Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
The present mass voluntary isolation of Indigenous communities due to COVID-19 should lead those working with Indigenous communities to reevaluate and reprioritize. Reliable access to clean and renewable energy will be fundamental to the future quality of life for off-grid Indigenous people, and to the future of the ecosystems that they protect and we all depend upon.
We will continue dreaming to protect our forest. We are the earth, the water, the air. We are the forest itself. And for her, we will continue to fight and unite until the end, with lots of love, and lots of rebellion.
We, representatives of 45 indigenous peoples in Brazil, more than 600 participants, were summoned by chief Raoni to meet between January 14 and 18, 2020 in the village Piaraçu (Terra Indígena Capoto Jarina), with the objective of bringing together our forces and denounce that a political project of the Brazilian government of genocide, ethnocide and ecocide is underway.
Tensions have been high in the area since a Dec. 31 B.C. Supreme Court decision that granted Coastal GasLink an injunction barring land defenders from blocking access to the pipeline work sites.
The fires in the rainforest have finally been extinguished by the arrival of the rainy season, but threats and violence continue unabated against forest defenders. They need international support if the Amazon is to be at the centre of climate action rather than just another distant frontline in the war against nature.
“[Native American Heritage Month] allows for us to remind [non-Natives] that we are still here, living here, despite their attempts to make us like them,” says Redner, the Phoenix Indian Center CEO. “We will continue to survive, but it’s our time to thrive now; it’s time for the seventh generation to use our knowledge.”
We—Indigenous Peoples and local communities—play a critical role in stewarding and safeguarding the world’s lands and forests. For the first time, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report released today recognizes that strengthening our rights is a critical solution to the climate crisis.
Food security, traditional agriculture, and local self-reliance are key to regenerative societies of the future, say water protectors taking the movement’s lessons forward.
Given the lengthy and often difficult process of obtaining formalization, it is clear that Indigenous peoples’ rights to land and territory need to be ensured through policies on a national scale, whether through simplifying bureaucracy or through providing support for regional governments and the communities themselves.
Regardless of the ultimate outcome, the Achuar will continue to vociferously defend their territory though all nonviolent means at their disposal. The goal of these alliances is to defend Achuar territory and their lives as forest peoples.
Now I understand that sustainable sovereign economies are needed to replace the system we support with our purchasing power, and our ancient teachings have all of those economies passed down in traditional families.
That Route 66 road trip is one of erasure, one that conceals the Indigenous history of this land with the expanding White capitalism of early Americana.
