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Every day is Earth Day for Indigenous people
Every day is Earth Day for Indigenous people

Yahoo

time22-04-2025

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Every day is Earth Day for Indigenous people

This story is part of The 89 Percent Project, an initiative of the global journalism collaboration Covering Climate Now, which includes ICT. Stewart HuntingtonICT Since 1970, people all around the world have set aside April 22 as Earth Day, pausing to focus on caring for the planet. Since time immemorial, of course, Indigenous peoples have been doing the same thing. Every day. 'This is about how we think, how we live, our ways of knowing … about being human,' said Inuit leader Sara Olsvig, chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council and a former member of the Greenland and Danish Parliaments. 'And also being human in close interaction and with nature. It represents our worldview of humans not being separate from nature.' The one-day focus of Earth Day — although in some circles the commemoration has grown to become Earth Month — can strike a slightly discordant note to Native ears. 'It's an odd thing to even say, 'Oh, it's Earth Day,'' said Penobscot citizen Darren Ranco, an anthropology professor at the University of Maine. The Penobscot are Wabanaki – the People of the Dawnland – and are taught to greet the sunrise every day and appreciate their place in the natural world, their connection with the earth. 'That connects us to our places,' Ranco said. 'I think the cultural framing [of having a single Earth Day], of course, is quite different.' Native people are still leading the way, however, in approaching climate change and the efforts to preserve and protect the natural environment. A worldwide survey found that 89 percent of people across the continents believe their country should do more to fight climate change. Researchers reached out to people in 125 countries that account for 96 percent of the world's carbon emissions, with the results published in the journal, Nature Climate Change. People in China, the world's biggest polluter, were among the most concerned, with 97 percent saying its government should do more to fight climate change. The United States, the world's second biggest polluter, was near the bottom but still had 74 percent of its citizens saying its government should do more. New Zealand, Norway and Russia were also relatively low-scoring. Read more about The percentage of Native people who believe the same is likely even higher. 'I always say that, Planet Earth, Mother Earth, would be in a much better place if we had more Indigenous lawmakers,' said Whitney Gravelle, the president of Michigan's Bay Mills Indian Community. 'Because the way we think about decision making … is deeply rooted in our teachings,' Gravelle said. 'We're always thinking of those future generations, and how the decisions we make today are going to impact future generations. We never think about ourselves. We never think selfishly. We're always thinking of how we can take care of others, take care of Mother Earth, so that we're providing for future generations. I know that's inherent in all of the values that we carry as Indigenous people.' A single-day celebration of Earth Day doesn't get in the way of welcoming fellow travelers, however. It provides an opportunity for education and the spreading of Indigenous values, Gravelle said. 'It's is a wonderful opportunity for education, especially since so much of the rest of the world then becomes focused on Mother Earth and how we are going to be taking care of her,'' she said. 'So if there's one thing we can do on Earth Day, it's to educate others of those values and how we can all find a way to exist and make meaningful progress that takes everyone into consideration.' Sherri Mitchell, a Penobscot citizen and executive director of Maine's Land Peace Foundation, agreed. 'We as Indigenous people have become accustomed to having things stolen from us,' she said. 'Though we do not want to encourage the continuation of this behavior, these are ideas worth stealing.' 'Core cultural values' Mitchell is using Earth Day to help share that knowledge She's helping to organize a march – the Journey of Peace and Friendship – that kicks off on Earth Day on the Penobscot Reservation and ends a week later at the statehouse in Bangor. It's open to a wide range of faith leaders – Sikh, Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Indigenous and others – and 'all who come in a spirit of peace and friendship.' 'We're not interested in being a voice for what we don't want, we want to be a voice for what we do want,' she said. 'We want to stand up for our core cultural values as Indigenous people: kinship,collective care, kindness, inclusion, acceptance, compassion and deeper understanding. Earth Day is the perfect opportunity to model for others the welcoming spirit and generosity that Mother Earth has modeled for us.' The effort could also move the dial on combatting climate worldwide study indicates that climate change is of primary concern and that 80 to 89 percent of people think their government should do more. Those numbers might be low in Indian Country, said Ranco. 'The different kinds of studies and data points that I'm aware of and the oral traditions and cultures that I'm constantly exposed to as an Indigenous academic would tell me that it's always of greater concern in Native communities,' he said. 'I think there are a bunch of different reasons for that. You have, of course, the ongoing commitments to caretaking and relational responsibility that Indigenous people continue to carry out as it relates to our mother, the Earth. And then you have the very real experiences of people who are living closer to the land.' Native people are also feeling the impacts of climate change in their communities, where rising sea levels, flooding, droughts, wildfires, increasingly strong hurricanes and heat are wreaking havoc. 'A lot of Indigenous people are experiencing the impacts of climate changes already, and they're very much more keenly aware that the climatic change is happening in a way that has never happened while humans have been living on this planet,' Ranco said. Increasingly, they are stepping up to address the realities of the Anthropocene. 'In some ways, that's part of why indigenous people, around the world, have assumed such important leadership roles around climate, justice and, and conservation work independent from any particular political moment,' said Ranco. 'We're rising up for something that's a deeper or more fundamental moment around sort of our condition as humans,' Ranco said. 'Our responsibility doesn't end at the reservation lines. It's a universal responsibility that is part of our teachings.' Looking ahead Olsvig, drawing on years of experience watching Arctic treaties negotiated and signed, wants to see more of those teachings in practice. 'Often we see international agreements built on the basis of a worldview that humans and nature are separate things. And for us, it's not,' Olsvig said. 'So when we are there pushing for not just our knowledge, but our worldviews to be included into these [agreements] and new approaches to conservation. … We come with the worldview that humans are inseparable from nature, that we are one.' It's a perspective that has worldwide implications. 'I think that we share with Indigenous peoples from all over the world, and we must continue to stand shoulder by shoulder in that very important push because we see time and time again that decisions are taken without us,' Olsvig said. 'And so we need to maintain our push and stay in the seats at the table wherever we've created those seats,' she said. 'And if we don't have a seat, we have to kick in the door and make sure that Indigenous peoples are part of the negotiations.' This story is part of The 89 Percent Project, an initiative of the global journalism collaboration Covering Climate Now, which includes ICT.

LANDBACK: Spirit Lake Nation regains land from Fish and Wildlife Service
LANDBACK: Spirit Lake Nation regains land from Fish and Wildlife Service

Yahoo

time01-03-2025

  • Politics
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LANDBACK: Spirit Lake Nation regains land from Fish and Wildlife Service

Stewart HuntingtonICT The Spirit Lake Nation is celebrating the return of 680 acres of land that was stripped away more than a century ago from its original treaty territory. The transfer on Feb. 10 marked the culmination of a multi-generation effort by the nation to reclaim lands from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's White Horse Hill National Game Preserve in North Dakota. SUPPORT INDIGENOUS JOURNALISM. "This return of land is a significant step towards healing and reconciliation,' said Spirit Lake Chairwoman Lonna Jackson-Street. 'After decades of effort, we are grateful for the support of our partners in the government and the recognition of our rightful claim to these lands.' The land was carved from the tribe's 1867 treaty territory by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1905. In the late 1950s, it was deemed "submarginal lands" and and was designated to be excess to the needs of the game preserve. The Spirit Lake Nation formally sought the return of the lands as part of a broader movement by Congress to return submarginal lands to Indian nations. Despite the widespread effort, the Fish and Wildlife Service retained the lands for hay production to support the buffalo population at White Horse Hill. In the past decade, however, Fish and Wildlife did not use the land. This month, the General Services Administration, which manages the federal government's real estate portfolio, transferred the property to Spirit Lake. 'The community is excited and thankful for the leadership of the tribe, along with U.S. Fish and Wildlife (Service), Bureau of Indian Affairs, and Department of the Interior, who worked collaboratively getting our land back," said Spirit Lake Tribal Councilmember Darren Walking Eagle. The returned property all lies within the original 1867 reservation boundaries and includes areas with native and medicinal plants the tribe intends to preserve. The returned land also offers some development opportunities the tribe may explore. "It does offer the potential to expand our medical facility and build housing, but there are no definite plans at this time," said Jackson-Street. In addition, there are 300 other acres of federal game preserve land that the tribe seeks to have returned. "Our leadership and community are hopeful regarding the return of lands back to the tribe," Jackson-Street said. Multiple emails and voicemails left to representatives from the Fish and Wildlife Service seeking details about the land transfer were not returned. Our stories are worth telling. Our stories are worth sharing. Our stories are worth your support. Contribute today to help ICT carry out its critical mission. Sign up for ICT's free newsletter.

A new day in the Dawnland
A new day in the Dawnland

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time12-02-2025

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A new day in the Dawnland

Stewart HuntingtonICT MILLINOCKET, Maine – Mount Katahdin is one of Maine's crown jewels. The centerpiece of Baxter State Park, its summit is the highest point in the state and the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail. But for thousands of years it has also been much more: a sacred place to the Wabanaki people where earth and sky converge and the secular and the divine connect. It is the birthplace of the Great Spirit. Today, the territory is also Ground Zero for a groundbreaking collaboration between Native leaders and Western conservation groups centering Aboriginal values, knowledge and priorities in statewide land protection practices — and amassing resources behind the effort. The project's centerpiece is the purchase — and planned return to Penobscot Nation stewardship — of 31,000 acres near Katahdin. SUPPORT INDIGENOUS JOURNALISM. 'When Indigenous people are at the forefront, are in the leadership, when our governance is mobilized, that's actually producing the most profound conservation outcomes,' said Darren Ranco, a Penobscot citizen and scholar who sits on the Wabanaki Commission on Land and Stewardship, the driving force behind the land return partnership. The commission includes representatives from the federally recognized Wabanaki tribes in Maine and brings a unified voice to discussions with the traditional Western conservation community to prioritize parcels of land for purchase and return. 'There's amazing things that we're doing here,' said Ralph Dana, a Passamaquoddy member of the commission. On the other end of the conference table sits First Light, a consortium of conservation organizations that share an understanding that promoting Aboriginal stewardship of land and resources is fundamentally sound conservation practice. Reaching that conclusion has meant shelving the tools of traditional conservation such as easements and legal proscriptions against development. First Light's goal? Putting land back under Native stewardship. Period. 'First Light represents a huge shift for the conservation community,' said Ranco, a Harvard-trained anthropologist who is a professor of Native studies at the University of Maine. 'They're able to join our collective work and not … want to take credit for it, but really support what is a set of common values across Indigenous [communities].' The shift — and the growing partnership between the two worlds — did not spring up overnight. In First Light's early days, beginning in 2017, it encountered a hurdle that took years to overcome: a lack of trust. 'Unfortunately, we come from a place where we can't trust because things were taken away from us,' said Shannon Hill, a Mi'kmac Nation citizen who sits on the land and stewardship commission. Hill recounted her early days on the panel when she couldn't accept at face value that her Western counterparts wanted to buy land and … give it to Indians. 'I was like, 'Well, where are the strings?' You know, it's like, there's got to be something else. What's the bottom line here? You just don't give away stuff like that. Especially to us,' she said. 'Nobody ever gives us stuff anymore and it is usually the opposite way.' But over time, the two sides have grown together into a sturdy alliance. 'First Light has been incredible,' Hill said. 'They have really bridged the conservationists and the private funders with the Wabanaki people in a way so that we can both slowly trust each other.' The roots of Hill's turnaround are not entirely ephemeral. There are also the tangible outcomes of the collaberation. In December, First Light closed on — and returned to the Mi'kmaqs — a 103-acre property abutting the tribe's reservation in Littleton, Maine. The property includes wetlands and woods full of traditional medicines and a small lake, providing the tribe its first unfettered water access. 'This is a big deal,' said Mills. 'We're really hoping to utilize this as a place to put a summer camp for the youth to go down and to canoe and kayak and fish. … This is going to be a game-changer in our history.' And maybe beyond. The Mi'kmaq land and a 1,300-acre parcel First Light community bought and returned to the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians in December — and eight other Landback projects in the pipeline — attest to the maturation of the cooperative model driven by the Wabanaki commission. But it's the work on the huge parcel of land near Mount Katahdin that speaks to the collaboration's transformational power. 'This can be a really good example and set a great precedent for future land return projects to come, whether it's in Maine or across the nation,' said Anne Read, the Maine land protection manager for the Trust for Public Land. In 2022 the trust bought the sprawling parcel from a timber investment outfit for $32 million. It is now raising the money — along with the tribe — to retire the debt taken on to buy the land. The end goal is to return the land to the Penobscot Nation – with no strings attached. So far the partners have raised more than $11 million and when the project is done and the land is back in Penobscot hands, the result will be the largest land return between a U.S.-based nonprofit and a tribal nation in American history. 'We're going to look back and the history books are going to talk about us, because this is such a major movement where we're reclaiming land and bringing land back to our people,' said Hill. And, in the case of the Katahdin land, not just any land. Sacred land. 'I think the return represents the core of our culture,' said Ranco. 'The quantity is big. It's also big in terms of its meaning.' The parcel is known to the Penobscot as Wáhsehtək and includes long stretches of the East Branch of the Penobscot River. It's a place that, according to Penobscot language teacher Gabrial Paul, is central to the Wabanaki people, or People of the Dawn or Dawnland. 'The place where we are now holds all our stories,' he told ICT, standing in a clearing in the woods that offered a view over Lake Millinocket to Mount Katahdin, 'And the land beneath us we relate to as our mother.' To Ranco it is home. 'It's where our clans have been hunting for thousands of years,' he said. And maybe, said Chuck Loring, the Penobscot Nation's director of natural resources, for thousands of years more. 'The land is very important for us to be able to practice traditional lifeways and make sure that we're able to harvest subsistence species such as moose, deer, brook trout, other fish,' he said, while driving up a dirt road that crosses the Wáhsehtək parcel and ends at the Wabanaki Welcome Center at the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument. Loring turned off on a side road that led to a small pond. Walking around, he explained the area highlighted everything the property had to offer: mixed forest of brown ash, spruce, pine, maple and birch; cool clear streams; and still water for bird and beaver habitat. The land is not yet in Penobscot hands, 'but I'm getting calls from tribal members asking if they can go hunting,' Loring said. A personal bonus? 'My four-year-old daughter loves it out here,' he said with a grin. No one in the First Light group or the Wabanaki Commission on Land and Stewardship is counting chickens – or looking past the successes in front of them. But neither are they bashful about eyeing the potential spread of their experiment. 'I'm a scholar, so for me it's like the scholarship is actually supporting this,' Ranco said. 'It's saying, when Indigenous people are at the forefront, are in the leadership, our governance is mobilized, that's actually producing the most profound conservation outcomes around the world. We're really just … scratching the surface of something that is even more transformational.' The potential for change lies within — and beyond — Native communities. 'We have done Native collaboration work for the past many years since we started in the '90s,' said Read from the Trust for Public Land. 'So this is a priority for us. But I think on this scale, 31,000 acres is definitely historic. Land Return is starting to become a larger priority within our organization and becoming more and more a part of how we implement our mission.' Brett Ciccotelli from First Light went a step further. 'A big part of what we see with First Light work is that it can expand, not as a recipe for how this can be done elsewhere, but for an example that shows there are ways where the conservation community and the Indigenous communities can share common interests and common goals and work together,' Ciccotelli said. The Wabanaki Commission on Land and Stewardship's Dana said the impact could go far beyond Maine. 'We can be an example and can be a template for this kind of work throughout the country, throughout North America and maybe even worldwide,' Dana said. Our stories are worth telling. Our stories are worth sharing. Our stories are worth your support. Contribute today to help ICT carry out its critical mission. Sign up for ICT's free newsletter.

White House backs down on funding freeze
White House backs down on funding freeze

Yahoo

time29-01-2025

  • Politics
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White House backs down on funding freeze

Stewart HuntingtonICT Native leaders hailed a move by President Donald Trump's budget office Wednesday to rescind an order freezing spending on federal grants, less than two days after it sparked widespread confusion and legal challenges across Indian Country and beyond. 'I am happy for every federally recognized tribe, as well as states and organizations that this has affected in which the people that need services are going to be provided,' said OJ Semens, Sicangu Lakota, executive director of the Coalition of Large Tribes. SUPPORT INDIGENOUS JOURNALISM. The Monday evening order freezing the funds from the White House Office of Management and Budget sparked uncertainty over a crucial financial lifeline for tribes, states, schools and organizations that rely on trillions of dollars from Washington, and left the White House scrambling to explain what would and wouldn't be subject to a pause in funding. Late Tuesday, a federal judge issued an injunction halting the order until Monday, Feb. 3. The White House issued the order rescinding the funding freeze in a terse memo Wednesday that leaves unanswered whether the funding freezes would be reinstated. 'OMB Memorandum M-25-13 is rescinded,' it stated. The memo was signed by Matthew J. Vaeth, acting director of the Office of Management and Budget. White House posts on social media, however, indicated the memo had been suspended but not the administration's efforts to cut spending it opposes. And some reports continued to surface of difficulty accessing funds that had been coalition, which represents some 20 Native nations with large land bases, demanded that the administration declare 'that any Federal funding going to Tribal governments or entities serving Tribal citizens is a legitimate Federal expense and need not be the subject of any further justification or paperwork by any Federal agency.' The coalition further cited what it said were repeated difficulties tribal entities had accessing federal funding – even before Monday's funding freeze. 'Since January 23, 2025, tribal governments and tribal organizations that serve tribal citizens have encountered escalating problems with Federal accounts suddenly and without explanation 'zeroed out' and our access to Federal payment systems shut-off,' according to the coalition's resolution demanding the White House reverse course. 'These freezes were not limited in any way, and included everything – public safety funds, healthcare funds, waste management funds, child protective service funds, etc.," the statement said. "Most COLT Tribes are more than fifty percent funded by Federal dollars, meaning our tribal governments will have to shut down in days or weeks if the broad freeze persists, which would be devastating to our Tribal citizens.' Semens said that his group had been in contact with White House officials and others before the order rescinding the funding pause was issued. 'We are very proactive reaching out to our congressional people, reaching out to the cabinet nominees,' Semens said. 'We are very, very proactive in ensuring that the individuals know what large land-based and treaty tribes are and need.' Democratic U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids of Kansas said before the order rescinding the funding pause that the freeze on federal funding was not what the nation needed – or wanted. 'This is not what the people voted for, whichever party they supported,' said Davids, Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin. 'America wants better prices at the supermarket and safe communities.' Semens said that, while the latest series of events might be a new experience for tribes, there is always a learning curve with a new administration. 'We don't care whether they're on the Republican side or the Democratic side, we have worked through administrations,' he said. 'And every time there is a change in administrations, it comes down to us educating them on their treaty obligations. And you've got to remember, they pull in thousands of people and put them in jobs. And most of these people don't even know Indians exist. So it's a continual educational process that we have to go through.' Other lawmakers hailed the apparent White House about-face. "This is an important victory for the American people whose voices were heard after massive pressure from every corner of this country—real people made a difference by speaking out," said Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington. "Still, the Trump administration – through a combination of sheer incompetence, cruel intentions, and a willful disregard of the law – caused real harm and chaos for millions over the span of the last 48 hours which is still ongoing." Our stories are worth telling. Our stories are worth sharing. Our stories are worth your support. Contribute today to help ICT carry out its critical mission. Sign up for ICT's free newsletter.

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