PROCEEDINGS OF THE 2008 WESTERN SOCIAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION MEETING,
AMERICAN INDIAN STUDIES SECTION

"Climate Change, Environmental Decay, and Indigenous People: Indigenizing the Greening of the World."

Stephen M. Sachs

Professor Emeritus UPUI
ssachs@earthlink.net

 

The whole Earth, and, in its own way, each location on this planet is in the midst of a great change that is affecting everyone, though in many instances poor people, and especially Indigenous peoples are experiencing the negative aspects of the great change most directly. Global warming, and the immense climate change that it may bring -- depending upon what all of us do, as well as on natural forces upon which human beings have already had a significant impact -- is only part of the environmental changes that are occurring, which include the human consumption of many resources to the point of fully diminishing the practicality of their continued availability -- including the extinction of huge numbers of species of plants and animals -- and major economic, social and political transformations, as the whole web of relations on the Earth alters. Given the timing of unfolding events, and the fact that the old Mayan Calendar completes its cycle in 2012 (or there-about, depending on how one reads it), the Hopi prophesies may be correct, that we are completing the Fourth World, and about to commence entering the Fifth. Though as the Hopis say, the prophesy is not fixed. How it unfolds, what happens, in what way and to what degree, and when, depends upon the consciousness of each of us, and how we manifest that consciousness in action.¹

Global warming and related climate change are part of a complex of interrelated developments now impacting the entire planet, and particularly Indigenous peoples, but with differing effects, depending on location.² This is bringing huge changes in the interrelated system that comprises the world, and its myriad of interconnected subsystems, having not only physical aspects and effects, but also major economic, social and political consequences and aspects -- that impact and interact with the whole of human, and indeed all, life on the Earth. The major interacting elements. The first of these, and the major focus of this paper, is global warming and other environmental degradation bringing climate change.

With the three reports of the UN Intergovernmental Commission on Climate Change, last year, it became clear (though not in much of mainstream Unites States mainstream media), that there is rare, close to unanimous scientific consensus, that global warming, and the climate change it is a major contributor to, are real, and that human activity, especially in increasing the amount of green house gasses in the atmosphere, is the primary cause. Among the numerous effects of global warming is a melting of ice caps and glaciers that is raising sea level. If this continues at the current rate, it would approach a two foot rise by 2100.

An expert panel of the U.S. National Research Council announced in March, in agreement with a similar recent report from the Environmental Protection Agency, found (available at nationalacadamies.org) that rising sea levels and other effects of global warming threaten roads, airports, rail lines and other important infrastructure, and that mitigating action needs to be commenced. The EPA report also noted that natural features near coastlines, such as wetlands, and water supplies are in danger of becoming contaminated by salt water, as oceans rise, and that costal erosion will increase (as has progressively been occurring in Brittan). The Miami Dade Climate Change Taskforce found that a two-foot ocean rise, which the UN Intergovernmental Task Force predicted by 2100 (and which recent findings of increased glacier melting indicated is likely to be exceeded well before then) “would make life in South Florida very difficult for everyone.” The multiagency draft report of the National Geological Survey, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and the Department of transportation (on line at: climatesciences.gov/library/sap/sap/4-1/public-review-draft), focusing on the area from Montauk Point, Long Island, NY to Cape lookout, NC, considered three estimates of ocean rise by next century, 16” (a rate which has already been exceeded), two feet (which is considered optimistic) and three feet. The daft report projects that with a rise of close to two feet, 70% of the property in area ports, such as Wilmington, DE, would be impacted. and would put at risk of inundation almost 2,200 miles of major roads, and 900 miles of railroad, in Maryland, the District of Columbia, Virginia, and North Carolina. The report stated that a three-foot ocean rise would be catastrophic for wetlands and other costal features, but that a number of recent reports have projected higher increases in ocean level by the next century.

But warming and melting are accelerating, so that the rise in ocean level could be much greater, and occur far faster. Moreover, recent studies show that glacier melting is not steady, but may increase suddenly, including causing huge sections of ice to fall into the oceans very quickly. At this time two massive glaciers are unstable, in Greenland, and in Antarctica. If either of them falls into the sea, it would raise sea levels 20 feet, If green house gas levels in the atmosphere continue to rise, accelerating already increasing warming, no one knows if that might happen in a few years or take decades, or longer. If all the glaciers melt, the oceans would raise almost 200 feet, and with warming expanding the water, eventually somewhat more than that. It is clear that even if of all the rise were over a long period, so people had time to move, millions of people would have to migrate.

Rapid melting of glaciers in mountains near large populations, and to a lesser degree of mountain snow packs, poses additional serious problems. The first is flooding from increased run off. The second, is that the water that millions of people around the world depend on to flow continually in warmer months (or year round in warmer climates) from slowly melting ice and snow, would no longer be stored, and would not be available -- at least not in anything near current quantities -- for the rest of the year.

Warmer oceans, also produce less plankton, which absorbs carbon dioxide, so that its decline would contribute to further global warming (as does the release of CO₂ and methane when frozen tundra warms and melts). Moreover, being at the bottom of the ocean food chain, decreased plankton would reduce the numbers of fish and other species. The huge carbon dioxide increase in the atmosphere is making the oceans far more acid, 30% above the previous norm at this point. The acid is reacting with calcium, which is crucial for many ocean species of plants and animals. It is the reason that almost all of the world’s coral reefs have been killed in the last few years or are dying. That is an indicator of the negative impact on a great many ocean species, whose death and reduction will have further impacts on other species, including human beings. In the long term, some species may thrive in warmer, more acid waters, but that is already disrupting ecosystems, and sea food that much of the world relies on, and the species that do well in those conditions may, or may not, be helpful to people.

The warming is also causing more extreme weather (though that may change eventually as the temperature differences between the coldest and warmer areas -- which drives much of the Earths weather -- decline), some of which has been having devastating effects on people, such as Hurricane Katrina, more numerous and stronger tornadoes, and longer severe storm seasons. It is also changing climates, at the extreme increasing drought in some areas, and expanding the spread of deserts, particularly in parts of Africa -- while increasing rainfall in others (which in the long term may be a benefit, but in the short run causes flooding in places formerly safe from inundation). While some of the changes in climate may be beneficial, or neutral, in the long run, the disruption of ecosystems is chaotic for at least the medium term, including for agriculture. Moreover, while in many places warmer weather for longer periods will lengthen growing seasons, it also helps unwanted plants grow, and increases insect life -- particularly in places where insects previously suppressed by hard winter freezes, will be able to thrive year round. As some insects carry diseases, warming is already spreading maladies, such as malaria, to new locations. Last August, the first outbreak of a tropical disease occurred in Europe, with the village of Castigkione, near Ravenna on the northeast coast of Italy, suffering, from chikungunya -- a relative of dengue fever -- carried by tiger mosquitoes now able to migrate from the Indian Ocean. Increased carbon dioxide in the air also has an uneven impact on plants. Some undesirable species, such as poison ivy, grow much faster than other plants -- and are more toxic -- as CO₂ levels rise.

A great deal of climate change is already occurring, from global warming, and much damage cannot be prevented. The three reports of the UN, Intergovernmental Commission on Climate Change indicated that there is still a small window, of a few years, to begin greatly reducing emissions of greenhouse gasses over a umber of years, to avoid the worst effects of global warming. The reports warned that there were disastrous consequences for the world if immediate action were not begun and sustained. Those reports were written on the basis of a five year survey of scientific findings. Recent studies show, however, that many changes are taking place more rapidly than expected by those studies. For example, Arctic ice is melting much faster than previously predicted, and increasingly so. In 2007, 75% more ice melted in the Arctic, than melted in 2006. Developing nations expanding economies are also using oil and other fuels faster than anticipated, so that the actual production of carbon dioxide and other global warming causing gasses was near the highest, or worst, of the several possible projected levels considered by the commissions scientists.

Alarming effects, mentioned above, are already being seen in the oceans, as carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere exceed levels not seen for 250,000 years, and threaten to reach levels not found on earth for 250,000,000 million years. The warming of the oceans is also near a major tipping point. Cold temperatures and high pressures in ocean depths trap huge quantities of methane -- 14 times more global warming causing than carbon dioxide -- in methane crystals on ocean bottoms. When oceans warm sufficiently, the methane looses its crystal form, and becomes gas, which escapes into the atmosphere. Already, last year, there were reports of ships crews smelling methane while far out at sea, Moreover, the huge movement of weight on the earths surface as ice caps and glaciers melt, and the oceans rise, is causing movements in the earth (such as rising land beneath melting Antarctic glaciers). This in turn is causing increases in seismic activity, including earthquakes. In some areas, such as in Iceland, but not in others, as, for instance, in the Mediterranean Sea region, this has brought about additional volcanic activity.

Unprecedented Population Growth and Over Use of Resources

The second major problem set is the combination of continuing population growth and over use of resources, and misuses of resources causing pollution or disease (as for example with much of fish farming, which if done correctly would be most beneficial, but is creating immense damage. For instance, in Chile, disease is spreading from fish farmed salmon to wild salmon, greatly reducing their numbers, while a similar occurrence is happening in the U.S. Pacific Northwest, with sea lice spreading from farmed to wild salmon). The UN Environmental Program released its Forth Global Environmental Outlook, in October, 2007 finding that the human population is living far beyond its means, while inflicting damage upon the environment which could pass the point of no return, as climate change, the problem of feeding a population growing to an unprecedented size, and species extinction are putting human existence at risk. “The human population is now so large that the amount of resources needed to sustain it exceeds what is available at current consumption patterns.” Population, over the last two decades has expanded by 34% from 5 to 6.7 billion, while land available per person shrank from 19.5 acres in 1900 to 5 acres in 2005. In addition, much of the increase in population, especially in developing nations, is urban, so that cities and suburbs are expanding over farm land which is no longer available for agricultural production.

The combination of population growth with unsustainable consumption and climate change has brought about an increasingly stressed planet, on which natural disasters and environmental degradation more and more endanger people, plants and animal species. Last November, the UN Annual Human Development Report (hdr.undp.org/cg/en/) warned that the poorest nations progress toward a decent living will be reversed, unless richer nations quickly take adequate steps toward limiting global warming, and assist poorer nations in doing the same. On December 11, at the Bali world climate change talks, an agreement was signed establishing a fund to assist poor nations in adapting to climate change, but this is only a small beginning.

Meanwhile, according to the UN Pilot Analysis of Global Ecosystems in the last century (and increasingly worse now), half the world’s forests (which break down carbon dioxide into oxygen and water) were cut down -- with tropical deforestation possibly exceeding 130,000 square kilometers a year (about the area of Wisconsin), half the planet’s wet lands were lost, 70% of the world’s fisheries were depleted, and 80% of grass lands and 40% of the earth’s land surface suffered soil degradation, with 40% of agricultural lands badly degraded. 20% of drylands are in danger of becoming deserts, as desertification is increasing. 58% of coral reefs are endangered by human activity. In many parts of the world the capacity of the ecosystem to provide food and clean water is declining, while threats to biodiversity and human health are increasing. The deforestation has serious implications, as Increasing cutting of forests has reached the point where the carbon release accounts for 20% of the worlds carbon dioxide emissions.³

The Energy Crunch: Oil Production Peaking as Demand Rises

The Third Major factor in the current global shift is that world oil production has, or is about to peak, and will begin -- or perhaps already has begun -- to decline, as world energy, and particularly petroleum, use continues to increase. The largest part of the rising demand is because of rapid economic growth in China and some other devloping counties. This is bringing growing energy shortages and rising costs for fuel, petroleum products, including fertilizer, and, as is discussed below, everything else. Fuel fueled inflation is beginning to be a world problem, which will grow until a combination of conservation -- including a shift in lifestyle, localization of agricultural and manufacturing production, and increase of public transportation -- and switch to alternative energy takes place. High energy prices, from the growing planet wide petroleum shortage, are increasing pressures to undertake seriously ecologically damaging energy development. For example, British Petroleum (BP) -- an oil company noted for its real green policies, particularly emissions reductions -- has broken its long standing policy against extracting oil in tar sands, to initiate strip mining (tar sands are too thick to pump) of 50,000 square miles of forest in the Canadian province of Alberta. The oil shortage is also driving increased global use of extremely polluting -- especially of green house gasses -- coal. Despite some reduction of plans to build new coal fired power plants in the U.S. -- largely out of environmental concerns, and some U.S. generating plants switching from coal to natural gas (which may increase gas prices) -- U.S. coal mining is on the increase, mostly for rising exports as the world price of coal has been rising. U.S. coal prices, which fell from 2000 -- 2002, before rising for three years, and leveling off, jumped sharply last year, beyond their 2000 level, and continue to increase. The expanding production of biofuels is also a growing problem. Two studies published in Science, in February, find that almost all biofuels (e.g. methanol and palm oil) cause more greenhouse gas pollution than conventional fuels, when all emissions costs of production are taken into account. Moreover, the ecological damage from clearing land -- whether rain forest (as is happening in the Amazon region and in several places in the Pacific) or scrub lands, for biofuel production is extremely destructive of natural ecosystems, while switching farm production from food to biofuel is a serious element in the expanding world food crisis.

World Wide Inflation and Food Shortages

The interaction of the above factors is causing global inflation, which will continue to increase, especially for food, and is contributing to expanding world food shortages. The rise in food prices of up to 40% in the last year has brought the United Nations to warn, in February, that it no longer has enough money “to keep global malnutrition at bay this year,” and will need an additional half billion dollars just to meet existing assessed needs. “The shortfall is all the more worrying as it comes at a time when populations, many in urban areas, who had thought themselves secure in their food supply are now unable to afford basic foodstuffs. Afghanistan has recently added an extra 2.5 million people to the number it says are at risk of malnutrition. Josette Sheeran, the head of the UN’s World Food Program (WFP) stated, “This is the new face of hunger. There is food on shelves but people are priced out of the market. There is vulnerability in urban areas we have not seen before. There are food riots in countries where we have not seen them before.” “The impact has been felt around the world. Food riots have broken out in Morocco, Yemen, Mexico, Guinea, Mauritania, Senegal and Uzbekistan. Pakistan has reintroduced rationing for the first time in two decades. Russia has frozen the price of milk, bread, eggs and cooking oil for six months. Thailand is also planning a freeze on food staples. After protests around Indonesia, Jakarta has increased public food subsidies. India has banned the export of rice except the high-quality basmati variety.” At the end of February, world wheat stores had dropped to their lowest level in 35 years. In the United States, mirroring the world market, in March. wheat prices had doubled over the proceeding six months, with corn, barley, sunflower seeds, canola and soy beans also steadily rising in cost. The growing world food crisis is likely to lead to increasing violence, including international conflict.

The Social and Political Questions

Taking everything together, it is clear that unless rapid political action is taken, including increasing international cooperation, to meet the intersecting crises rapidly and appropriately, the peoples of the Earth are headed for calamitous changes, including possibly horrendous rises in conflict. The mounting pressures of the great change are not unidirectional, however. Some of them push for actions that worsen and quicken the catastrophe. Others, thrust toward more harmonious ways of living with each other, the Earth and all its beings. The resulting political and social impacts, include pressures for: environmentally damaging -- global warming increasing -- energy production; increased land seizures (particularly of Indigenous lands) and deforestation for energy production, and political, military moves to grasp energy, food and other goods and vast migrations of people, unrest, and violence, on the one side. On the other: development of green energy, public transportation, conservation and local food and other production - (and lower energy use) reducing pollution and global warming causing emissions -- limiting population, and increased collaboration and sharing of resources from local communities to around the world. Just what the results will be across the Earth, and in each place, depend upon what we human beings do. We face both danger and opportunity.

II. The Impact of Climate Change on Indigenous People

Climate change, from largely human induced global warming, and other environmental degradation from pollution and over use of resources, effects everyone on the earth, but in many instances is particularly impacting poor, and especially indigenous people. In the past, when faced with changing natural conditions, indigenous people could adapt. But that is much harder to do now. Using their traditional knowledge, indigenous people on Islands of Indonesia had foreknowledge of the tsunami that wreaked great havoc in the region, a couple of years ago, to escape inland before the great wave struck, and suffered no deaths or injuries. This is becoming more difficult to achieve, for two reasons. First, as climates and related conditions change, traditional knowledge is less applicable to the developing physical circumstances. Second, and more important, Indigenous people are more and more constrained in moving, as they are limited to: reservations, often shrinking traditional areas, or own land privately held that they may not be able to replace, if forced to move. Thus, as the combination of rising ocean, more intense storms, and the washing away of costal wetlands because of the dyking of the Mississippi River cause costal lands in Louisiana to be lost to the Gulf of Mexico, the tribes that live on that coast line have no where to retreat to. The United Houma Nation, the Chitimacha, the Pointe au Chien, the Biloxi-Chitimacha Confederation of Muscogee, the Jena Band of Choctaw and the Chanta, who were the backbone of the Louisiana seafood, crabbing, oystering, shrimping, hunting, alligator and fur processing industries, not only endured serious losses of homes, boats and other property from hurricanes Katrina and Rita, but suffered significant land loss, leaving them more threatened for the next major storm, which may completely obliterate their remaining land bases. Indigenous people living on costal Islands in the Brazilian state of Maranhao have been facing a similar problem, as rising oceans have inundated 15% of their land, over the last few years, forcing 150 of 200 families to flee the islands for higher ground. ⁴

The impact of severe weather on indigenous people was evident, in August,⁵ when the worst storm in memory crashed through Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, not only destroying houses, but felling thousands of fruit trees that are the livelihood of Mayan people. But that is only one effect on weather from global warming. Tribes, and other farming and herding people in Africa are losing irreplaceable arable and grazing land from the spread of deserts, while the warming weather is melting the glacier and snow pack on top of Mount Kilimanjaro, seriously reducing the water supply for an entire ecosystem. The same is a major threat elsewhere, including for indigenous people in several places in South America.

Drying weather, is presenting other problems as well. Across the United States west, fire seasons have become longer and more severe. Several tribes in Southern California received extensive damage from wild fire in the fall of 2003, including at San Pasqual, where the entire reservation burned, destroying 67 of 68 houses and killing at least two people,⁶ while the White Mountain Apache nation lost half of the timber, which is their largest source of income, in a fire, that burned 469,000 acres, in the summer of 2002, causing 70 sawmill and forestry workers to lose their jobs.⁷ In addition, the fire destroyed lands in which non-Indians pay a considerable amount to hunt. Reduced rainfall, combined with increasing overuse and pollution of existing water, threatens agriculture in much of the western, and parts of the mid-western, U.S. Last summer, for the first time in history, the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa were forced to cancel their entire wild rice crop, because of low water. As of October 24, a series of fires were burning across seven counties in Southern California, engulfing thousands houses, threatening several major towns, forcing the evacuation of more than half a million people. More than 26,000 acres of land were scorched on the Yuina, Rincon, La Jolla, San Pasqual, Pala, Capitan Grande, Mesa Grande, Santa Ysabel, Barona, Jamul and Inaja-Cosmit reservations, destroying over 100 homes and much infrastructure, while other lands, structures and people remained threatened.⁸

The fastest warming and greatest shift in climate is in the arctic regions, with significant impacts on Indigenous peoples. In Alaska,⁹ rising sea levels and melting sea ice, glaciers and tundra have greatly increased flooding, to the extent that a 2003 Government Accounting Office Report found that more than 86% of the 213 Alaska Native Villages had experienced recent flooding, The flooding is worsening, and many of these villages will have to move or be abandoned. At the same time, the subsistence living carried out by many Native Alaskans is becoming increasingly more difficult, and is threatened. Warming climate is destroying the habitat for some plants and animals, while providing opportunities for others to move north, often further impacting habitats, occasionally in ways that are helpful to Indigenous people, but mostly which make Native life more difficult. A number of major mammalian species are seriously declining and may become virtually extinct, including walrus, some species of seals and polar bears. Migration routes and ranges of some animals are being affected. In Northwest Alaska, for instance, westward movement of Western Arctic Caribou has been crowding out reindeer from their usual territory. As a result, by 2001, eight of the 15 Native reindeer herders on the Seward Peninsula had been driven out of business. In addition, travel, including in the process of hunting and gathering, is becoming more dangerous, as exemplified by declining sea ice making the violent impact of storms more imminent, while thinning costal ice is becoming more hazardous, or simply less available for hunting, fishing and travel. This not only increases risk, but also the time and cost of food accumulating activities, whether for consumption or sale.

As climates and habitats change, the loss of ways of living, and of long important species not only has direct survival and wellbeing effects, it also undermines important aspects of traditional cultures. For Hopi and other Pueblo Indians in the Southwest, farming, and the cycles of seasons and crops have been at the center of their ceremonies, spirituality and way of being since the most ancient times.¹⁰ When drought made their homes in such places as Chaco canyon and Mesa Verde unlivable, between 1100 and 1400, they moved to more favorable locations, including to a number of places where Pueblos are now located along the Rio Grande, where traditional life and culture could continue with some adaptation. Today such a migration would not be possible, so that loss of traditional livelihood would cause a major increase in the movement of pueblo people from their homes for jobs at more distant places, while a few might remain at home making a living in non-traditional ways -- assuming that climate change does not become so severe as to create a catastrophe well beyond this scenario.

A similar situation is developing in the Pacific North West, where salmon have been central to the livelihood and culture of a number of Indian peoples.¹¹ Several aspects of climate change have been exasperating a serious decline in salmon from a variety of causes, including damming of rivers, pollution, urban development and over fishing. First, reduced snow pack and earlier spring melting, contributing to higher winter and lower summer stream flows have changed the hydrologic cycle, negatively impacting salmon reproduction. At the same time, the rising ocean has increased shore erosion, damaging costal habitat, while the timing and extent of fresh water mixing with ocean water in estuaries and along the cost also is degrading salmon costal habitat, even as rising temperatures bring new predators of salmon to the area, and there is the possibility that with warmer temperatures, the salmon may move away, to more northern areas. In March, the reduction of the west coast salmon stocks became so severe, that the National Marine Fisheries Service proposed closing the entire salmon fishery from Oregon to Mexico to salmon fishing.¹²

The overuse of resources, often exacerbated by, and sometimes causing activity exacerbating, climate change, is also impacting Indigenous people. This has already been referred to, briefly, concerning using up (and polluting) of increasingly scarce usable water, which is a world wide problem, and of over fishing of salmon, contributing to their decline and endangerment -- a serious problem around the planet concerning many species, being worsened by global warming. The most serious problem is the increasing world wide demand for energy, and the consuming of declining petroleum reserves, with oil more difficult and expensive to find, extract and transport.

The expanding use of oil and other fossil fuels is the primary cause of global warming. The peaking of readily available oil (and to a lesser extent, natural gas) is having a secondary effect that is negatively impacting many peoples, but especially the indigenous. One aspect of this problem has been a huge movement, particularly in the Americas, to produce biofuel, most often ethanol from corn, as a substitute (usually as an additive) for gasoline.¹³ First, this has raised the price of food, and particularly corn, an economic hardship on low income people, often including Native people. In Mexico this has manifested in the unprecedented rise in the price of the tortilla, a staple for those less well off, including most tribal people (though it has brought more income to many Indigenous and other small farmers, who had difficulty selling their corn in the face of subsidized competition from the U.S., after the institution of NAFTA). Second, particularly in Columbia, the rush to grow biofuel crops has brought about huge land grabs by wealthy interests, forcing many people off their lands, most notably persons of African descent, but increasingly Indigenous people as well. Indigenous peoples in Latin America, and elsewhere, also are concerned that construction of large hydroelectric dams will force them off their lands.¹⁴ In addition, as the quest for more farmland to produce energy brings deforestation, so it increases climate change, as carbon dioxide absorbing trees are cut down, while the burning of ethanol and similar biofuels adds to the production of green house gasses. The one climate change mitigating result of the growing world energy crises, is that it is encouraging the development of non-greenhouse gas emitting, alternative energy, in which tribal people are involved.

Over all, Rodolfo Stavenhagen, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples, summed up the situation in reporting to the UN Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural), October 22, 2007, that global warming and increasing exploitation of natural resources continue to bring about the dispossessing of Indigenous peoples’ ancestral lands, to the point that some small isolated communities are at risk of physically disappearing, in spite of recent progress in recognizing the rights of Indigenous people. Stavenhagen said that "Extractive activities, large commercial plantations and non-sustainable consumption patterns have led to widespread pollution and environmental degradation." The end result, he said, was that indigenous peoples, whose lives were closely linked to their lands, were dramatically affected by such trends, which had in turn led to their forced displacements. The Special Rapporteur stated that the shrinking of Indigenous territory has been intensified by the dynamics of the globalized economy and its attendant increase in water and energy exploitation.¹⁵

III. Indigenous Peoples’ Response to Climate Change

One of the major responses to global warming and the increasing energy crunch by tribes in the United States has been developing wind, photovoltaic and other forms of energy that do not contribute to global warming. The Intertribal Council on Utility Policy, an organization composed of federally recognized Indian tribes in the northern Great Plains, has been among those organizations supporting the growth of wind powered electric generation that has been developing among a number of Great Plains Tribes over the last few years.¹⁶ The Council was recognized at the Faktor 4-Festival in Basel, Switzerland, June 15, 2007, with a Special Award for its work assisting the establishment of the first commercial wind power generation on any reservation, with the 750-kilowatt turbine on the Rosebud Reservation, in South Dakota. The Three Affiliated Tribes, of Montana, began operating their first wind turbine on the Fort Berthold Reservation in the spring of 2006. The Morongo Band of Mission Indians are constructing a wind generation station to meet their own and surrounding community power needs,¹⁷ The Navajo Nation has included wind power in its energy development program, though there is controversy over its plan to also build a new coal fired electric generation plant, even though it will be much less polluting of the air (but not in terms of carbon dioxide production) than older coal generating facilities. The Hopi Nation is going ahead with both wind and photovoltaic electric power generation. Honor the Earth, in coordination with Solar Energy International, the Western Shoshone Defense Project, American Spirit Productions and the Battle Mountain Band of Te-Moak Western Shoshone provided free training and installation of a solar photovoltaic system in Western Shoshone territory near Elko, Nevada in April, 2005.¹⁸ Laguna Pueblo designer Dave Melton and Sacred Power Corporation of Albuquerque, of which he is co-owner, had brought electricity to 30 isolated homes on the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico, using wind turbines and photovoltaic cells, as of June 2005.¹⁹ Indigenous peoples in other countries are also developing renewable energy. For example. the Wayuu people of the Guajira region of Colombia's northeast Atlantic coast established the Jepirachi Wind Power Project, with assistance from the World Bank, through its Prototype Carbon Fund (PCF), with the utility company Empresas Publicas de Medelline (EEPPM) and support from the Ministries of Mines and Energy, in 2004. The project is expected to reduce carbon emissions by 1,168,000 tons over a 21-year operational period and will be a major factor in tribal development.²⁰

Some tribes have been working to capture methane (a potent greenhouse gas, if allowed to escape into the air) from land fills, to use as fuel. A number of U.S. tribes are taking advantage of carbon credits, the planting of trees which absorb carbon dioxide, to offset the production of the greenhouse gas in power production and industry.²¹ The first to do so was the Confederated Tribes of the Coleville Reservation in Washington, 1990, who were paid by area power companies to reforest some of their land, Others include the Nez Perce Nation of Idaho, who reforested land cleared for farming in the Nineteenth Century, that was no longer used for agriculture, and the Lummi Tribe in Washington, who bought 1700 acres of logged land to replant with trees, selling the carbon credits to a power company. Trading for carbon credits, which is controversial because the company buying the credits does not reduce its carbon emissions, is also being participated in by Indigenous people in other countries. An innovative example is the June 2007 agreement by ConocoPhillips, whose new natural gas refinery agreed to pay the Aboriginal people of the Western Arnhem Land region of Australia A$1m ($US850,000) per year, for 17 years, to offset 100,000 tons of the refinery's own greenhouse emissions, with the Aboritnal People applying traditional fire management practices, that have been scientifically shown to reduce greenhouse emissions, compared to naturally occurring wildfires. Even without carbon credits, some Indigenous peoples have been reducing CO² in the atmosphere by reforesting, such as the indigenous peoples of San Andres de Sotavento, in the northern tropics of Colombia, partnering in a project with CVS (Environmental Corporation of the Sinu and San Jorge Rivers), CORPOICA (Colombian National Agricultural Research Organization), and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), to regenerate degraded tropical savanna by establishing silvopastoral systems and reforested areas over 2,600 hectares. This will yield increased income and profits for landowners and a healthier ecosystem. The BioCarbon Fund acts as the broker for carbon trading and certifies the CERs.²²

Other Indigenous peoples have been adapting to climate change, something they have had to do traditionally, as climates and local conditions have always shifted, but such a great change as is now occurring is beyond memory. In Bangladesh, villagers are creating floating vegetable gardens to protect their livelihoods from flooding. In Vietnam and on some Pacific islands, communities are helping to plant dense mangroves along the coast to diffuse tropical-storm waves. In Central and South America and the Caribbean, many people have shifted their agricultural activities and settlements to new locations, less susceptible to adverse climate conditions. This includes indigenous peoples in Guyana moving from their savannah homes to forest areas, during droughts, and planting their main staple, cassava, on moist floodplains which are normally too wet for other crops. During the 1995 drought, following traditional practice in such times, indigenous peoples in the Amazon region switched from their dependence on agriculture to reliance on fish. In the Arctic, Aboriginal people. have shifted to hunt alternative species when species such as geese and caribou have changed their migration times and routes. They have also adjusted to hunting marine species in open water, later in the year, under different sea and ice conditions. Other changes have included the freezing if foods where the traditional technique of sun-drying food have been impossible due to unseasonable wet weather, and waiting until there is sunny weather or drying the food indoors.²³

Numerous Native people have been applying new technology to meet the new conditions. For example, In El Salvador and Guatemala, deforestation has made it too time consuming for women to gather wood, the primary source of fuel. Therefore, the use of clean, renewable energy, such as solar ovens, has been promoted among groups of women in their own neighborhoods, where they can learn how to use the devices from one another. The clean energy, replacing wood, slightly reduces global warming, while ending exposure to toxic smoke. ²⁴

A number of Indigenous nations are undertaking research on how best to act in the face of climate change. For example, Ealat, the Reindeer Herders’ Vulnerability Network of Indigenous people in Norway, in collaboration with the Association of World Reindeer Herders, is undertaking a Study, Reindeer Pastoralism in a Changing Climate, to determine the ability of this ancient herding way of living to adapt to climate change, and to propose policy to government and the private sector that will increase the viability of Reindeer herding in the face of climate change.²⁵ The Arctic Council is a high-level forum for cooperation, coordination and interaction between Arctic states, indigenous communities and other Arctic residents, focusing on some of the key challenges facing the Arctic region, particularly the need for integrated resource management to meet climate change.²⁶ This includes a broad spectrum of research and policy proposal undertakings. Tribal colleges in the United States have also been engaged in research into how their nations can respond to climate change, in some cases in a partnership with the U.S. Geological Survey created organization, Native View, while including study of the changing environment in their curricula -- integrating traditional and western scientific knowledge -- and doing what they can, with limited budgets, to make their campuses green, from recycling, to improving energy efficiency and reducing pollution.²⁷ Meanwhile, Northwest Indian College now offers a Bachelor of Science in Native Environmental Science.²⁸ Educational efforts among Indigenous peoples, also, are taking place elsewhere, such as educational undertakings by tribal peoples in Russia to adjust to climate change, in addition to developing a Native climate and environmental surveillance network to track changes in the arctic regions.²⁹

Collectively, Indigenous people are beginning to take action on climate change and other environmental issues. The United League of Indigenous Nations was formed at the July 31 - August 2, 2007 Indigenous Treaty Gathering at Lummi Nation in Washington state, to deal with the environment and other issues. Lummi Nation Chief Jaret Cardinal, proposing approving the treaty, commented, “The time is right for the indigenous tribes to stand together to help combat the problems of global warming. The significance of this treaty is that we are being given the opportunity to do something. [...] Time is something we have little of if we are going to address the environment. If we are to truly have a strong voice, then we need to have global economies where international trade is required.'' At the beginning of April, of this year, Indigenous people from 11 Latin American countries, and Native observers from Indonesia and Congo, net in Manaus, Brazil, to form the International Alliance of Forest Peoples, working to give Indigenous nations a voice in international climate change discussions. A major concern is to stop deforestation. To that end, the alliance supports proposals for carbon credits to be paid by developing countries to insure that remaining forests are not cut down. When the forests to be protected are th lands of Native peoples, the alliance wants the payments to go to the Indigenous nations, and not the governments of the countries in which they are located.³⁰

At the UN, Indigenous peoples have been participating in the processes set up under the Climate Change Convention. Having found it difficult to be heard in these proceedings, Native peoples have been developing an Intersessional Ad hoc Working Group on Indigenous Peoples and Climate Change to improve their participation. The UN NGO/DPI Conference, “Climate Change: How it Impacts us all,” last September, included two Indigenous sessions. The meeting of the UN Permanent Forum On Indigenous Issues, this May, has a focus on Indigenous people and climate change.³¹

A number of other Indigenous nations in the U.S. and elsewhere are taking similar steps to lesson climate change. Some Native Nations, continuing traditional ways of hunting. Gathering and agriculture, remain carbon neutral, and continue to be good stewards of the land. However, as the vast proportion of actions causing global warming and other environmental degradation is being caused by non-indigenous governments, their policies and private corporations, there is only a very small amount that Native peoples, governments and organizations can do directly to slow and limit climate change and other environmental damage. Perhaps the most important contribution that native people can make is by sharing Indigenous ways of thinking, so that well meaning actions do not end up making the situation worse, or creating new difficulties.

Traditional Indigenous Thinking and Climate Change

All traditional Indigenous people consider themselves to be part of nature, with a responsibility to keep it in balance, both for their own good, and for that of all other beings. From experience they understand the necessity of taking into account the short and long term effects of actions, being aware of the full set of relationships that are involved in all human activity. If the world’s leading public and private policy makers of the last two centuries had been Indigenous thinkers, climate change would not be a major world crises, today.

The key learnings from Indigenous thinking for the world in dealing with climate change are that everything is connected, but each location is unique.³² Actions and events have developing consequences over time, so that in making decisions, it is necessary to take into account the full range of relationships that are involved, considering how they will be affected over an unfolding, and lengthy, period of time. Western science has long focused on taking things apart, and reducing consideration of phenomena to focus on a limited number of factors, in order to isolate essential forces or rules. This approach has great power, but its reductionism tends to miss the interconnections that contemporary ecology, the cutting edge of physics, and developing chaos or complexity theory are beginning to demonstrate to the West, are the true nature of the world. It is an exceedingly complex, interactive system. Climate change and other ecological issues are essentially issues of how we use resources (broadly defined to include energy and matter, that which is animate and inanimate), including the chains of direct and indirect effects of finding, acquiring, transporting, processing, and applying those resources and disposing of (or allowing to disperse) the byproducts of that use. This requires analyzing holistically, in terms of complex systems with interacting subsystems, so that decisions are made in the course of examining the full range of relationships and interactions involved, over time. It involves understanding that every action has a wide range of effects that need to be taken into account. This means not only examining all of the physical aspects of an ecological problem over time, but the full range of human concerns as well: social, cultural, economic, political,.., in order to develop an appropriate balanced set of actions across time.

Another tendency of traditional western science and thought has been to develop general conclusions, and to apply them universally, often without thinking through how they properly apply in different circumstances. This has caused untold problems.³³ For example business or technical consultants often take a program that worked well in one place, or a set of similar sites, and “can it”, simply presenting the program in other locales without first assessing the conditions and needs of that location. When those conditions and needs are different from what the presenter assumed, the program does not work. This is an especially serious problem in making cross-cultural transfers. For example, several years ago agricultural scientists developed a new variety of cotton that was more hardy and produced more cotton per plant than traditional varieties. They took it to villagers in one location in India, without asking what the local people used the cotton plants for. Most of the villagers decided to try the new cotton. But when the scientists returned five years later, they found only a small amount of the cotton being grown was the new variety. The reason was that the villagers used the plant both to produce cotton, and for fuel by burning the stalks. The stalks of the new cotton plants did not burn nearly as well as those of the old plants.

Traditional Native knowledge -- which is good science by long careful observation - often understands what western science overlooks in dealing with particular places, and should be integrated with western science in deciding on specific actions (though this will become harder to do, as climate change makes the specifics of traditional knowledge, less relevant). In dealing with environmental issues, it is important to realize that what works in one place may not work, and may have negative results, in another. General principals -- when correct -- may generally apply everywhere, but to apply properly, they have to be adapted to the differing conditions of each particular place, including taking into account (so far as possible) how those conditions will change over time. Moreover, both locally and globally, it is impossible to anticipate all of the primary and secondary impacts of even the best conceived environmentally related action. Therefore, it is essential, continually, to monitor on going conditions and make well thought out policy and pragmatic changes and adjustments, as situations shift, and new information and understandings become available. This includes traditional Native detailed observation of changes in each place, to understand what is developing -- which Indigenous people have always undertaken, to adapt to changing conditions.

In addition, it is important to be very cautious in taking new kinds of actions, and in putting new products and technologies into practice -- even in laboratories - which might cause unknown, or unconsidered, negative consequences that may be difficult or impossible to reverse. Genetic engineering is but one example of a field in which even the research can have untold irreversible disastrous consequences, if great care is not taken to insure that experimentation is truly isolated from the rest of the world. And since it is impossible to be absolutely sure that a facility will be fully isolated, some development should not be undertaken at all, and other experimentation only carried out under the most rigorous security, after intensive research to show that the dangers and risks actually are acceptable, and that research or production is only carried out under clearly adequate protocols with multiple failsafes. If the world’s decision makers can take an Indigenous perspective on what needs to be done, there is still a good possibility that the worst potential effects of global warming and environmental destruction can be avoided, and much of the already occurring damage can be reversed or ameliorated.

Global Warming and What Can Be done About It: Applying Indigenous Thinking

Applying this Indigenous perspective, global warming needs to be understood as part of a complex interactive ecological system in which human action, particularly resource use, have a large impact. There is now almost complete scientific agreement that global warming, bringing horrendous climate change, that is already having serious impacts on human life around the planet, is primarily caused by human activity, resulting in carbon dioxide, methane and other green house gasses entering the atmosphere, that then trap heat. Scientific understanding of the various factors in global warming is developing. http://timeforchange.org/cause-and-effect-for-global-warming reports that the main greenhouse causing gasses are carbon dioxide (72%), methane -- which is 14 times more global warming producing than carbon dioxide -- (18%), and Nitrous oxide (9%), leaving 1% from other causes. The Sierra Club confirms that water vapor is also a greenhouse gas. Changes in production or release of these gases will change the percentages of global warming that each cause, and each of these materials has a different tendency to cause global warming, and other effects -- both harmful and beneficial. Thus, it is important to calculate the full range of effects from any action that effects their production. Switching from internal combustion engines to fuel cells, for instance, will reduce carbon, and in some cases, perhaps methane and nitrous oxide emissions, but it will increase production of water vapor. Some water vapor is currently put into the air from the exhaust of internal combustion engines. The question is, what is the net effect of making such a change? http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/11/1110_051110_warming.html states that recent studies show that global warming is causing an increase in evaporation of water (as water vapor), which absorbs and than reemits infrared radiation, thus further increasing heating. Without the water vapor in the air to trap it, the infrared radiation (heat) would radiate into space, having a cooling effect. Melting of ice in the Arctic -- and elsewhere -- is partly caused by increased particulate matter -- mostly pollution from burning -- which darkens the surfaces of ice and snow, raising the amount of heat absorbed by the ice and snow. (While increase of particulate matter in the air blocks some heat from solar radiation from reaching the earth’s surface, and causes cooling).

The relevant direct human action causing climate change is first the burning of fuels (and other burning) that result in the release of green house gasses, but such gasses are also directly put into the atmosphere by other human acts; and secondarily as a result of the warming that has been occurring because of people increasing green house gas levels in the atmosphere (such as the melting of permafrost in the Arctic releasing huge amounts of carbon dioxide, and methane, and the heating of the oceans which reduces their capacity to absorb green house and other gasses -- directly, and from the reduction, which occurs with raising sea water temperatures, of ocean plant life that transforms huge amount of carbon dioxide into oxygen and carbon). ³⁴

Global warming is also increased by human action, such as deforestation, that kills trees and other green plants that convert carbon dioxide into oxygen and carbon (used by the plants). Thus global warming can be reduced in several ways: 1) by reduction in the burning of green house gas producing fuels, by increasing fuel use efficiency, reducing fuel burning, and switching to non-green house gas producing sources of energy, including wind power, photovoltaic cells and other direct solar power, wave action, hydro electric power, ocean temperature differential power, atomic energy (which may be too dangerous to use because of possible meltdowns, and the problem of dealing with highly radioactive waste that remains dangerous for as long as 100,000 years), geothermal energy, using hydrogen and possibly other non-green house gas producing fuels, using as fuels green house gases that would enter the atmosphere without producing energy for human endeavor, if not captured and burned (e.g. capturing and burning methane escaping from landfills), and capturing carbon produced by green house gas producing fuel use; 2) by increasing the number of trees (ending deforestation, and reforesting) and other carbon dioxide transforming plants. 3) increasing the amount of particulate matter in the atmosphere, which blocks incoming sun light, and has a cooling effect. This, however, almost always has major detrimental side effects for human beings, including causing major health problems (to consider only the simplest of the many aspects of putting dust into the air).

As this last method of reducing global warming suggests, there is much more to the ecological problem facing human beings than simply reducing global warming. Human activity causes a great many other impacts on the environment, some of which tend to change the ecological system of the planet, and/or its local and regional subsystems, often negatively from a human perspective, and which in many cases have direct negative effects for human beings, including the production of a wide range of pollutants from simple dust, to toxic chemicals, radiation, and biological hazards. So while global warming is often considered the most obvious current environmental threat for humanity (though some would say that radiation from bombs, accidents and nuclear waste is a greater danger, or that human caused or spread disease is a greater threat), global warming cannot properly be looked at in isolation. It has to be considered as part of a larger set of relationships among human beings (physical, social, economic, political. Etc,), and considering human beings as part of the Earth’s environmental system and subsystems. Indeed, in that context, global warming is only one of the negative side effects of human activity that needs to be considered. For example, destruction of the ozone layer (leading to toxic levels, for many -- and at some point virtually all -- forms of life) of ultra violate radiation penetrating the atmosphere, as the result of the use of certain chemicals that escape upward and destroy the ozone layer of the upper atmosphere, is again increasing because of the growing use in some developing counties of refrigerants and propellants, whose use has been greatly reduced in the rest of the world.

One aspect of the global warming problem in particular, and of environmental protection generally, is resource use: the finding, processing, transporting, using of resources, and disposing of residual material in that whole process, including all the results (positive, negative and neutral), direct and indirect, of that activity. In the case of energy, the most used source world wide, oil, is approaching the point where demand overwhelms supply, largely because of the huge and growing increases in oil consumption by China and other developing nations. Compounded with interruptions and uncertainties about some major oil production, because of war and political instability, this has spurred the development of biofuel, particularly ethanol, most notably in Brazil and the U.S. While increasing ethanol production has economic, political and security advantages, ethanol production currently increases global warming, and other polluting, because its production requires significantly more energy than does gasoline and other oil product production. (That may change as more effort, money and energy is required to mine oil, whether in pumping steam into no longer free flowing oil wells, or in mining oil from shale and tar sands). Also, despite what some advertising claims, burning ethanol simply produces a different combination of pollutants than does burning gasoline. While it might make sense to have some increase in ethanol use as a bridge to develop non greenhouse gas producing energy, and to include economic and human concerns properly in the process of energy transformation, to overcome global warming and reduce dangerous pollution more generally, it is far better to emphasize non-greenhouse gas producing sources of energy (taking into account the pollution, including greenhouse gas production, and cost of such development -- e.g. manufacture of photo voltaic cells is not entirely clean). The politics and public relations of powerful established economic interests, in many cases, resists changes that are beneficial to whole societies and the population of the planet. And that resistance must be overcome, and where possible transformed (as has been happening, as even some oil companies have been moving to “greener” business practices).

One of the ways of reducing green house gas emission, and major pollution, as well as scarce resource use, is to reduce automobile use, which is one of the major and fastest growing sources of pollution, including greenhouse gases. Increasing public transportation, including high speed trains between cities, will help this, and incentives and encouragement to use such transportation will further help (reduced fares, etc.). A problem in the U.S. is that automotive and truck use is governmentally subsidized, while railroads are not. Increasing automobile efficiency, introducing electric and highbred vehicles -- which can be supported by subsidies and other incentives, while penalizing (e.g. taxes) greenhouse gas producing emissions, especially by highly inefficient engines. Encouraging, rewarding use of bicycles and walking can also reduce vehicle use. Careful urban, land use and traffic planning by governments, business and NGOs can also be a major method for reducing vehicle use, and resulting pollution. Also a shift toward doing as much local food and manufacturing production as possible, and away from transporting goods very great distances will be beneficial, and indeed, as fuel prices continue to rise, is likely to become economically necessary,

Production of power for electricity, manufacturing, etc., can also be switched from higher to lower polluting -- particularly of greenhouse gases -- while machines, devices, equipment, appliances, etc. can be made more energy efficient, and such use encouraged/subsidized/advertised. Similarly, using environmentally safer chemicals, as alternatives to those that are highly polluting (a movement already in progress), needs encouragement, and incentives, where it is not the most economical alternative, Providing public information about the problem and what people can do about it, with specific information about helpful products and actions, can be a major help in all aspects of dealing with environmental-human protection.

A major aspect of reducing greenhouse gas emission and other pollution and environmental degradation is the development of new and improvement of old technology, methods, energy sources, etc. A great deal of investment needs to be made in this area (and some of that is now happening) with the support of public and private funding.

Almost all of the aspects of the problem can be better met with increased intra and inter organization, and interpersonal, collaboration and efficiency. Government and private organizations and persons can play an important facilitating and communicating roll here (such as planning locations of facilities for shorter travel/shipping, coordination of research, sharing of information, timing of work shifts to avoid traffic jams, etc).

A critical aspect of protecting human life, economy, health, etc. by protecting the environment is in a variety of public policies at every level of government, from direct regulation (which should be smart regulation - as set out in Reinventing Government),³⁵ subsidies, encouragements, penalties, planning, voluntary planning -- encouraging collaboration/coordination, smart seeding of research and production of better products (e.g. the government ordering large numbers of a better product to bring the price down to make it competitive), spreading information, encouraging environmentally friendly activity, etc. To achieve this requires political action, including public expression (hence the need of public and private public education), by individuals, groups, corporations, and government entities.

Green business policies and actions are also an extremely important aspect of meeting environmental threats, including global warming. Government policy can encourage this, as must public caring about the issues and demand for green business activity. Education of business leaders and personnel is also critical. Understanding that moving in a greener direction can create jobs (some very well respected analysis shows clearly that moving to protect the environment will produce far more jobs and business opportunities than it destroys, though some vested interests do, and will continue to, resist that proposition). Already quite a number of firms, and in some areas chambers of commerce, see that their future is dependent on protecting the environment, while others now want to seem that they are acting in a green way (investigative reporting and environmental group research needs to expose false green claims, encouraging real green action). Professional organizations can play an important part by developing, publicizing, encouraging, and at times enforcing a green ethic.

Public education is critical, in schools, by government and community leaders, and by nongovernmental organizations, to insure that there is public demand for environmentally friendly public and corporate policy. It will help if people at large are informed and encouraged to take ecologically positive actions, from recycling and careful use of toxic materials, to efficiency in using energy and other resources. Small individual acts do help, when widely carried out. But the doing of them is important in developing a general green consciousness, a prerequisite for the development of necessary public policy.

These are a few of the many interrelated aspects, briefly presented, of meeting the massive environmental threat we human beings are bringing down on ourselves. In proceeding to take protective action, it is important to join Indigenous people in seeing that all the aspects of the problems involved are interrelated, and to analyze them and act upon them holistically, and so far as possible (with out co-opting oneself) work collaboratively to reclaim the circle of the world, to the extent realizable, minimizing the damage, so, as Native people say, life will be good for the seventh generation to come.

2. A compendium summarizing major climate change and related environmental events, often with references, is to be found in the beginning of the World Developments Section of the issues of Nonviolent Change, at: www.nonviolentchangejournal.org. Unless otherwise noted, the information presented in the rest of part I of this paper is from the Winter and Spring 2008 issues of NCJ.

3. See also World Resources 2000-2001: People and Ecosystems: The Fraying Web of Life: http://pubs.wri.org/pubs_description.cfm?PublD=3027; Millennium Ecosystem Assessment: http://www.millenniumecosystemassessment; and United Nation Environmental Program: http://www.unep.org.

4. William G. Archambeault, "Louisiana Indians: Survivors in a Post Katrina and Rita Environment," IPJ, Vol. XVII, No. 3, Fall 2006, pp. 41-44. The information on Indigenous people having to flee flooding islands in Brazil is from Alexi Barrioneuvo, “Indigenous Latin Talks Add Voice to Climate Talk,” The New York Times, April 6, 2008, p. 6.

5. “World Developments: International Developments,” Indigenous Policy, Vol. XVIII, No. 3, Fall 2007, At: www.indigenouspolicy.org.

6. See the “Tribal Developments Section,” of IPJ, Vol. XIV, No. 2, fall 2003.

7. See the “Tribal Developments Section,” of IPJ, Vol. XIII, No. 2, fall 2002. Similarly, The Blackfeet Indian Tribe of Montana in the spring of 2007, was hoping to make $3 million to $4 million from salvage logging on 6,000 acres of land burned by recent forest fires, but its annual income from logging operations will fall from $90,000 a year to about $60,000 because of the lost timber. (See “Economic Developments”, in the last issue of IPJ). Another wild fire hit the reservation this summer.

8 Shadi Rahimi, “Raging wildfires burning up southern California reservations,” Indian Country Today, October 25, 2007, at: http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096415977; and Kirk Johnson and Jennifer Steinhauer. “Firefighters Get Control In Area As Questions Rise,” The New York Times, October 25, 2007, pp. 1 and 20.

9. Jonathan M. Hanna, Native Communities and Climate Change: Protecting Tribal Resources as Part of National Climate Policy (Boulder, Natural Resources Law Center, University of Colorado, 2007, Report pending final review), Ch. 2. Similar problems are occurring for Indigenous people in the Canadian Arctic. See, Tenulle Bonoguore, “Inuit feel the effects of global warming,” Globe and Mail Update and Canadian Press, October 11, 2006.

10. Jake Page, In the Hands of the Great Spirit: the 20,000 Year History of American Indians (New York: Free Press, 2003), pp. 78 -- 89; and Frank Waters, Masked Gods: Navajo and Pueblo Ceremonialism (New York: Ballantine Books, 1950), Part I, Ch. 1.

11. Hanna, Native Communities and Climate Change, Ch. 2.

12. Felicity Barringer, “Collapse of Salmon Stocks Endangers Pacific Fishery,” The New York Times, March 13, 2008, www.nytimes.com/2008/03/13/us/13 salmon .html

13. World Developments,” in Indigenous Policy, Vol. XVIII, No. 1, Spring 2007 and Indigenous Policy, Vol. XVIII, No. 3, Fall 2007.

14. Victoria Tauli-Corpuz and Aqqaluk Lynge, “Impact of Climate Change Mitigation Measures on Indigenous Peoples and Their Territories and Lands,” (New York: United Nations Economic and Social Council, March 19, 2008), pp. 13-14.

15. The full article is at: http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2007/gashc3891.doc.htm.

16. Sarah Moses, “Seeking solutions for global warming,” Indian Country Today, http://www.indiancountry.com/index, Posted: December 8, 2006.

17. "Indian and Indigenous Developments: U.S. Developments: Economic Development", IPJ, Vol. XIV, No. 2. Fall 2003, developed from a statement by Morongo Band of Mission Indians of California Tribal Chairman Maurice Lyons reported in the E-mail Digest of Indigenous News (from Andre Cramblit: andrekar@ncidc.org).

18. As reported in “Economic Developments,” Indigenous Policy, Vol. XVI, No. I, spring 2005.

19. Ibid.

20. Taupauli-Corpuz and Lynge, “Impact of Climate change Mitigation Measures on Indigenous Peoples,” pp. 18-19.

21. Jim Robbins, “Sale of Carbon Credits Helping Land-Rich, But cash Poor, Tribes,” The New York Times, May 8, 2007, p. D3.

22. The information about the Aboriginal people of the Western Arnhem Land region of Australia is from, Secretariat of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, “Climate Change an Overview” (New York, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Division for Social Policy and Development, United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, November, 2007), reprinted in Indigenous Policy, Vol. XIX, No. 1, Spring 2008, pp. 17. The information on the indigenous peoples of San Andres de Sotavento is from, Tauli-Corpuz and Lynge, “Impact of Climate Change Mitigation on Indigenous Peoples,” p19.

23. Ibid., p.10-11.

24. Ibid., p.11.

25. For more information on Ealat and the reindeer vulnerability research, contact Ealat Outreach, c/o the International Center fro Reindeer Husbandry, Boaranjarga 1, 9520 Guovdageaidnu/Kautokeino, Norway, ealat@ealat.org, phone: Anders Oskal: +47 99 45 00 10. Swein Mathiesen: +47 90 52 41 16m www.ealat,org.

26. Visit: http://www.arctic-council.org/.

27. David Melmer, “Tribal colleges can play a role in fighting climate change,” Indian Country Today, posted: October 17, 2007, at: http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096415913; and . David Melmer, “ U.S. Geological Survey, tribal colleges partner for climate change research,” Indian Country Today, Posted: September 17, 2007, at: http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096415746.

28. “World Developments: U.S. Developments: Education and Cultural Developments,” Indigenous Policy, Vol. XVIII, No. 3, Fall 2007, At: www.indigenouspolicy.org.

29. Secretariat of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, “Climate Change an Overview,” p. 12.

30. On the United League of Indigenous Nations, see “Ongoing Activities: U.S. Activities,” Indigenous Policy, Vol. XVIII, No. 3, Fall 2007, At: www.indigenouspolicy.org. On the International Alliance of Forest Peoples, see Barrioneuvo, “Indigenous Latin Talks Add Voice to Climate Talk.”

31. On participation in the UNFCCC Processes: Secretariat of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, “Climate Change an Overview,” pp. 13-15. On the UN NGO/DPI meeting, see, “American Indian and International Indigenous Developments,” Indigenous Policy, Vol. XVIII, No. 3, Fall 2007, at www.indigenouspolicy.org. The UNPFII meeting details are available at: http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/en/session_seventh.html.

32. For a discussion of the relevance of traditional Native thought to western science, and growing convergence of the two, see, Stephen M. Sachs, “The Cutting Edge of Physics: Western Science Is Finally Catching Up with American Indian Tradition,” IPJ, Vol. XVIII, No. 2.

33. Stephen M. Sachs and Deborah Escobel Hunt, "Appropriate Consulting with Indian Nations: Facilitating Returning to the Wisdom of the People," Proceedings of the 2000 American Political Science Association Meeting (Washington, DC: American Political Science Association, 2000).

34. For a short overview of appropriate ways to deal with global warming and other environmental degradations see Stephen M. Sachs, “Global Warming and What Can Be Done About It,” in Nonviolent Change, Spring 2007. NCJ regularly reports on major climate change and other environmental developments. A good ongoing source for environmental information is the World Watch Institute: http://www.worldwatch.org/.

35. See David Osborne and Ted Gabler, Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit Is Transforming the Public Sector, From Schoolhouse to Statehouse, City Hall to the Pentagon (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., 1992)

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Indigenous Environmental Education: An exploration of traditional environmental education. Aboriginal Perspectives in Canadian Politics and Law: http://www.artsandscience.utoronto.ca/ofr/calendar/crs_abs.htm.

The Isiolo Declaration: Africa's Perspective on Environment and Development. The erosion of indigenous socio-economic systems, the adoption of values and ...:: http://www.unsystem.org / ngls / documents / publications.en / voices.africa / number5 / vfa5.04.htm.

Winona LaDuke, “Indigenous Environmental Perspectives: A North American Primer”:http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/american_indian_quarterly/v025/25.4teuton_c.pdf.

Environmental management expressions of distinct local indigenous legal systems: http://www.indiana.edu/~iascp/Drafts/robinson.pdf.

Beyond Bush Tucker: Implementing Indigenous Perspectives Through The Science Curriculum. Aboriginal Perspectives in Environmental Education:http://www.natsiew.nexus.edu.au/lens/perspectives/index.html

SRIC continues it work assisting the public on environmental issues: Indigenous Peoples and the State Indigenous Perspective on Colonialism: http://www.sric.org/voices/2001/v2n3/tgoldtooth.html.

The role of the environment in American Indian culture creates a holistic perspective that influences Indigenous institutions, such as criminal justice: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/american_indian_quarterly/v026/26.2robyn.html/.

It was also hoped that some of the participants would actually give voice to indigenous environmental perspectives rather than presume scientific ecology: http://environment.harvard.edu / religion / publications / books / book_series / cswr / indigint.html.

Indigenous people are very interested in harvesting wildlife: Perspectives on Indigenous Peoples Management of Environmental Resources: http://www.aibiol.org.au/journal/flying.html.

Indigenous Perspectives: Rethinking Governance and Stewardship ... Kalpavriksh and International Institute of Environment and Development, 2001: http://www.ihp.edu/syllabi/pdfs/cas_po_386.pdf.

Arctic environment: European perspectives ... Indigenous peoples have managed the Arctic's resources in a sustainable manner for thousands of years but...: http://www.globio.info/press/2004-03-15.cfm.

Indigenous Environmental Perspectives. Roots of Our Future Conference: A Learning Circle on Global Equity,. Kawartha World Issues Centre, Peterborough, ON: http://www.athabascau.ca/indigenous/cv/leanne_simpson.pdf.

The First National Workshop on Indigenous Environmental Health: http://enhealth.nphp.gov.au/council/pubs/pdf/monograph1.pdf.

Significant advances: The IFM will bring forth the Indigenous perspective on environmental monitoring so often lacking from purely scientific efforts: http://www.ipy.org/development/eoi/proposal-details.php?id=396.

Introduction: Cultural Perspectives on Time; Why is Indigenous Knowledge Important? Types and Uses of Indigenous Knowledge including on the environment: http://www.ens.gu.edu.au/ciree/LSE/MOD5.HTM.

This book provides a broad perspective on the intersection of indigenous peoples and the law, particularly within environmental law and international...” http://www.amazon.com / gp / redirect.html%3FASIN=089 / o / ASIN / 0890891478%253FSubscript...

Whether communities of color, tribes and indigenous peoples, and poor communities will continue to suffer disproportionately high exposures to environmental...: http://www.progressivereform.org/perspectives/environJustice.cfm.

Perspectives on Indigenous Education and teaching our young people. Practicing the Law of Circular Interaction: First Nations Environment and…” http://www.econet.sk.ca/eco-ed/indigenous_resources.html.

Relationship with the environment Indigenous. Perspectives: http://www.aries.mq.edu.au/pdf/IndigenousProject_Aug06.pdf,

Knowing Where We Are Going: New Perspectives on Community Outcomes · Empowering Indigenous Communities to Identify and Resolve Environmental Health Issues: http://www.health.gov.au / internet / wcms / publishing.nsf / Content / ohp-ieh-conf2004.htm~ohp...

What is the contemporary spectrum of indigenous-environmental perceptions? Indigenous Resistance: Divergent Perspectives on Mining in New Caledonia: http://www.uvm.edu/~shali/IEDC.doc.

National Environmental Perspectives: Indigenous Water Rights Briefing Paper: http://www.kairoscanada.org/e/ecology/water/ourWaterOurResponsibility.asp.

Tom Goldtooth, the executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network,

It is important to have an indigenous perspective within the SARD: http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/global/tg1.html.

Indigenous knowledge in environmental education processes: http://www.ingentaconnect.com / content / routledg / ceer / 2004 / 00000010 / 00000003 / art00005.

Various indigenous knowledge fields from a development perspective: http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-84401-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html.

Environment and the indigenous rights in a new perspective: http://www.law-lib.utoronto.ca/Diana/fulltext/kast.htm.

National Indigenous Environmental Health Conference, 22 - 24 May 2007: http://www.healthinfonet.ecu.edu.au / html / html_environment / environment_physical_2.htm.

Further affirming Principle 22 of the Rio Declaration, which states that: "indigenous people and their communities .... have a vital role in environmental: http://www.carc.org/pubs/v21no4/declare2.htm.

Implications of indigenous environmental learning in. Barbados: http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9493.1990.tb00017.x.

Concepts of indigenous environmental knowledge in scientific…: http://www.springerlink.com/index/M71546N4L3071K3P.pdf.

Indigenous Peoples and Environmental Issues An Encyclopedia ... for students investigating how cultural differences and perspectives affect the environment: http://www.greenwood.com/catalog/GR2398.aspx.

environmental perspective, they can have very serious negative impacts on social ... Indigenous Peoples, due to the fact that globalization constitutes a…: http://www.conservationcommons.org/media/document/docu-b7a54e.pdf

Perspectives on the Human Right to Decent Environment by the Representatives of Indigenous Peoples: http://www.arcticcentre.org/images/20040818133414.doc.

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