Day 7: Environmental Justice & Public Lands
Choose one thing to read, watch, listen to, do, or engage with today. Try to mix it up each day between the categories!
READ
”We want to tell our own stories”: Public Lands and Indigenous Histories National Wildlife Federation interview with Len Necefer (member of Navajo Nation) who founded NativesOutdoors. by Jacob Byk National Wildlife Federation's Blog (2019)
How Returning Lands to Native Tribes Is Helping Protect Nature From California to Maine, land is being given back to Native American tribes who are committing to managing it for conservation. by Jim Robbins YaleEnvironment360 (2021)
Environmental Justice and Indian Country A lesson in why the environmental movement needs Indian perspectives which are steeped in wisdom about how human societies should relate to the nonhuman, living communities with whom we share this Mother Earth. by Dean B. Suagee (citizen of the Cherokee Nation) American Bar Association (2003)
The Serviceberry An Economy of Abundance As Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. by Robin Wall Kimmerer (Potawatomi) Emergence Magazine (2022)
Bringing Back Fire: How Burning Can Help Restore Eastern Lands For millennia, North American ecosystems benefited from fire, mostly set by Indigenous people. Now, a movement is growing, particularly in the eastern U.S., to reintroduce controlled burns to forests and grasslands and restore the role of fire in creating biodiverse landscapes. by Gabriel Popkin YaleEnvironment360 (2022)
WATCH
National Parks: A Violent Wilderness Our Changing Climate A young white outdoor enthusiast shares his awakening to the unjust history behind two US national parks. Our Changing Climate (2017) 6 minutes T CC
How the #LandBack Movement Might Help Save the Planet by guest educator Chey Bearfoot (Chiricahua Apache) explains the significance of land from an Indigenous perspective. Above the Noise (2022) 11 minutes T CC
The Inconvenient Truth of Smokey Bear Explores the importance of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), cultural burns and traditional land stewardship in combating climate change and why Indigenous knowledge was for too long overlooked. PBS Digital Studios’ A People's History of Native America series with Tai Leclaire (Kanien'kehá:ka Mohawk and Mi'kmaq) (2024) 10 minutes CC
3000-year-old solutions to modern problems Profoundly hopeful talk by Lyla June (Diné) outlining a series of timeless human success stories focusing on Native American food and land management techniques and strategies. TEDxKC (2022) 13 minutes T CC
LISTEN
American Indians Were Pushed Off Their Land to Create National Parks Interview with American Indian Studies professor Len Necefer (member of Navajo Nation) connecting manifest destiny, westward expansion, and Indian reservations to the current federal public land system - including national parks, national forests, the Bureau of Land Management, and the many other agencies that have landholdings. WNYCS Studios (2020) 12 minutes T
Forced relocation of Native Americans has made them more vulnerable to climate change, study finds These findings come as Indigenous activists across the world are making their voices heard at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland. WBUR (2021) 11 minutes T
BRING IT HOME
Order As Long As the Grass Grows by Dina Gilio-Whitaker (Colville Confederated Tribes) (2019) and/or explore Robin Wall Kimmerer’s reciprocity list in the “do” section of today’s challenge.
Harry and Lee Edmunds in back of canoe. First Paddle at MCNAA Plug Pond Pow Wow in Haverhill, MA, circa 2019
DO
Commit to practicing “reciprocity” with the natural environment. This list is based on Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer (Potawatomi)
What should be our response to the generosity of the more-than-human world?
Shouldn't we at least pay attention in a world that gives us maple syrup, spotted salamanders, and sandhill cranes?
Paying attention is an ongoing act of reciprocity, the gift that keeps on giving. Attention generates wonder, which generates more attention and more joy.
Paying attention to the more-than- human world doesn’t only lead to amazement; it also leads to an acknowledgment of pain.
Open and attentive, we see and feel equally the beauty and the wounds, the old growth and the clear-cut, the mountain and the mine.
Paying attention to suffering sharpens our ability to respond. To be responsible.
This, too, is a gift, for when we fall in love with the living world, we cannot be bystanders to its destruction.
Attention becomes intention, which coalesces itself to action.
EXPLORE & REFLECT
Choose one of your favorite National or State Parks and research:
21-Day Questions
How and when was it acquired?
What is the Indigenous perspective, since all land was Indigenous at some point.
If you live near one, go there - is the Indigenous history and perspective represented on plaques, materials, or in tours?
T Transcript Available
CC Closed Captions Available