Given the habitual whitewashing of history and dismissal of tribal nationhood, Indigenous peoples are not adequately acknowledged in environmental ju… - Dina Gilio-Whitaker

The more we can distinguish our political existence from a race-based one, the better.

Europeans brought with them a worldview that was built on the domination of the natural world. We find ourselves, as a result, in the middle of a sixth mass extinction event. And so how do we shift that? This is where indigenous knowledge is so important. Native people understand the world in a whole different way. We understand ourselves as related and part of this web of life. We have to change our relationship to the natural world. And this is where Native people and Indigenous knowledge have so much power to effect that change. Part of indigenizing environmental justice is infusing environmental justice with this indigenous worldview, with traditional ecological knowledge so that we can create these changes.

Climate change’s growing urgency demands nothing less than our seat at the table — for the sake of our children and the seven generations to come.