Climate change, public health and indigenous peoples

As global climate destabilization intensifies, Indigenous communities are facing increased health threats, as a result of loss of food systems, loss of ecological habitat, and the crisis of climate changing. Our permafrost is melting, our oceans are acidifying, and traditional foods are endangered. Some thirty percent of the Navajo nation hauls water, one third of all tribal members of the US northern plains communities live in trailers, and fuel poverty already impacts most Indigenous peoples in northern reserves. At the same time, Native American reservations hold about one third of all western low sulfur coal reserves – which, in the present realm of climate change and mitigation, essentially need to be left in the ground. Our organization, Honor the Earth, advocates two prongs of action – and both involve challenging an extremely destructive economic paradigm that undermines Indigenous governance. The first is to mitigate the impacts of climate change by reducing fossil fuels. The second is to relocalize food systems. Our traditional foods are our medicines. Our ancient corn varieties have twice the protein and half the calories of market corn and are more drought and frost resistant. Tribes need to take jurisdiction over production, genetic integrity, processing purchasing and composting. This winter's emergence in Canada of a movement called Idle No More, has linked many Indigenous environmental and social justice struggles. Building on this promise for catalyzing for greater environmental justice transformation, we will discuss our strategies for re-indigenizing the economics of Native America.