From Alaska to the Plains and Southwest, Indian people speak of the twin forces of the beauty of creation and destruction by modern man
SOMERTON, COCOPAH NATION, Arizona, U.S.
Streams are drying up; dams now blockade salmon journeys’ aquifers are being drained and wildlife are left homeless in drought-ravaged lands, American Indians said at a conference on climate change.
Salmon, bear and caribou are indicating climate changes to Indigenous Peoples. Still, tribal members offered wisdom and solutions, ranging from the message of respect to innovative alternative energy programs, during the Tribal Lands Climate Conference hosted by the Cocopah Nation, Dec. 5 – 6, near the border of the United States and Mexico.
Evon Peter, Neetsaii Gwichin, described how climate change has affected the caribou in the Arctic. Two years ago, heavy snow in late spring melted quickly because of high temperatures. The slush slowed down the caribou migration and caribou calves were born in the icy slush. Because they were not born on safe ground, many of the caribou calves died.
Peter also described the Gwich’in culture of survival and growing up in a region where temperatures fall to 70 below zero, a region where falling in the ice can mean death.
“Our culture is about survival in an intense and fragile environment”, said Peter, director of the Native Movement and former chief of the Neetsaii Gwich’in in Arctic Village, Alaska.
For the Gwich’in of the far north, wisdom and knowledge came from this way of life.
Peter said that when he was young, the Gwich’in believed they were safe in their homeland. Their relationship with the land and the caribou meant that they would survive if other non-sustainable cultures collapsed. Then changes came; there was the threat of oil drilling and climate change.
Now the Gwich’in are traveling and speaking out to preserve their human rights and educate humanity about survival and the wisdom that comes from living in the Arctic.
With the perpetuation of greed, exploitation, control and colonization, Peter said modern society is built on myths, including the one that everyone can be a millionaire. Money, however, is not the most important thing to most people. Peter, who is married to Navajo activist Enei Begaye, said family and being loved are the most important.
“The Western mind has the idea that we are in control”, Peter said, using as an example cloud seeding programs.
Gwich’in, however, believe life is to be lived by way of healing practices and prayer.
“We are not actually controlling it; we are living it.”
Caleen Sisk-Franco, Winnemem Wintu from Northern California, said her people came from Mount Shasta and are the caretakers, from the spring of Mount Shasta to the Pacific Ocean.
“As far as we know, as long as Mount Shasta has been there, we have been there”, said Sisk-Franco, among the tribe’s spiritual leaders.
She said the Winnemem Wintu must go to the headwater of this spring, which is the source, for prayer. Like rain, this prayer has to be offered there for things to grow.
Sisk-Franco said the changes in Mother Earth have come from the destruction of water, both from dams and the draining of aquifers for bottled water. The changes can be seen in animal life, including the bears’ hibernation patterns. The cycles of wet and dry years are also changing, resulting in floods, earthquakes and volcanoes.
Speaking out against efforts to raise Shasta Dam, which would continue to cover up sacred sites, she said dams are killing the salmon in the rivers by preventing them from coming to spawning grounds.
Already, Winnemem homes were bulldozed and sacred places desecrated when the dam was constructed in 1945. Sisk-Franco spoke out against the effort to put more concrete on an earthquake fault line to raise the dam.
“Water is the most powerful being, it cuts through rock.”
She said the elders say, “When it’s all over and done, this dam won’t exist anymore.”
Sisk-Franco also brought a message from the traditional people.
“We’ve been told that fire and water are having an argument over land. Where the sacred fires are not built, water thinks it should be there.”
Currently, there is also an effort to halt the Nestle Corp. from taking water from the mountain. “Don’t buy bottled water, you’re cutting your own throat. If you take it from the aquifers, who is going to put that back?”
“You don’t go to the essence and take the water that feeds entire planets.”
Sisk-Franco said her grandmother feels that the spiritual leaders should come together to keep Mother Earth nourishing all the relatives. Whatever happens to the bird and fish “eventually happens to us”, she said.
Sisk-Franco, among those struggling for the tribe’s federal recognition, said she had hoped to see more traditional people at the climate conference, because she wants to gather with those who “talk to the rocks and go to the mountains for prayer.” She said spiritual leaders need to gather for prayers and care for the land.
“Light that fire, sing to them. They are depending on us to carry on our job, which was given to us by the Creator, to take care of them.”
Terry Williams, Tulalip Tribe from Washington, said both traditional knowledge and science agree that everything has changed. “As salmon people we see what is changing in the landscape.”
In the Cascades of Washington, the signs are all around the people.
“Our people have lived on the landscape for over 10,000 years”, said Williams, Fisheries and Natural Resources Commissioner for the Tulalip Tribes.
“What we have is an artificial, altered state.”
In earlier times, beneath the old growth cedars, with their expansive canopies, was a layer of decaying vegetation, a natural sponge that prevented rapid water loss. However, now with logging and the cutting of timbers, the water runs off quickly and the soil quality is changing.
Williams said when the water doesn’t slow down enough to get back into the ground, it affects all living things that are trying to survive. Now, the spring run off occurs two months early and the seasons have changed.
With the salmon, the juveniles are forced down to salt water before they are ready to leave the fresh water. Their survival rate drops off.
Bird migratory routes have also changed. “As our species migrate off and we don’t have a legal right to follow them.”
Williams said if nothing is done, in 20 to 25 years, the Tulalip culture will be terminated because of these climate changes.
“We are being forced into a new generation of people. We’ve lost our future. The only way to stop that is to change course”, he said, stressing the need to halt the loss of water to the dehydrating landscape. He said people need to look to the future and design a plan to survive.
“We are not a people to give up.”
Jason Baldes, Shoshone from Wind River, Wyoming, is cofounder of both the Young Warriors Society and Wind River Alliance. Baldes said the mountain glaciers are melting because of climate change and the river water is disappearing because of non-Indian agriculture.
Remembering snow pack from his childhood in the mountain wilderness areas, he said, “That is pretty rare now.”
Baldes said when agriculture came to tribal land, there was a high demand for water. Now, most water from the Wind River range is used for agriculture by non-Indians.
“A lot of the springs are drying up.” This means that elk are changing their patterns because of the lack of water. There is also concern for the fish because a 50-mile stretch of the Wind River dries up completely between July and September each year because non-Indian agriculture.
“The Wind River dries up completely, because they take it all”, Baldes said, pointing out that the Wind River Alliance is working for watershed restoration. Baldes, a college student studying environmental biology, coordinates youth camps on Wind River and for the Missouri River Watershed.
“Respect, caring and sharing” was the message of Louie Hena of Tesuque Pueblo in New Mexico, speaking of the foundation of permaculture and the Pueblo way of life.
“We are the only beings that have a voice”, Hena said, encouraging others to speak out to protect all creating things.
Hena, who helped organize the Native American Farmer Association, also shared permaculture designs and photos revealing spiral formations in the Pueblo way of life.
“The spiral is our way of life”, he said.
Hena pointed out hope for the future and that reversing the trend of destroying the atmosphere does not have to be complicated for individuals.
“I grow corn, I grow beans, I grow squash. I grow the three sisters”, he said, describing the layers of life in the Sangre de Cristo mountain range where he lives in northern New Mexico.
“That is who I am.”
Speaking of the sacredness of the land, he said the mountains are the walls of his church. “We live in that special way, every day.”
Sharing new efforts with permaculture, he said, “We’re taking something old and making it new again. We have learned how to live off the land. We’ve learned how to survive. We’ve learned how to adapt.”
Modern technology, however, has offered new threats. Hena said genetic engineering of seeds is a major concern for Indian people and efforts must be increased to protect native seed crops, heritage fruits, animals, fish and wild plants from genetic engineering.
Robert Gomez, director of Taos Pueblo Environmental Office in New Mexico, shared news of his tribe’s renewable energy study. Gomez began by saying that Taos Pueblo people are very traditional and their language is very important.
“It is a living culture.”
Taos Pueblo’s renewable energy study looked at possibilities, including zero or low emission sources. Of primary concern was the fact that the area is in a constant state of drought, with basically only two seasons now.
“We have hot and dry, and cold and dry.”
While looking at possibilities for alternative energy, Gomez said Taos leaders said solar technology, which uses the sun’s rays, should not be placed in sacred areas.
However, for schools and agricultural projects, solar, wind and subterranean heating and cooling systems are possibilities, including hot water piping for school district heating and small scale wind projects for agriculture.
Biomass offers the best possibility for Taos Pueblo, including woodchips for heating that are harvested after forest fires. Taos Pueblo is also considering biodiesel production from canola and mustard seed crops. Hydropower from flowing streams and rivers offers potential, while wind power or solar generation could be used for pumping water to the tribe’s buffalo herd, he said.
Sharing a history of Taos Pueblo, Gomez said after electricity arrived in the Pueblos in the 1970s, life began to change. However, it was Taos Pueblo’s successful battle to reclaim its land at Blue Lake that reveals the tribe’s most significant contemporary accomplishment.
“The Battle for Blue Lake defines our tribe”, he said.
Wahleah Johns, Navajo from Forest Lake, Ariz., of the Black Mesa Water Coalition, spoke of the impacts of Navajo relocation and the groundwater depletion due to the operations of Peabody Coal Mine on Black Mesa in Arizona.
Peabody has operated two of the nation’s largest strip coalmines on Navajo and Hopi lands on Black Mesa, providing electricity to non-Indians from a region where a large number of tribal members live without electricity and running water.
Advocating for Indigenous Peoples’ rights and youth empowerment, Johns is a Campus Climate Challenge organizer for curriculum changes.
“This needs to happen regionally, all over the world”, said Johns, who also works closely with the Indigenous Environmental Network.
Johns said the root cause of climate change is greenhouse emissions and the burning of fossil fuels. Coming from a community of coal mining on Black Mesa, she pointed out the effects of coal mining on climate change. With both coal and gas extraction proliferating on the Navajo Nation, she said there is the ongoing mining, drilling, transportation and storage of waste.
The abuses and degradation are affecting plant and animal life, which Navajos tell in Dine’ stories. She said the degradation began more than 35 years, before she was born, with coal mining on Black Mesa.
“There are major abuses and degradation”, she said. Now the four seasons are diminishing and there is always the hope of rain each year, as the earth becomes drier.
Vernon Masayesva, Hopi of Black Mesa Trust, said the challenge is to release energy for good. Masayesva said water is a gift from the Creator and fills the earth and human life. Masayesva said that Hopi believe that if the destructive forces that cause global warning are not halted, there will be hurricanes and more destruction for the people.
“Each one of us are the living universe”, Masayesva said. “We have the capacity to bring peace to the world.”
Jennifer Cleland of the Colorado River Indian Tribes, on the Arizona and California border, described how the tribe took action when the environment of the river and land began to change. In 1995, the tribe created an aqua preserve, Ahakhav Tribal Preserve in Parker, Arizona., to protect species. As ecological coordinator for the preserver, she focuses on restoration and habitat management for threatened and endangered species. Restoration efforts include removing salt cedar, a persistent weed, by puling up the roots with a tractor. Currently, the tribe is also restoring 250 acres in an area of burned mesquite from the Bosque fire.
From Idaho, Aaron Miles, Nez Perce natural resources manager, said the Nez Perce have long battled to retain their lands from the onslaught of gold miners. Lands were also lost after the federal government required that Nez Perce, who are hunting and gathering people, must farm the land. Farming was foreign to the Nez Perce and the federal government seized lands.
Now, Miles said dams are blocking the routes of salmon, particularly the ninth dam on the Snake River, a water passage required for salmon spawning and survival. Salmon are the indicator species of the Nez Perce. Dams and climate changes in the ocean are the reason that the salmon are not coming back in large numbers now.
The Nez Perce are now looking at bio-diesel using new crops. Further, a carbon sequestration program has meant that Nez Perce are now being paid to grow trees. The 400-acre reforestation program is the result of an international accord. Miles said the payments are made by “someone who would be considered a polluter in another country.”
Robert Gough, an attorney who serves as a consultant to the Rosebud Sioux Tribal Utility Commission, said tribes in North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska are increasingly looking at wind energy projects.
Speaking of shifts in climate, he said, “We stand with our finger on the trigger.
“There’s a whole lot that needs to be done. We need to take advantage of the opportunities that we have”, said Gough, secretary of the Intertribal Council on Utility Policy.
Gough said the United States is among the leading countries in energy consumption and production of carbon dioxide. He said he is happy that the mainstream press is catching on to global warming.
While making changes for energy efficiency, he said the United States needs to become more effective in the design of buildings, pointing out that the largest amount of electricity usage is within buildings in the United States. Straw bale construction is one of the alternative construction methods, he said.
Gough said American Indian tribes across the nation have resources from sun, wind or water. “Every tribe has renewable resources of one type or another.”
Gough said drought conditions now prevail in the Dakotas and elsewhere in the Plains, throughout the central United States and in Arizona. Meanwhile, the United States is currently 85-percent powered by coal energy.
Dr. Nancy Maynard of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, said climate change is seriously affecting the food sources and culture of the Alaskan tribes. Particularly in Alaska, Native tourism is based on the beauty of the land and wildlife.
In Alaska, the Arctic subsistence cultures are hard hit by those climate changes, including changes in snow pack and seasonal runoff, which are visible in satellite imagery.
“It is causing major changes in lifestyle”, especially for those whose food comes from the bear, fish and other wildlife.”
However, the devastation of climate change is not just in Alaska, but is everywhere on Indian lands. From the devastation of the Menominee Forest in Wisconsin to the fire-ravaged Black Hills in South Dakota, climate changes, fires and droughts are affecting tribal cultures.
Maynard said the damming of the Missouri River and the flooding of homelands is one of the saddest stories.
Maynard said the question now is what can be done to halt climate change and its impacts on Indian cultures.
During his presentation, Gough asked, “Is it a ‘Dead End,’ or a ‘Fork in the Road?’”
Brenda Norrell
Human Rights Editor
U.N. OBSERVER & International Report
SOMERTON, COCOPAH NATION, Arizona, U.S.
Streams are drying up; dams now blockade salmon journeys’ aquifers are being drained and wildlife are left homeless in drought-ravaged lands, American Indians said at a conference on climate change.
Salmon, bear and caribou are indicating climate changes to Indigenous Peoples. Still, tribal members offered wisdom and solutions, ranging from the message of respect to innovative alternative energy programs, during the Tribal Lands Climate Conference hosted by the Cocopah Nation, Dec. 5 – 6, near the border of the United States and Mexico.
Evon Peter, Neetsaii Gwichin, described how climate change has affected the caribou in the Arctic. Two years ago, heavy snow in late spring melted quickly because of high temperatures. The slush slowed down the caribou migration and caribou calves were born in the icy slush. Because they were not born on safe ground, many of the caribou calves died.
Peter also described the Gwich’in culture of survival and growing up in a region where temperatures fall to 70 below zero, a region where falling in the ice can mean death.
“Our culture is about survival in an intense and fragile environment”, said Peter, director of the Native Movement and former chief of the Neetsaii Gwich’in in Arctic Village, Alaska.
For the Gwich’in of the far north, wisdom and knowledge came from this way of life.
Peter said that when he was young, the Gwich’in believed they were safe in their homeland. Their relationship with the land and the caribou meant that they would survive if other non-sustainable cultures collapsed. Then changes came; there was the threat of oil drilling and climate change.
Now the Gwich’in are traveling and speaking out to preserve their human rights and educate humanity about survival and the wisdom that comes from living in the Arctic.
With the perpetuation of greed, exploitation, control and colonization, Peter said modern society is built on myths, including the one that everyone can be a millionaire. Money, however, is not the most important thing to most people. Peter, who is married to Navajo activist Enei Begaye, said family and being loved are the most important.
“The Western mind has the idea that we are in control”, Peter said, using as an example cloud seeding programs.
Gwich’in, however, believe life is to be lived by way of healing practices and prayer.
“We are not actually controlling it; we are living it.”
Caleen Sisk-Franco, Winnemem Wintu from Northern California, said her people came from Mount Shasta and are the caretakers, from the spring of Mount Shasta to the Pacific Ocean.
“As far as we know, as long as Mount Shasta has been there, we have been there”, said Sisk-Franco, among the tribe’s spiritual leaders.
She said the Winnemem Wintu must go to the headwater of this spring, which is the source, for prayer. Like rain, this prayer has to be offered there for things to grow.
Sisk-Franco said the changes in Mother Earth have come from the destruction of water, both from dams and the draining of aquifers for bottled water. The changes can be seen in animal life, including the bears’ hibernation patterns. The cycles of wet and dry years are also changing, resulting in floods, earthquakes and volcanoes.
Speaking out against efforts to raise Shasta Dam, which would continue to cover up sacred sites, she said dams are killing the salmon in the rivers by preventing them from coming to spawning grounds.
Already, Winnemem homes were bulldozed and sacred places desecrated when the dam was constructed in 1945. Sisk-Franco spoke out against the effort to put more concrete on an earthquake fault line to raise the dam.
“Water is the most powerful being, it cuts through rock.”
She said the elders say, “When it’s all over and done, this dam won’t exist anymore.”
Sisk-Franco also brought a message from the traditional people.
“We’ve been told that fire and water are having an argument over land. Where the sacred fires are not built, water thinks it should be there.”
Currently, there is also an effort to halt the Nestle Corp. from taking water from the mountain. “Don’t buy bottled water, you’re cutting your own throat. If you take it from the aquifers, who is going to put that back?”
“You don’t go to the essence and take the water that feeds entire planets.”
Sisk-Franco said her grandmother feels that the spiritual leaders should come together to keep Mother Earth nourishing all the relatives. Whatever happens to the bird and fish “eventually happens to us”, she said.
Sisk-Franco, among those struggling for the tribe’s federal recognition, said she had hoped to see more traditional people at the climate conference, because she wants to gather with those who “talk to the rocks and go to the mountains for prayer.” She said spiritual leaders need to gather for prayers and care for the land.
“Light that fire, sing to them. They are depending on us to carry on our job, which was given to us by the Creator, to take care of them.”
Terry Williams, Tulalip Tribe from Washington, said both traditional knowledge and science agree that everything has changed. “As salmon people we see what is changing in the landscape.”
In the Cascades of Washington, the signs are all around the people.
“Our people have lived on the landscape for over 10,000 years”, said Williams, Fisheries and Natural Resources Commissioner for the Tulalip Tribes.
“What we have is an artificial, altered state.”
In earlier times, beneath the old growth cedars, with their expansive canopies, was a layer of decaying vegetation, a natural sponge that prevented rapid water loss. However, now with logging and the cutting of timbers, the water runs off quickly and the soil quality is changing.
Williams said when the water doesn’t slow down enough to get back into the ground, it affects all living things that are trying to survive. Now, the spring run off occurs two months early and the seasons have changed.
With the salmon, the juveniles are forced down to salt water before they are ready to leave the fresh water. Their survival rate drops off.
Bird migratory routes have also changed. “As our species migrate off and we don’t have a legal right to follow them.”
Williams said if nothing is done, in 20 to 25 years, the Tulalip culture will be terminated because of these climate changes.
“We are being forced into a new generation of people. We’ve lost our future. The only way to stop that is to change course”, he said, stressing the need to halt the loss of water to the dehydrating landscape. He said people need to look to the future and design a plan to survive.
“We are not a people to give up.”
Jason Baldes, Shoshone from Wind River, Wyoming, is cofounder of both the Young Warriors Society and Wind River Alliance. Baldes said the mountain glaciers are melting because of climate change and the river water is disappearing because of non-Indian agriculture.
Remembering snow pack from his childhood in the mountain wilderness areas, he said, “That is pretty rare now.”
Baldes said when agriculture came to tribal land, there was a high demand for water. Now, most water from the Wind River range is used for agriculture by non-Indians.
“A lot of the springs are drying up.” This means that elk are changing their patterns because of the lack of water. There is also concern for the fish because a 50-mile stretch of the Wind River dries up completely between July and September each year because non-Indian agriculture.
“The Wind River dries up completely, because they take it all”, Baldes said, pointing out that the Wind River Alliance is working for watershed restoration. Baldes, a college student studying environmental biology, coordinates youth camps on Wind River and for the Missouri River Watershed.
“Respect, caring and sharing” was the message of Louie Hena of Tesuque Pueblo in New Mexico, speaking of the foundation of permaculture and the Pueblo way of life.
“We are the only beings that have a voice”, Hena said, encouraging others to speak out to protect all creating things.
Hena, who helped organize the Native American Farmer Association, also shared permaculture designs and photos revealing spiral formations in the Pueblo way of life.
“The spiral is our way of life”, he said.
Hena pointed out hope for the future and that reversing the trend of destroying the atmosphere does not have to be complicated for individuals.
“I grow corn, I grow beans, I grow squash. I grow the three sisters”, he said, describing the layers of life in the Sangre de Cristo mountain range where he lives in northern New Mexico.
“That is who I am.”
Speaking of the sacredness of the land, he said the mountains are the walls of his church. “We live in that special way, every day.”
Sharing new efforts with permaculture, he said, “We’re taking something old and making it new again. We have learned how to live off the land. We’ve learned how to survive. We’ve learned how to adapt.”
Modern technology, however, has offered new threats. Hena said genetic engineering of seeds is a major concern for Indian people and efforts must be increased to protect native seed crops, heritage fruits, animals, fish and wild plants from genetic engineering.
Robert Gomez, director of Taos Pueblo Environmental Office in New Mexico, shared news of his tribe’s renewable energy study. Gomez began by saying that Taos Pueblo people are very traditional and their language is very important.
“It is a living culture.”
Taos Pueblo’s renewable energy study looked at possibilities, including zero or low emission sources. Of primary concern was the fact that the area is in a constant state of drought, with basically only two seasons now.
“We have hot and dry, and cold and dry.”
While looking at possibilities for alternative energy, Gomez said Taos leaders said solar technology, which uses the sun’s rays, should not be placed in sacred areas.
However, for schools and agricultural projects, solar, wind and subterranean heating and cooling systems are possibilities, including hot water piping for school district heating and small scale wind projects for agriculture.
Biomass offers the best possibility for Taos Pueblo, including woodchips for heating that are harvested after forest fires. Taos Pueblo is also considering biodiesel production from canola and mustard seed crops. Hydropower from flowing streams and rivers offers potential, while wind power or solar generation could be used for pumping water to the tribe’s buffalo herd, he said.
Sharing a history of Taos Pueblo, Gomez said after electricity arrived in the Pueblos in the 1970s, life began to change. However, it was Taos Pueblo’s successful battle to reclaim its land at Blue Lake that reveals the tribe’s most significant contemporary accomplishment.
“The Battle for Blue Lake defines our tribe”, he said.
Wahleah Johns, Navajo from Forest Lake, Ariz., of the Black Mesa Water Coalition, spoke of the impacts of Navajo relocation and the groundwater depletion due to the operations of Peabody Coal Mine on Black Mesa in Arizona.
Peabody has operated two of the nation’s largest strip coalmines on Navajo and Hopi lands on Black Mesa, providing electricity to non-Indians from a region where a large number of tribal members live without electricity and running water.
Advocating for Indigenous Peoples’ rights and youth empowerment, Johns is a Campus Climate Challenge organizer for curriculum changes.
“This needs to happen regionally, all over the world”, said Johns, who also works closely with the Indigenous Environmental Network.
Johns said the root cause of climate change is greenhouse emissions and the burning of fossil fuels. Coming from a community of coal mining on Black Mesa, she pointed out the effects of coal mining on climate change. With both coal and gas extraction proliferating on the Navajo Nation, she said there is the ongoing mining, drilling, transportation and storage of waste.
The abuses and degradation are affecting plant and animal life, which Navajos tell in Dine’ stories. She said the degradation began more than 35 years, before she was born, with coal mining on Black Mesa.
“There are major abuses and degradation”, she said. Now the four seasons are diminishing and there is always the hope of rain each year, as the earth becomes drier.
Vernon Masayesva, Hopi of Black Mesa Trust, said the challenge is to release energy for good. Masayesva said water is a gift from the Creator and fills the earth and human life. Masayesva said that Hopi believe that if the destructive forces that cause global warning are not halted, there will be hurricanes and more destruction for the people.
“Each one of us are the living universe”, Masayesva said. “We have the capacity to bring peace to the world.”
Jennifer Cleland of the Colorado River Indian Tribes, on the Arizona and California border, described how the tribe took action when the environment of the river and land began to change. In 1995, the tribe created an aqua preserve, Ahakhav Tribal Preserve in Parker, Arizona., to protect species. As ecological coordinator for the preserver, she focuses on restoration and habitat management for threatened and endangered species. Restoration efforts include removing salt cedar, a persistent weed, by puling up the roots with a tractor. Currently, the tribe is also restoring 250 acres in an area of burned mesquite from the Bosque fire.
From Idaho, Aaron Miles, Nez Perce natural resources manager, said the Nez Perce have long battled to retain their lands from the onslaught of gold miners. Lands were also lost after the federal government required that Nez Perce, who are hunting and gathering people, must farm the land. Farming was foreign to the Nez Perce and the federal government seized lands.
Now, Miles said dams are blocking the routes of salmon, particularly the ninth dam on the Snake River, a water passage required for salmon spawning and survival. Salmon are the indicator species of the Nez Perce. Dams and climate changes in the ocean are the reason that the salmon are not coming back in large numbers now.
The Nez Perce are now looking at bio-diesel using new crops. Further, a carbon sequestration program has meant that Nez Perce are now being paid to grow trees. The 400-acre reforestation program is the result of an international accord. Miles said the payments are made by “someone who would be considered a polluter in another country.”
Robert Gough, an attorney who serves as a consultant to the Rosebud Sioux Tribal Utility Commission, said tribes in North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska are increasingly looking at wind energy projects.
Speaking of shifts in climate, he said, “We stand with our finger on the trigger.
“There’s a whole lot that needs to be done. We need to take advantage of the opportunities that we have”, said Gough, secretary of the Intertribal Council on Utility Policy.
Gough said the United States is among the leading countries in energy consumption and production of carbon dioxide. He said he is happy that the mainstream press is catching on to global warming.
While making changes for energy efficiency, he said the United States needs to become more effective in the design of buildings, pointing out that the largest amount of electricity usage is within buildings in the United States. Straw bale construction is one of the alternative construction methods, he said.
Gough said American Indian tribes across the nation have resources from sun, wind or water. “Every tribe has renewable resources of one type or another.”
Gough said drought conditions now prevail in the Dakotas and elsewhere in the Plains, throughout the central United States and in Arizona. Meanwhile, the United States is currently 85-percent powered by coal energy.
Dr. Nancy Maynard of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, said climate change is seriously affecting the food sources and culture of the Alaskan tribes. Particularly in Alaska, Native tourism is based on the beauty of the land and wildlife.
In Alaska, the Arctic subsistence cultures are hard hit by those climate changes, including changes in snow pack and seasonal runoff, which are visible in satellite imagery.
“It is causing major changes in lifestyle”, especially for those whose food comes from the bear, fish and other wildlife.”
However, the devastation of climate change is not just in Alaska, but is everywhere on Indian lands. From the devastation of the Menominee Forest in Wisconsin to the fire-ravaged Black Hills in South Dakota, climate changes, fires and droughts are affecting tribal cultures.
Maynard said the damming of the Missouri River and the flooding of homelands is one of the saddest stories.
Maynard said the question now is what can be done to halt climate change and its impacts on Indian cultures.
During his presentation, Gough asked, “Is it a ‘Dead End,’ or a ‘Fork in the Road?’”
Brenda Norrell
Human Rights Editor
U.N. OBSERVER & International Report