Native Americans Protecting the Earth, Water and Sky

Native Americans Protecting
the Earth, Water and Sky

led by Alison Ehara Brown: RC Teacher
& Isabella Zizi: RC Teacher

April 2022

This webinar, presented by Isabella Zizi (Northern Cheyenne, Arikara and Muskogee Creek tribes) and Alison Ehara-Brown (Mohawk, Seneca and Mohican heritages) offers a broad overview of different ways that Native American tribes and individuals have been working to protect the Earth, Water, Sky and the entire sacred system of life forever, as well as the role tribal peoples have played in warning all of humanity about the climate crisis for decades. Indigenous people have many land bases, languages and cultures. We cannot speak for all, but can share values and protocols generally held in common for many tribal peoples in Northern America. Because Isabella and Alison both live in California and most of our work has been in the lands of Turtle Island (called the United States and Canada), we have chosen to primarily share stories of our own work, and those of people we know well and have worked with on both sides of the medicine line (border) through our Healing Walks, conferences and joint projects. We look at the targeting of Native peoples and lands as sacrifice zones and people, the violation of treaties, and the amazing and hopeful initiatives that Native people (and Native women in particular) and tribes have taken on because of our responsibility to care for and live in balance on this earth, and in response to the devastation that has come from the outside into our communities and the world, especially through the extraction industries.

Because of policies of genocide and their effect on all of us, many people are unaware of the leading role of Native/First Nations people in addressing the Climate Crisis. Many of you have not heard about the huge variety of courageous and creative ways we have worked as Protectors, and the role we have played in everything from the Rights of Mother Earth to Food Sovereignty, Creative Resistance to extraction of all kinds, and powerful solutions to the challenges facing all of humanity. We hope that this short webinar will be a starting place to remind all who are indigenous of our power and resilience and to give those working to be our allies a larger picture of the kinds of work we are engaged with. The additional resources provide many links to further learn about Native leadership in the climate movement, Native solutions, and Tribal creativity. We hope many other Indigenous RCers will step forward for future webinars with stories of how their tribes and communities are working to protect earth, water and sky across the world.