve pulled out of the ground just hours ago, and maybe only three-quarters of it sells. The last thing they want to do is throw the remainder out. We show up with the endorsement of a local farmers’ market manager. They see our volunteers, they see our boxes, and in that moment, they can choose to either cart that extra produce home or throw it away, or better yet, give it to an organization that feeds the hungry. Right there, you’re making a direct connection from the heart. That connection can get lost when there are too many layers of logistics and monetary issues in between. 

The more that we, as a society, can craft direct connections between food sources and food consumption, the more you can mitigate hunger.

ARTY: Are there policies that are in your way, and if you could change things, how would you change them?

RICK: There are some good policies that are coming into law very soon in California banning food scraps being thrown into the trash; it requires individuals and businesses to recycle food scraps and organic waste so that it can be composted. Hopefully we’re going to see some success with that. But that addresses the back end of the problem. 

On the front end, a big impact could be made by widening tax deductions and making it easy for farmers to get the same tax deduction that Chipotle gets when they donate a burrito. Businesses get the full retail value of the burrito deducted from their taxes. Why is it that the farmer can only deduct a fraction of the market commodities price on what they donate? Why don’t you reward him or her at the same level that you do a retail partner? If that injustice was corrected and if there was parity there, I think you’d see a greater desire to move that produce out of waste streams and into hunger streams.

 ARTY:  What can people do at the individual level?

RICK: I like to say, “eat with intention.” What that means is a very personal thing, but come to your food as kind of a sacred ritual and as something we, most Americans, are lucky to have three times a day. Not only knowing and honoring that, but understanding how do I, as an individual, mitigate waste in my own space. There is so much you can do to move the needle as an individual and then collectively. It all starts with the intention of wanting to mitigate my food waste by 50 percent in the next month or year. You make that choice and you make it happen. Don’t wait for someone else to do it for you, because it’s one of the easiest things you can do yourself. 

Food Waste: A Major Contributor to Climate Change

Dana Gunders was one of the first people to raise the alarm about how much food goes to waste and the subsequent impacts on our environment, food security, and the economy.  As a Senior Scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, she authored the landmark report about food waste, called Wasted and testified before Congress on the topic. She is the author of Waste-Free Kitchen Handbook and currently serves as the Executive Director of ReFED, a collaboration of businesses, nonprofits, foundations, and government leaders that analyze the problem of food waste and develop practical solutions. Dana was interviewed by Arty Mangan of Bioneers.

ARTY MANGAN: Before 2012, there were very few people aware of the issue of food waste until you wrote a report about it. How did you get interested in the topic?

DANA GUNDERS: I was working on a sustainable agriculture project at the NRDC, and I was put in charge of the waste group, which was looking at plastics waste in farming. But as part of that research, I started stumbling upon the numbers of how much food was going to waste. We were trying to get farmers to be five or ten percent more efficient with their water and to use a little less fertilizer, but on the other hand almost half the food grown was not being eaten. I thought it was crazy that that much food was going to waste and no one was talking about it or working on it. That lit my fire on the topic.

ARTY: How is food waste defined?

DANA: There’s still not full agreement on how to define it;  at ReFED, we define food waste as any food that goes to the landfill, incineration, down the drain, or does not get harvested. But we use the term “surplus foods,” which we define to be any food that goes unsold or uneaten across the food system including in homes.

Where does that food go? Only about three percent gets donated; most of it goes somewhere else whether it’s composting or anaerobic digestion or some of the waste destinations that I mentioned. Even if something is being recycled or composted, that’s not necessarily the best use of that product. So, we want to frame how much is surplus in the first place and then look at where it’s going.

ARTY: How much food is wasted?

DANA: At ReFED, we have done an updated analysis, and our estimate is that about 35 percent of food falls into that surplus category of being unsold or uneaten. When you look at just what’s going to the landfill or incineration that is about 24 percent.

ARTY: The book Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plans Proposed to Reverse Global Warming places  food waste near the top as a contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. What are the impacts of food waste on climate?

DANA: The impacts are enormous. In their most recent analysis, Drawdown ranked reducing food waste as the number one solution to climate in one of their two scenarios. It takes a huge amount of resources to produce food, especially beef and dairy products. They have a really high greenhouse gas impact in their production. So, when we don’t use those products, all of that goes for naught. When food goes to landfills – in the US, food is the number one product entering landfills – it decays and produces methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.

The World Resource Institute predicts that we will need 56 percent more food in 2050 than we need today. Where is that food going to come from? Will we cut down more rainforests and native grasslands in order to plant more food, or will we just make better use of the food we’re already growing? By reducing food waste, we can reduce the amount of land that needs to be converted for agriculture and that is an important climate benefit.

ARTY: What are some of the other resources that are squandered when food is wasted?

DANA: Agriculture is the number one user of water around the world, so when we use water to grow something that doesn’t get eaten, it’s a huge waste. Our estimate is that for the US, the equivalent of about 14 percent of our freshwater goes to wasted food. 

ARTY: I would guess that very few people know that food is the number one thing going to landfills. It’s an interesting commentary on our society. In a sense, affluence encourages waste. In what way does our culture encourage food waste?

DANA: In many different ways. In the US, food is a lower percent of our budget than in any other country. So, from a strictly financial incentive perspective, we don’t have the same incentive to conserve food as in other places. 

Another is that we place a huge value on choice and on variety in our culture. The cost of that in terms of how much food we need to keep around so that we can have that choice and have that variety is enormous. The average grocery store carries about 50,000 different products, and they do that so you can walk in and have your choice any time of day. At its core is our expectations as consumers. 

In our culture, we don’t have a mindfulness towards waste or wasting less than we do for some other issues. If I were to walk down the street and throw out a half sandwich on the sidewalk, people would think I was crazy, but if I throw it into the garbage, they wouldn’t think much of it. Littering has a really tall profile in our consciousness, but throwing food out doesn’t. We need to become more mindful as a society around the value and impact of what we’re throwing out. 

ARTY: What are some of the practical strategies for reducing waste at home?

DANA: My favorite statistic that has been proven in several different studies is that 75 percent of Americans say they waste less than the average American. They don’t think they do it. The challenge is to convince people to manage their food with a mindset of not wasting.

The other challenge is that you really have to think upstream because once you have a rotten tomato or a science experiment in the back of your fridge, it’s too late. The way that you reduce waste is to actually manage your food better from the start. And that begins with shopping. 

Strategy number one is to be realistic when you’re shopping. Shopping is the point when you commit to the food. Many of us are aspirational when we’re in the grocery store. We are going to eat better, we’re going to cook more, we’re going to feed our kids better, and then the realities of the week happen and some of the food doesn’t get used. So, being realistic when you’re shopping about the specific week ahead of you is a helpful way to reduce what eventually gets thrown out. 

The best strategy is to plan your meals and to use a shopping list. That is extremely effective in wasting less food. It’s also a tall order for some people, so if that’s not you, then just taking a look in your cart before you check out and make sure you have an actual time you can imagine using that food that week. The number one strategy is to be realistic when you’re shopping.

A second is to freeze your food. The freezer is like a magic pause button, and you can freeze so many more things than you may realize. Fresh bread does really well in the freezer, especially if you slice it. Then you can take each individual slice out and toast it when you are ready to use it. Pasta, pasta sauce, cheese if you shred it, eggs if you take them out of the shell and scramble them but don’t cook them, milk as well. Leftovers, maybe you cooked too much and you ate some the next day, but now you’re sick of it. Just throw it in the freezer and take it out a week later. 

Number three is understanding the dates on food – “sell by”, “use by”, and “best by.” Many people misinterpret those dates and throw food out prematurely. Those dates are not about the safety of the food and they’re not federally regulated. They’re a message from the brand that this food is at its top quality until that date. But they are not meant to say the food is bad or will make you sick after that date. Typically, if the food looks fine, smells fine, tastes fine, even after the date, it’s okay to consume.

The exceptions to that rule are those products that pregnant women should avoid, which are deli meats, ready-to-eat sandwiches, and sushi-type products. 

ARTY: What are some of the ways state or federal policies unintentionally result in food waste?

DANA: Many food safety laws are creating quite a bit of waste. For instance, you can’t donate anything that’s been out for more than four hours. Food safety laws tend to be very local per state, so it varies, but generally speaking, the food safety rules are very cautious and very broad. If anything is left out for four hours or needs to be maintained at X temperature, and if it’s been three degrees below that, then you can’t donate it or sell it.

We now have a lot more precise technology to monitor temperature exposure of foods than we used to, but I don’t think the food safety laws have caught up with that. They are still very broad; I think there’s an opportunity for the rules to be more precise by monitoring temperature. 

Around the country, different states have different rules. One of the most egregious is Montana, which requires a sell-by date on milk that is 12 days after it’s produced, whereas most milk gets a date that’s between 21 and 28 days after it’s produced. Montana also requires milk to be discarded after that date. So, you have a huge amount of milk going to waste in Montana because of that law.

Mislabeling – labels have to be right, and so they can cause waste if, for example, the label didn’t include an allergen that was supposed to be included. 

ARTY: What are some current policies that are successfully reducing the problem? 

DANA: One of the key policies that we think is very low-hanging fruit is a federal law that would standardize date labeling to address some of the confusion and create two labels; one that indicates the date about the quality of the food and a second that indicates the date about the safety of the food.

There have been bills introduced on this. They include a clause that says that no state can restrict the sale of any product because of the quality date. If it’s just about the quality of the product that’s not going to make anyone sick, there should be no reason that you can’t sell that product even after the date. 

It also enables education of consumers on what these dates really mean. If you see a date that says “best before” or “best if used by”, those are recommendations. It’s not about the safety of the food. If it looks fine, smells fine, tastes fine, then you can eat it. But if you see a label that says “use by” – which is currently proposed – that indicates that there’s an increased risk if you consume the food after that date, so be more careful. Right now, we can’t say that definitively because there’s no common definition  or common usage around the country. 

There are two federal bills that were recently introduced; one is called the Zero Food Waste Act – introduced in both the House and Senate – that puts funding into state and local and even nonprofit efforts to reduce food waste in a variety of ways. The second one is called the Compost Act, which provides funding for composting and infrastructure. We’ll see where they go.

ARTY: Beyond policies, are there any other innovations in the food system that would reduce food waste?

DANA: We talked about grocery stores having to manage 50,000 different products; that’s a big data problem. The application of machine learning is doing a very good job of identifying patterns for each of those products that perhaps the human buyers can’t do as readily. They track sales impacts, for example, if cheese is on sale, you may wind up selling more pears. Things like that help make inventory control more efficient and reduce waste. 

There are some apps that have been sweeping across Europe and now in the US as well that help both grocery stores and restaurants do flash sales via the app for products that they’re about to throw out or take off their shelves. For example, the restaurant that has six sandwiches at the end of the night leftover can now sell them via this flash sale app rather than throwing them out. Similarly, grocery stores, right before they’re about to take a product off the shelf, can do a flash sale via an app. The businesses don’t feel like they’re cannibalizing their own sales, but rather feel like they are bringing new people into the store. 

There are hyper-spectral imaging technologies now that can very quickly evaluate how ripe a fruit is. It essentially sees inside of foods and so you can tell if an avocado or strawberry has been bruised, or has a longer shelf life, or if it’s riper than you think it is, etc. That information can then be used to route some products to shorter shelf life destinations and other products to longer destinations.

There are also innovative business models such as Imperfect Foods and Misfit Markets, and Full Harvest that are creating an alternative marketplace for some of the excess produce and other foods as well. 

Over the pandemic, we saw those companies really shine because they can take just about anything and offer it up on their sites and send it to you. When the pandemic first hit, they were selling popcorn because all the movie theatres had closed down and the distributors were sitting on extra popcorn. Imperfect Foods was able to sell the popcorn in bags to people in their homes. They were able to also take something like 40,000 extra cheese and cracker trays from United Airlines and sell them. That level of flexibility in a business model is really useful when it comes to reducing food waste.

ARTY: How is ReFED addressing the problem?

DANA: One of the biggest challenges on this topic is people don’t know what to do, they don’t know where to start, and they don’t know what’s going to be most effective. We provide data to help people identify and prioritize actions that they can take to reduce food waste. That looks very different if you’re a farmer or if you’re a restaurateur or somebody in your own home. So, we try to quantify the impacts of different solutions.

Our work really has three components. One is to provide the data and insights that will help drive action. The second is to bring more capital and innovation into the space, private investment, philanthropic and public funding that can help scale up solutions. The third is to engage stakeholders. We really try to be a hub and connector in this space to help convene and drive action, because there’s so many different entities from municipal governments to private investors to food companies working on the topic.

Bioneers Indigeneity Education Takes Off

Indigeneity is a Native-led Program within Bioneers that promotes Indigenous approaches to solve the earth’s most pressing environmental and social issues. The program produces the Indigenous Forum, original media, educational curricula and catalytic initiatives to support the leadership and rights of First Peoples, while weaving net- works, partnerships and alliances among Native and non-Native allies. The program’s educational initiatives are truly one-of-a-kind, yielding resources and experiences that provide deeply meaningful cultural and cross-cultural education to students and teachers around the country.

INDIGENEITY CURRICULUM

To support the use of Bioneers’ original content in the classroom, we’ve developed study guides and lesson plans aligned with national standards for grades 9-12+. This curriculum offers educators an invaluable toolkit for optimizing the educational potential of evergreen Bioneers media.

We created our first educational study guides in 2015 on topics including “Biocultural Conservation in the Amazon” led by Chief Almir (Surui Tribe), and “Survive and Thrive” based on the teachings of John Mohawk (Seneca).

We expanded these efforts in 2017 through the establishment of the “Indigeneity Learning” curriculum. Units are organized thematically, covering topics including, Cultural Appropriation, Indigenous Peoples and Climate Change, and Native Americans and Racism. Each unit includes full educator support materials including a lesson plan, scripted teacher presentations, original media featuring Indigenous subject matter experts, additional readings, discussions, activities, and assessment.

In 2018, we piloted this curricula with high school students from across the U.S. Our evaluation showed significant learning and transformative growth among students of all backgrounds. Students demonstrated a more sophisticated understanding of Indigenous topics, an increased ability to empathize, and a greater ability to articulate complex issues from a cross-cultural perspective.

In 2020, we developed four curriculum bundles on the topics of “Water is Life,” “Alcatraz,” “Borderlands,” and “Honoring Women.” Each curriculum bundle includes teacher instructions, activities, assessment, and additional materials for a week of instruction aligned to the lesson’s theme. We also created a training for students of all ages to learn about Allyship with Indigenous Peoples. These curricula can be accessed free of charge on our dedicated Indigeneity Curriculum webpage. In 2021, we plan to add four more curriculum bundles to the collection.

This body of work represents a unique opportunity to bring Indigenous-created curriculum into both formal education and non-formal learning environments.

INTERCULTURAL CONVERSATIONS

Intercultural Conversations (ICC) is an educational exchange between 20 Native American and 20 non-Native, diverse youth. Participants meet once a month to discuss thematic topics presented in Bioneers Indigeneity media in a “talking circle” format.

Between these meetings, facilitators present accompanying lesson plans that equip them to teach Indigenous topics in the classroom through a “train the trainer” model supported by Bioneers Indigeneity staff. Months of learning and dialogue culminate with in person cultural exchanges on the Navajo Nation and at the annual Bioneers Conference.

Intercultural Conversations Curriculum employs a transformative approach that enables students to view concepts, issues, and events from multiple perspectives. Instead of being treated as passive learners, youth participants are engaged as change-makers, and supportively encouraged through Indigenous pedagogies.

Through this process, youth participants experience profound personal development in their ability to relate to and empathize with others, understand complex issues, and communicate cross-culturally. 2020 marked our 4th year and cohort for the Intercultural Conversations initiative.


How Equity in Education Can Foster Youth-Led Climate Advocacy

Frustration often serves as the impetus for youth-led activism as lawmakers continue to ignore the impending climate crisis. As marginalized communities experience a disproportionate impact on climate change, youth are bridging the understanding between climate change and climate justice. Young people are pushing for equity in education to uplift holistic understandings of climate change.

Lilian Chang is a freshman at UC Berkeley interested In legislative change or data science and how we can incorporate technology into environmental and social justice. She is excited to be a part of the advocacy scene at Berkeley. 

Katinka Lennemann is a high school senior who plans to continue her work in climate activism after entering college.

First published on ca-eli.org

How did you first get involved in the movement for climate justice and what accomplishments have you seen through your advocacy and leadership in San Mateo county? 

Lilian: Education plays a key role in cultivating my climate justice journey. It wasn’t until I took an AP environmental science class during my sophomore year of high school that I truly understood the devastating consequences of climate change. I started connecting those concepts to real life and feeling empowered to look at what I can do as a youth in the community to make a change or impact, considering my future and also the future of our planet.

Although it seemed daunting at first to look at a solution for climate change, it opened my eyes to see all the things that contribute to it. For me, looking at the waste culture on my school campus was the most visible aspect. I started by creating a green team on our campus and looked at ways to reduce waste, consumption, and how to tackle contamination in our school. From there, I continued working to create assessments to develop solutions. That work led me to different assemblies and programs and I eventually reached out to the office of education for mentorship. I collaborated with other schools to create a waste coalition before creating a proposal for our district with some concrete solutions to improve our waste management culture. However, it was at this time that the COVID-19 pandemic had begun and the superintendent set our proposal aside. 

Fortunately, I also was serving as the vice chair on the San Mateo County Youth Commission and served as the chairman of the Environmental Justice Committee where the climate emergency declaration began. 

Our enthusiasm and initiative around sustainability left a big impact on the superintendent. Through our work, we were able to bring all of the stakeholders together, including student advocates, teachers, the superintendent, and other faculty within our district. Our work was a foundation for a leadership and sustainability model that paved the way for the further development of advocacy and change down the road.

Katinka: It was the drought here in California that really affected me. I’ve seen how my own backyard changed – we can’t grow grass anymore and it gave me a sobering sense of what was happening. I was also aware of my daily carbon footprint and that individual action to reduce it blossomed into a desire to create a larger impact on my community.

Through this program, I completed a community impact project and, together with a partner, set up an edible school garden at Arbor Bay, which is a small school in San Carlos that serves kids in special education. Youth Climate Ambassadors kick-started other work for me in climate justice by connecting me with other students who were doing similar community impact projects as well as with mentors from the San Mateo Office of Education and Offices of Sustainability who hosted the program. 

At the end of last year, I worked with a group of students to declare a climate emergency in my school district. It was not easy because policy-makers were hesitant and it was a long process, but we succeeded. It couldn’t have happened without the work of the San Mateo Union High School District who catalyzed other school districts to do the same. 

What distinguishes the role that youth play in the movement for climate justice? 

Katinka: I think idealism is one thing that sets youth apart and gives us the ability to pursue what others may think impossible. As youth activists, we have the drive to make a change because we are fighting for our future. Because we are young, we are most aware of the impact of climate change on the planet. It’s a bleak future that we are heading toward, and youth are motivated more than anyone to change it. The consequences of climate change, dire as they may be, serve as strong motivators for those of us who cannot bear the thought of the future we’re headed toward.

Lilian: For many youth, our passion for climate justice becomes frustration that gets funneled into activism. We are frustrated with politicians and adults who are in positions of power. At the same time, I feel optimistic and empowered with what youth are trying to accomplish. It is common for us to see performative action from policymakers. Youth are ready to see systemic change rather than just declaring a special day for bees or something. We need to dismantle the systems that do not serve us or our planet. Youth are innovative, tech-savvy, and passionate, and that’s what sets us apart. And I’m always inspired by all the other youth around me and the stories that they bring to the table. 

How do you see the relationship between environmental education and climate justice?

Katinka: In general, society seems to lack an understanding of how climate change and climate justice are related. A holistic environmental education needs to have a component of climate justice because the two are inseparable. We need equity in education because there’s a big difference between who creates greenhouse gases and who’s going to bear the brunt of its impact, and that needs to be acknowledged. Upper-class white Americans will not experience climate change in the same way that communities of color will. 

The disproportionate impact of climate change is also a matter of empathy. Can we change how we are working, how we are using the environment, how we are living as a society in order to save others even if we aren’t the ones being directly impacted? 

Lilian: Education was the starting point of my climate justice advocacy. That’s why environmental literacy and climate justice should be standard in schools; not just in science class but in history as well. The history of the exploitation of minorities and marginalized groups is also a history of climate change because the same political systems that underlie marginalized communities are also responsible for climate change. Education is a starting point for awareness and also a way to empower changemakers. 

What are some actions that would help address climate change and climate justice, and who are the key actors in taking those actions? 

Lilian: At the decision-making level of leadership, we’re looking at our politicians and policy-makers and the impact they have in either staying complicit or making real systemic changes. I know the shifts that need to happen may seem daunting to some, but people need to wake up to the immediate need for that transformation and listen to young people. Real change takes both grassroots movements and competent policymakers who listen to the people they serve, and there must be a bridge between those two communities. 

Katinka: Policymakers are key in spearheading efforts toward any change. On a political level, we need to realize that we all share the same planet and we will all experience the impact of climate change and we need bi-partisan action for us all to be a part of the solution. 

On a more individual level, choosing to shop for sustainable brands also can be a message back to the people in power. Big companies like Coca-Cola or Nestle can see that consumers want sustainability and change. That supply and demand feedback can be super helpful in encouraging action against climate change. We need to combat the mindset of disposable waste and shift toward thinking regeneratively about how we consume products. 

How do you hope the climate movement evolves over the next five years? What do you hope happens and what do you want to see changed?

Lilian: The next few years are critical in terms of our climate and how it will look depending on the actions we take now. We as a global community are reaching that point where we are seeing the real consequences of climate change and realizing we need immediate action. That’s why we focused on issuing a formal declaration of climate emergency.  

From a micro perspective, we will be building climate action plans and goals to drive action. On a bigger level, we need systemic shifts so we aren’t still relying on fossil fuels or on corporations and companies that are exploiting our earth. We need to dramatically and immediately shift those systems and create new jobs in renewable energy and think about ways that we shift the culture within our education system. 

Within these next few years, I hope we reach a point where we do see those radical shifts and a mindset change in people, so these conversations can focus on different perspectives on ways we can mitigate climate change. 

Katinka: Enough people have accepted that climate change is real and it is going to impact our future, but we need to bridge the disconnect between the dire future we are headed toward and the need to take collective action. There is a deadline on this and action is urgent. We have to drastically change methods of production  to prevent an environmental catastrophe. I’m hoping to see more collaboration and cooperation on all levels with people and organizations that are trying to combat climate change. I hope policy-makers actively seek to work with environmental groups rather than lobbyists. 

Conversation with Oglála Lakȟóta Elder Basil Brave Heart: Part 2

By Hilary Giovale

Oglála Lakȟóta Elder Basil Brave Heart often has a twinkle in his eye and a funny story to share.  A Catholic boarding school Survivor, Korean War combat veteran, author, retired school administrator and addiction counselor, Basil lives in a cozy trailer tucked into rolling hills on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, a place with a 53.75% unemployment rate and the lowest life expectancy in the United States. Also known as Prisoner of War Camp #334, Pine Ridge was established in 1899 when the United States Government forced Basil’s ancestors onto reservations.

I am a ninth generation European-descended settler living next to a sacred mountain of kinship on Diné, Hopi and Havasupai land. As a mother, dancer, philanthropist and writer, I’m dedicated to a process of decolonization and reparations that has been guided in part by Indigenous mentors and friends.

During the summer of 2018, my young son and I were invited to spend a few days amidst the fragrant sunflowers, sage, and pine trees on Basil’s land.  At his suggestion, we visited the Wounded Knee Memorial to honor the Lakȟóta ancestors who were massacred there on December 29, 1890. Basil related: beginning in 1938 and continuing throughout his childhood, his Grandma Lucy taught him to extend unconditional love and forgiveness to the wašíču (fat taker) soldiers and settlers who disrupted and disparaged his ancestors’ lifeways so painfully.  Grappling with the unsettling reality of my own ancestors’ colonialism, Basil’s stories sparked my curiosity – who was this man?   

Over time our friendship deepened to bridge tremendous divides – of culture, generation, gender, class; of the oppressor and the oppressed. In the summer of 2019, we worked together on an international Ceremony for Repentance and Forgiveness, which brought together people whose ancestors were impacted by both sides of wars, genocide, enslavement, and other human rights abuses throughout the world.

As an octogenarian and beloved Elder, Basil’s rich life experiences offer illumination. For forty years, he has been teaching about the current paradigm shift to restore the sacred natural order of the universe. Part One of this interview shares Basil’s reflections about Lakȟóta lifeways and the impacts of boarding schools. Part Two covers his perspectives on war, healing, and patriotism. 

Basil: What I experienced as a combat veteran in the Korean War goes to the wounded healer principle.

Hilary: Please tell us about it.

Basil:  For years, I was held hostage by the hideousness of war. Because I felt guilt and shame, I didn’t want to talk about it.  I was afraid to be seen as someone who was deranged and participated in something hideous, and I was afraid of triggering the flashbacks.

Now, I want to talk about some things that happened 69 years ago, things that rearranged my whole being – my mind, my heart, my soul, and my physical self. It was like putting an egg in a skillet and scrambling it. It started as a perfect yellow center bright as the sun, with whiteness all around it. Then it was sculptured to become something different.

During the Korean War, I was stationed in Beppu, Japan, which was a station for special operations. It was a weekend and we were downtown drinking, ready to have a real good time. But all of a sudden, some military police came into the bar and said, “Back to camp.” And we knew that if we didn’t follow orders, we could face severe consequences. One guy took a fifth of whiskey and we headed back.

In camp, they were issuing real ammo, real grenades, and C-rations, which could last us three of four days. We packed up all of our clothes and put them in foot lockers, took our beds down, and stacked the mattresses. And it grabbed me: something was about to happen and I didn’t have any idea what I was getting into. I had just turned 18.

While we were loading the truck, there was a brief moment where the mailman said we’d received some mail. I opened a letter from home and learned that my Grandma Lucy, who taught me so much as a child, had died. I had to numb that right away. I put it on the back burner so it wouldn’t become part of what we were about to do.

We went to the airport and they issued our parachutes. General Westmoreland came in a Jeep, and he issued us silk camouflage parachute scarves. Then we knew that we were going to be jumping into enemy territory. We were trained to be paratroopers, and we were also trained to be killing machines.

 

We loaded the planes. There must have been 150 or 200 planes. It was a whole regiment, with probably 100,000 paratroopers. We were in props – two propellers on each side – with a total of 32 paratroopers in each plane, fully loaded with ammo and grenades. They started the props, and the plane started to shake. My adrenaline kicked in so strongly that it altered my mind.

They told us that we were going to be flying over the Sea of Japan and that there would be a storm. We had a device called a Mae West, so in case we hit the water, we wouldn’t drown. Then they said we’d be flying over shark-infested waters, and there would be junks below, which were small enemy boats disguised as fishing boats. The junks had rocket launchers inside and they could take us down at any time. We took off, and out the window I could see a number of planes taking off on either side of us, and an amazing amount of planes going airborne behind us.

The plane started to shake up and down. I thought, “Well, if this plane goes down, I  could drown or be eaten by a shark.” I experienced a fear that took me to the wall. I was trapped. There were no prayers, there was no refuge. There is a psychological center that helps us deal with unbelievable fear like this. Everything mentally shuts down for a while.  

The next thing I remember, we had landed on a beach. And they told us we were at a Chinese prison camp, and that we were going to rescue a general who had been taken prisoner. We went into the prison camp. Big mistake. They used smoke grenades so we couldn’t see where we were going. We couldn’t see our own buddies in front of us. We opened fire and killed our own men.  

When we realized what had happened, a group consciousness took over that was beyond normal human anger. It was rage. Rage is a dangerous place to be because you’re operating on an energy that is uncontrollable. All of the teachings you have received to be a good person, to not hurt others, not to kill people – you go right past them.

A lot of people took their machetes out. We were doing things that were beyond human understanding; things I never thought we could have been capable of. Arms and legs were thrown into a huge pile. Someone put gas on it and lit the pile. That haunted me for forty years. It was the beginning of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which is like a wall between your thinking and your emotions.  

Afterwards, we went back to our pup tents and they issued us some beer to calm us down, because our adrenaline couldn’t have been any higher. We were laughing about what we did and drinking beer. We were wiping our bayonets that had blood on them, cleaning our weapons. That’s really strange, to laugh at something so horrible. That’s PTSD.

Now, I’m going to say that PTSD has its purpose. I think it prevents you from going insane, because if the emotions about what you did flooded into your awareness, they could take you out.  

The next thing that happened is that we were taken to a guinea pig outpost. If there was an attack, we would be wiped out first. We were told not to stand up because there were snipers that could attack us anytime. 

Every night, we went out to capture prisoners. We would get to our destination and lie in a kind of horseshoe formation. We had to lie back to back so we could see what was going on.  We were sweaty, and we were in a place with horrible mosquitos. We couldn’t slap ourselves to kill a mosquito. We had to slowly kill the mosquitos in total silence. The enemy knew we were out there, and sometimes started dropping mortars on us. Most of the time they missed us.  

One time, something delayed us, and we didn’t get back to the bunkers before daylight. The sun came up and they started shooting at us. As soon as people got hit, our buddies who were in the trenches jumped up and ran after our buddies who were hit. Some of them got hit themselves, but they managed to drag their buddies back to safety. When you train for combat, that’s part of it – always have your buddies’ backs.  

When they brought some of these guys back to the trenches, a medic was trying to save one guy, who got hit pretty badly. It had rained that night and it was muddy. And his blood was seeping into the mud. It was like watching divine madness – the madness of watching our buddy dying and the madness of us trying to kill the enemy. The madness of trying to save his life there in the mud, blood, and shit. No one can tell me that the Divine manifests itself just as a sunset or a rainbow, on top of a mountain or inside a church. 

And it went to something I heard later: a veteran is someone who writes a blank check to the United States of America, including his or her life.

Hilary: The United States government has treated Lakota people horrifically. It’s still going on. How do you reconcile what this country did to Indigenous peoples of the continent?  How are you not angry?

Basil: I’ve been asked before, “Why in the hell were you fighting for this country after what they did to you?” And I know they did that to me, but everything that my people taught me about forgiveness, bravery, and a commitment to serve took over.  

When I was 17, a recruitment officer came around the boarding school. It was a metaphysical breakthrough in disguise. I needed to get away from the way I was being treated at school, with my language being taken away and the way I was being told to change my relationship with the Divine.  

Hilary: That’s powerful. What I’m hearing is that your experience at boarding school was so painful that you enlisted in a war to free yourself.

 

Basil: There’s a psychologist named Erik Erikson who coined a metaphor – he said that sending Native American children to boarding schools put rickets in the childrens’ souls. It was like taking calcium away from the bone structure. When you do that, people begin to collapse; they become crippled human beings at the mercy of their captors. After a while, you identify with your captors; you believe you are what they are telling you. I didn’t want Stockholm Syndrome to define me. It felt good finding my way out of that prison.

There was a rite of passage my uncle took me to when I was five years old. It helped awaken some archetypes: the healer, the sacred clown, and the warrior. The call to protect is what drove me to go to war. I wasn’t glorifying or honoring the war.  I was honoring the warrior principle I was taught as a child, about the poles of the thípi being the Masculine, which is protection.

If you see an old person getting beat up, or a young person being abused, or someone being taken advantage of you say, “I’m not going to just walk by and let this thing happen.” No, you respond. The best of you reaches out to make a difference when someone is doing something that is not congruent with who you are.

Hilary: You embraced your ancestral archetypes and reclaimed your own soul from the jaws of a machine that was trying to erase you.

Basil: That’s right. And as the war continued, I saw many of my buddies get killed. What I got out of that was never to get close to anybody. I was afraid to love and be loved. How could anybody love me if they knew that I was a killing machine?

The medicine I used to make myself feel better was alcohol, a trickster. It made me feel good for a little while. But it didn’t last. I almost committed suicide. I went into treatment for PTSD. Eventually, I got sober and began doing healing work with veterans myself. 

Hilary: Basil, I’m grateful for your healing, this story, and your life. You have an American flag hanging on your wall. Do you still consider yourself a patriot?

Basil: Being a patriot means love for country. And I want to define that. The Earth doesn’t belong to us; we belong to the Earth. My relationship with patriotism centers on my love for the Divine Creation of the Feminine and Masculine. I’m still a patriot in the sense of defending my people. To me, patriotism is about transforming from a killing machine into a warrior who protects the elderly, the disabled, the oppressed, the women, and the future generations.  

I hope I wasn’t disrespectful with some of the language I used to describe what I saw and experienced. A lot of the combat veterans are still suffering from PTSD, and on many occasions they will only tell another combat veteran. I hope something in what I shared will help a veteran or a veteran’s family to honor and be proud of those who served their country, and what they went through.  

Hilary: Thank you for sharing your wisdom with us.

The Planet Is Inflamed — And So Are We

As smoke from western megafires forces much of the country to remain indoors this summer, the relationship between environmental degradation, climate change and human health is increasingly clear and present. Recall David Suzuki’s memorable message from the Bioneers stage, “We are the environment, there is no distinction. What we are doing to our surroundings, we are doing directly to ourselves… You can’t draw a line and say the air ends here and I begin there. There is no line.”

At the same time, recent research by leading scholars and doctors points towards the health impact of racial discrimination, police violence and even the legacy of colonization. Taken together, the story is one of a human experience that should be seen as an integrated whole — and drives home the reality that our bodies, our communities and our biosphere are deeply entwined. 

This week, we highlight leaders who are making these integrated connections visible and offering essential next steps. 

This article contains the content from the 2/01/2021 Bioneers Pulse newsletter. Sign up here to get the newsletter straight to your inbox!

As The World Burns | Rupa Marya

From a surge in mass uprisings in response to systemic racism, a rise in inflammatory illnesses like gastrointestinal disorders, and an increasing number of climate refugees – our bodies, society, and the planet are inflamed. Rupa Marya, physician, activist, and co-founder of the Do No Harm Coalition, teams up with the New York Times bestselling author of The Value of Nothing, Raj Patel, to reveal the links between health and structural injustices. In this excerpt from their book, INFLAMED: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice, Dr. Marya calls for a diagnostic understanding of inflammation and offers a new deep medicine that can heal our bodies and our world.

Read more here.

Dr. Rupa Marya at the 2021 Bioneers Conference

Associate Professor of Medicine at UCSF and Faculty Director of the Do No Harm Coalition, Dr. Rupa Marya is one of the nation’s leading figures working at the intersection of medicine and social justice. At the Bioneers Conference in November, Rupa’s keynote address, titled “Deep Medicine and the Care Revolution,” will draw from insights in science, medicine, and ecology and will outline why it is time for us all to join the Care Revolution.

Register here.

California Indian Genocide and Resilience

“The point is that we started re-emerging out of the ashes, and I still believe we’re in the ashes phase. We are trying to shake loose out of this repressive historical traumatic experience and embrace our spirituality and the beauty of our spirituality, and the oneness that I heard spoken to today. It made me cry sitting in there. Everybody’s starting to get it. We are one.” – Tolowa culture-bearer and public school teacher, Loren Bommelyn

California Indians have survived some of the most extreme acts of genocide committed against Native Americans. In this historic conversation, four California Indian leaders share the stories of kidnappings, mass murders, and slavery that took place under Spanish, Mexican and American colonizations — and how today’s generation is dealing with the contemporary implications.

Watch here.

Public Health/Planetary Health/One Health

The current global pandemic has revealed stark structural injustices embedded deep in our society. Our approach to health has neglected the relationship between socio-economic conditions, planetary health, and public health. As a virus that was transmitted from non-human animals to humans has placed the entire world on high-alert and has disproportionately affected communities of color, it is time we reevaluate the relationship between planetary health and public health. In this Bioneers 2020 conversation moderated by J.P. Harpignies, two prominent leaders in the field of health –– William B. Karesh, Ph.D., Executive Vice President for Health and Policy at EcoHealth Alliance, President of the World Animal Health Organization (OIE) Working Group on Wildlife Diseases and Howard Frumkin, Professor Emeritus, Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, University of Washington School of Public Health –– discuss the inseparable connection between public health and planetary health. 

Watch here.

Ecological Medicine: Healing the Earth, Healing Ourselves | FREE eBook Download

Ecological medicine is a unifying field that embodies the recognition that human and environmental health are one notion, indivisible. In light of the pandemic, we’re releasing a FREE downloadable PDF of our 2004 Bioneers book: Ecological Medicine: Healing the Earth, Healing Ourselves, which could hardly be more relevant right now.

Download here.

Conversation with Oglála Lakȟóta Elder Basil Brave Heart: Part 1

By Hilary Giovale

Oglála Lakȟóta Elder Basil Brave Heart often has a twinkle in his eye and a funny story to share.  A Catholic boarding school Survivor, Korean War combat veteran, author, retired school administrator and addiction counselor, Basil lives in a cozy trailer tucked into rolling hills on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, a place with a 53.75% unemployment rate and the lowest life expectancy in the United States. Also known as Prisoner of War Camp #334, Pine Ridge was established in 1899 when the United States Government forced Basil’s ancestors onto reservations.

I am a ninth generation European-descended settler living next to a sacred mountain of kinship on Diné, Hopi and Havasupai land.  As a mother, dancer, philanthropist and writer, I’m dedicated to a process of decolonization and reparations that has been guided in part by Indigenous mentors and friends.

During the summer of 2018, my young son and I were invited to spend a few days amidst the fragrant sunflowers, sage, and pine trees on Basil’s land.  At his suggestion, we visited the Wounded Knee Memorial to honor the Lakȟóta ancestors who were massacred there on December 29, 1890.  Basil related: beginning in 1938 and continuing throughout his childhood, his Grandma Lucy taught him to extend unconditional love and forgiveness to the wašíču (fat taker) soldiers and settlers who disrupted and disparaged his ancestors’ lifeways so painfully.  Grappling with the unsettling reality of my own ancestors’ colonialism, Basil’s stories sparked my curiosity – who was this man?   

Over time our friendship deepened to bridge tremendous divides – of culture, generation, gender, class; of the oppressor and the oppressed.  In the summer of 2019, we worked together on an international Ceremony for Repentance and Forgiveness, which brought together people whose ancestors were impacted by both sides of wars, genocide, enslavement, and other human rights abuses throughout the world.

As an octogenarian and beloved Elder, Basil’s rich life experiences offer illumination. For forty years, he has been teaching about the current paradigm shift to restore the sacred natural order of the universe. Part One of this interview shares Basil’s reflections about Lakȟóta lifeways and the impacts of boarding schools. Part Two covers his perspectives on war, healing, and patriotism. 

Hilary: You were born in 1933. Could you tell us about your birth?

Basil: For us, the birthing ritual is the first rite of passage.  We are birthed into the physical world through the Feminine.  We are taught that the womb is a compassionate, safe, space where we are immersed in the sacred liquid called water and sacred spinal fluid.

From the moment my mom announced her pregnancy, my grandparents and aunts were singing prayers with her, to align us with the spiritual frequency of the sacred natural order of the universe.  Everything was sacramentalized during my birth, which happened at home.  There was azílya (smudging) throughout the space.  My grandma selected a woman to reach into my mouth symbolically; this was to open the portal of the Creator’s breath.  My grandpa held me and prayed to the six directions, introducing me to water, wind, light, sky, flowers, trees, the four-leggeds; the stars.  He gave me the name Matȟó Wakhéya (Bear Looking After His People).  My mother nourished me with sacred milk.  The breast is life. 

Hilary:  How exquisite.  As you were growing up, what did your grandparents share about Lakȟóta life prior to the reservation being established in 1889?

Basil: My grandparents were put on a reservation by genocidal policies of the United States government.  My grandpa used to talk about the nomadic life our people lived before.  There was a vastness to how his grandparents and other relatives lived. None of my ancestors went to school or ever read a book. They did not speak English. But their teachings were unbelievably profound.

My grandpa talked about how the Black Hills are a sacred, pristine place the Creator intended for ceremony. My relatives would talk about the hunting of buffalo, elk, and deer.  They shared teachings about the thípi (house; conical tent). The poles represent the Masculine energy of protection. The canvas is a buffalo hide representing the Feminine. The family is held together by the Feminine. The sticks that hold the canvas together are the values of love, compassion, and forgiveness.

My grandma taught us spiritual ecology. She told us about the different herbs and how they heal. She taught us not to take everything, not to break anything. When we harvested cherries and plums, we didn’t break the limbs off the trees. We learned to respect the trees, because they are our relatives.

My grandma prayed every morning, with the firewood and the water. She said, “All Creation sings.” The central prayer was that we would survive and help create a peaceful, safe place for the people to live.

When I was little, I would take soup, coffee, or frybread to my grandpa, who lived in a little house out back. I’d wait outside the door, and I could hear him talking to someone. He said, “Come on in because your relatives are here.” So I would go, and he would tell me to sit down.  He said, “These are your relatives sitting here.” You know, I didn’t see them, but yet I did. We were brought up to know that there is just a thin veil between the physical world and the spirit world. I didn’t feel it was weird.

My relatives talked about a different time, before the arrival of the colonial warriors. They were called wašíču (fat taker), which is a metaphor for someone who steals the fat of the buffalo.  wašíču does not mean “white;” it refers to a consciousness that takes without permission, irreverently. It’s connected to the Doctrine of Discovery and the idea that everything here is ours in the name of God, and we have the right to kill everything in the name of God. This is colonialism, but it also goes to a corporate way of thinking – using laws to take things – at any cost. It amazes me to the depth of my soul how the Lakȟóta people used our divine language to describe it that accurately.

My family talked about how the government issued smallpox-infested blankets to the Lakȟóta people; how the buffalo were killed and left rotting all over the prairie; how the sacred horses were stolen and killed; the massacres that took place; the denigration of our women and little girls. All of these things were deeply painful. It was unbelievable, because at the same time, the Lakȟóta people embodied a powerful spiritual gift: living in a forgiving way, surrendering to the Divine. All of these things I’m talking about were continuous teachings in daily life.  

Hilary: You’re a Catholic boarding school Survivor. Would you like to share about that?

Basil: My parents took me to the Holy Rosary Mission boarding school in August of 1939 because it was the policy of the United States government that all children had to be brought to school, under threat of severe punishment. There were some intrusive things that happened. I’ll describe it now using language I did not have as a child.  

The nuns wore black. They had a kind of white covering on the inside of their face and neck, and a black covering that went over the white thing, so you could see only their face and hands.  And they had something hanging on their side, like a rope around their waist that had a cross at the end. I didn’t know what that meant. And so that was very strange.

The priests also wore black. And there was a kind of plastic white thing around their neck. They had wooden beads hanging down by their side with a black thing like a cross. It wasn’t rounded, it was elongated. So I didn’t know what that meant.

They took us to a classroom and said we would be attending school. I had difficulty understanding because my first language was Lakȟóta. I was scared to ask questions. They told us we would all have haircuts because it would make us good people to have short hair. It would help us become what they were teaching us to become in their way of life.

Eventually they took us to the church. There was a time to kneel down, a time to stand up, and there were special gestures we had to make. Someone said prayers with his back toward us. I looked on the wall and there was a man with long hair hanging from a cross. I thought, “They told us a little while ago that they were going to cut our hair, but now they are talking reverently about this man with long hair, and saying he gave his life for us.” They tried to explain that we were sinful, and this man died to take our sins away.

I came from a caring, loving home and community, and this was an unfriendly place. I felt betrayed. I didn’t trust these people. They didn’t feed us enough and they yelled at us. They made us stand in line and march. I was not going to be able to participate in ceremonies anymore. I learned to shut off my feelings and go numb. The pain was always there, but I couldn’t feel it as much when I numbed it.

One time I was talking to my friends. A nun overheard, grabbed my ear, pulled me out of the pew, and brought me to the back. It really hurt to be shamed in front of my peers. Little did I know that shaming was going to be in the classroom, the dining room, the playground and in church. It was a way to constantly emphasize that we were sinful. They told us the way we prayed was not good and our prayers didn’t count, because the man on the cross wasn’t part of our ways.

So what I did is I listened, but I didn’t take it in. In the summers I went home, and I told my grandma about it. She said, “Well, I know they’re not feeding you very good, but don’t hate them. Live in the forgiving way that I taught you as a child.” And so that’s what I did. It was a challenge, but you know, I’m grateful now because that challenge manifested into something deep inside.  

Another very difficult experience was in the dormitory. After they turned the lights out at 8:30, a door would open and someone would come in. This dormitory was very old and you could hear the floor squeaking with the person’s footsteps. One night, I heard whimpering, muffled crying.  It was like someone put their hands over the person’s mouth. And after a while, I figured out that this guy was coming in and taking a little boy to the back room. As time passed, I heard some of the boys say, “A man came and took me out of my bed; it was not good.”  

We never talked about this. We didn’t tell our parents. This was a deep intrusion, a deep shaming, a way of treating a human being that causes what I call trauma – mentally, physically, and spiritually.

But let me go to what was one of the most devastating things: when they told us we couldn’t speak our language. At that time, I didn’t have a full understanding cognitively and spiritually, but as I look back at it with some of my research and education, it was like doing a lobotomy on our brains to remove a piece of who we were.

What would have happened to the priests and the nuns if their language was taken away and they were required to speak Lakȟóta? I always wonder how they would have navigated their social and spiritual orbit. Having your language forcibly taken away is a very difficult neurological intrusion.

Mark Twain said the solution to the Indian problem was to educate them to death. I think what that meant was to take our language away, teach us how to read left to right, and take away our circular way of thinking. With that kind of education, you’re moving your focus from the right hemisphere, which is a spiritual center, to the left hemisphere. When you do that, you lose your connection, and you’re trying to adjust to a linear and secular way of communicating. I believe that’s what he meant.

I still see the effects of our language being taken away. Language is the divine sound of the Creator responding to our voice of petition and prayer. Right now, I’m working with some physicists and linguistic scholars to understand how deep this is. The Lakȟóta language uses 140 sounds. Sound is frequency, and frequency goes to vibration. The Lakȟóta word for vibration and connection to the universe is Tákuwakȟáŋškaŋškaŋ (Sacred Movement). It means something in sacred motion that is uncreated, infinite and unnamable. It’s who we are.

I was very fortunate that my grandparents only spoke Lakȟóta with me when I went home in the summers. Somehow, the neurological pathways were still there. Later in life, when I got sober from alcoholism, my Lakȟóta language awakened big time. It was almost like I’d been speaking the language the whole time.

So it was huge what they did to us. They were raping our being. There was human abuse and pervasive shame. That’s the central piece for me in what the boarding school did.

Hilary: Human abuse and pervasive shame…what was the purpose of shaming people so deeply? 

Basil: Well, remember the policy of genocide is to eliminate. We didn’t think like them or live like them. Was the shaming to convince us that the way we pray, eat, and live was absolutely not good? It was a way of taking our spirit hostage, taking us out of the deep center and the primary essence of who we are.

There was something I heard for the first time at school: if you do it this way, you will be rewarded. If you don’t do it this way, you will be punished. When I translated this to my grandma, she said “That is unbelievable. I cannot allow you to think that way. The Divine doesn’t punish or give rewards. The Divine is unconditional love. Remember you came from your mother’s womb, and the womb is compassion.” I repeated this to the priest and he said no.  That is wrong. 

In these conditions, you almost dissolve who you are. The shame and blame took me to a place of spiritual pain.  

Hilary: Shame can be so painful. I felt intense shame for years after I learned about my family’s history as settlers. Do you think shame can be used constructively, toward healing?

Basil:  Remember that one of our basic, neurological cosmologies is non-duality. And non-duality doesn’t embrace reward or punishment. My grandma said there’s a veil, a very thin veil between what they did to you and the Divine. So you just have to step into the Divine. The shame you just moved out of is going to teach you the difference between the two. How am I going to know goodness if I don’t know shame?  

When you learned about what your ancestors did, what hurt you the most?

Hilary: My sense of innocence was wounded.  

Basil: When something touches the innocence at the center of your being, it’s a deep wound. But we can become wounded healers. How can you be a healer who has not experienced a wound? You don’t learn it from books. You have to experience it.  

Hilary: That’s true. Shame became a catalyst to discuss this history. That openness has brought healing. It hadn’t been addressed for nine generations in my family. 

Basil: Your people are Celtic. You come from a culture, if you go back through the centuries, that also had their language and their soul connection. The Celtic and the Lakȟóta are twins.  The more you research your ancestors’ culture, the more you’ll find that.

Hilary: Thank you for sharing that. The wašíču consciousness is not who we always were. Basil, do you have any thoughts about the hundreds of unmarked children’s graves that were recently discovered at the residential schools in Canada?

Basil: We are living in a time when we have to look at everything – the divine nature of our being as well as the divine madness of our being. The abuses of the boarding schools must come to light now; we need to see all of it. I think that the churches need to make an effort to provide ways of healing. Native people and church representatives could come together at centers that incorporate Western healing and Indigenous ceremonies such as the sweat lodge.  I would welcome building a center like that on my land.

Read the second part of this interview here.