we have this concept of privilege that we understand through the lens of race, which again is also highly inadequate because the settler-colonial pro… - Dina Gilio-Whitaker

The imperialist roots of federal Indian law present daunting obstacles to justice for American Indians. If American Indians are to experience real environmental justice-which means not only ending the poisoning of their environments but also regaining access to and protection of their sacred sites and ancient territories-it means confronting a "state built on the pillars of capitalism, colonialism, and white supremacy." The confrontation must occur at all levels, from the individual to the institutional, and ultimately dismantle the legal, social, and policy frameworks that uphold an ongoing system of domination. Indigenizing environmental justice in these ways goes beyond a distributive model of justice.

How do you restore Indigenous authority to their ancestral places? By considering all kinds of possibilities and alternative land arrangements, including shared governance.

As its history with American Indians has shown, the US complies with laws it makes or agrees to only haphazardly at best, and often not at all. Indians have always had to fight to defend their lives, lands, and treaties. Resistance became a way of life a long time ago; only the tactics change. The federal government has never relinquished power over Native people without a fight, and the degree to which it has is directly attributable to work initiated by Native people themselves. In other words, more than any "granting" of rights by the United States, it is their bold assertions of self-determination, aided at times by powerful allies, that accounts for progress Native people have made in their relationships with the United States over the last century. Indigenous peoples have learned that no one is coming to save them, just as environmentalists have learned that their American legal system is a rigged game against the environment and their own communities. This is a pattern engrained by the forces of white settler colonialism and domination paradigms, but the growing sophistication in using education, law, and politics to advance tribal self-determination will continue to build a wall of defense against environmentally destructive corporate and government encroachments. There is no denying that the fossil fuel industry as we once knew it is dying. Even as its government puppets desperately grasp to hold on to power as the final drops of oil and gas are sucked from the Earth, the last chunks of coal are wrenched from the ground, and the nuclear industry continues to perpetuate the lie of its comparable cleanness, effective partnerships with allies in the environmental movement will provide the best defense for the collective well-being of the environment and future generations of all Americans, Native and non-Native alike. In the long run, environmental justice for American Indians is environmental justice for everyone... and for the Earth herself.