October 11, 2021
Today is the national holiday now known for the first time in federal history as Indigenous Peoples Day. The movement to recognize and honor Indigenous peoples has always been important, but it's taken on an additional layer of meaning in the climate change era. In fights between mining companies and conservationists, Native tribes tend to side with conservationists. A recent study found that acts of Indigenous resistance, from legally challenging fossil fuel projects to physically preventing pipeline construction, halted roughly 1.6 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States and Canada over the past decade. Native land stewardship, including forest management practices, is essential for preserving fragile ecosystems. And a growing movement suggests that one of the best ways to fight climate change is to cede land, including national parks, to the people whose ancestors inhabited them before European colonization. Native peoples around the world are already beginning to see the fruits of some of their efforts to reclaim their ancestral lands. Earlier this month, Australia returned nearly 400,000 acres, including the world's oldest tropical rainforest, to Indigenous peoples. Last week, a coalition of tribal nations, including the Navajo Nation and the Ute Indian Tribe, celebrated President Biden's restoration of federal protections for Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments. The fight to protect Alaska's Bristol Bay from a gold mine is ongoing, but it looks increasingly likely that things will turn out in Indigenous fishers' favor. This isn't without its quirks and nuances. Even within the continental United States, tribes are vastly diverse and may conceptualize land differently. Some tribes claim overlapping ancestral homelands, and others were relocated hundreds of miles from their original homes in the 19th century and have remained there. The bottom line is that the fight against climate change is intrinsically intertwined with fights for Native sovereignty—something to think about, and act on, on a day like this. —Abigail Weinberg Advertisement 
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