Common Sense -- Indigenous Wisdom

Hello, this is Natasha Joyce Weidner, back from an illuminating week at COP15. The highlight of my week was a lecture I attended at Klimaforum called "The Future of Climate Policy for Indigenous Peoples of North America," given by two Native American women from the Indigenous Environmental Network and the Black Mesa Water Coalition.

From a very young age, I've been enchanted by Native American culture. I idolize and almost envy the Miwok people who used to live in my home region, for their ability to live in harmony on a tiny strip of peninsula for more than 8,000 years. And I often ask myself: "What is the secret to such a sustainable society? What sort of ancient wisdom can our 'modern, Western' society learn from the Miwok and other indigenous people?"

The two Native American women at Klimaforum clarified for me: "Indigenous Wisdom" is simply common sense. Caring for the land you depend on is common sense. Living within the closed-loop cycles of nature, without wastes, is common sense. Working with a community, not every man for himself - that's common sense.

The first speaker was Wahleah Johns, a Navajo woman who lives on the Navajo-Hopi reservation in Black Mesa, Arizona. Since 1965 Peabody Western Coal Company has been operating two strip mines on Black Mesa, which together constitute one of the most extensive strip mining operations in the United States, and which provide power for the entire Southwest. Each year Peabody Coal Company pumps more than 4,500 acre-feet of pristine Navajo and Hopi drinking water from the Black Mesa aquifer, and also dumps chemicals and other byproducts from coal production into the air and groundwater on the reservation. Cancer rates in the region are well above average.

Wahleah and other Navajo and Hopi activists are fighting the coal company in court, but their fight is made difficult by the fact that the Environmental Protection Agency has no jurisdiction over tribal lands. Did you know that? Because I didn't, and I was shocked. Under US law, the coal company may pollute tribal lands, but the EPA does not have the power to protect or regulate tribal lands. You always hear about Native American oppression like it's history, but it's obviously happening today. The indigenous people of Black Mesa are unjustly bearing the devastating effects of coal mining, and few of the benefits - many residents on the reservation do not have power or running water in their homes.

Both Wahleah and the second speaker, a Hidatsa /Arikara / Mandan indian named Kandi Mossett, spoke about the painful reality of carbon offsets and market-based solutions. In Black Mesa, Wahleah said, the coal company has offered to appease the native people by shipping in desalinated ocean water to make up for the depleted aquifer. But of course, that is not a real solution, because shipping and desalinating water takes an enormous amount of energy, and the byproducts of desalinization are environmentally destructive. Not to mention the fact that the Hopi and Navajo people consider the Black Mesa aquifer a sacred entity. Furthermore, to offset its emissions, Peabody has invested millions of dollars to experiment with carbon sequestration on Black Mesa - yet it has refused to invest in renewable energy. This roundabout approach to reducing emissions simply doesn't make sense.

Kandi Mossett spoke about another roundabout approach - REDD, the program to Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing countries. The basic scheme of REDD is this: developed nations offset their emissions by paying developing nations not to deforest. Besides the fact that offsetting is a short-term solution, this sounds okay, right? I thought so, before I read into the details of the plan. First of all, REDD does not provide money to developing countries - it provides money to the logging companies within those developing countries. In many cases, the logging companies might not even be based in the developing countries in which they operate. Secondly, in order to "preserve" forests, logging companies kick indigenous people off of their lands - indigenous people who have been living sustainably in the forests for thousands of years. Logging companies also get money for planting monocultures in former forests, because these qualify as carbon sinks. Meanwhile, developed countries feel they can continue to emit disproportionally high amounts of greenhouse gases, because they are "offsetting" emissions. Indigenous communities across the globe are calling REDD a false solution.

REDD is part of the new, growing "carbon market" - basically, a system that applies economic value to carbon emissions, and allows such emissions to be bought, sold, and traded. Wahleah said that when her 80-year old Navajo grandmother learned that essentially the air is being bought and sold, she just couldn't understand it. The Navajo believe that nothing in nature can be owned, because every human being is intricately connected to everything in nature. Sounds like common sense to me.