{"id":3490,"date":"2020-02-12T17:05:48","date_gmt":"2020-02-12T17:05:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/atnitribes.org\/climatechange\/?p=3490"},"modified":"2020-02-12T17:05:52","modified_gmt":"2020-02-12T17:05:52","slug":"tribes-have-climate-wisdom-to-share-but-good-reason-not-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atnitribes.org\/climatechange\/2020\/02\/12\/tribes-have-climate-wisdom-to-share-but-good-reason-not-to\/","title":{"rendered":"Tribes have Climate Wisdom to share, but good reason not to"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Original article published by Grist at this link<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To share or not to\u00a0share?<\/h1>\n

Tribes risk exploitation when sharing climate change solutions.<\/p>\n

By\u00a0Paola Rosa-Aquino<\/a><\/span>\u00a0on Nov 21, 2018<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Saint Regis Mohawk Reservation stretches for 25 square miles along the United States\u2019 border with Canada.\u00a0Akwesasne<\/em>, as the land in Upstate New York is also known, translates roughly to \u201cland where the partridge drums.\u201d Nestled at the confluence of the Saint Lawrence River and several small tributaries, including the St. Regis and Raquette rivers, this ecologically rich environment consists of more than 3,000 acres of wetlands along riverbanks, islands, and inlets.<\/p>\n

But the landscape can\u2019t escape the encroachment of nearby pollution.<\/p>\n

Tribal members live downstream from several major industrial facilities, hydro dams, and aluminum smelters. The Saint Lawrence has become an international shipping channel, and its sediments mix with heavy metals from old ship batteries and\u00a0toxic chemicals<\/a>\u00a0from nearby Superfund sites. These pollutants have leached into the Saint Regis Mohawk way of life, shifting the range of flora and fauna on which many of their traditional practices rely.<\/p>\n

The trash and toxic runoff are bad enough. They are killing off the tribe\u2019s local fish population and medicinal plants. But now the Saint Regis Mohawk face another challenge: negotiating with the Environmental Protection Agency about how best to tackle these contamination issues while incorporating \u2014 and respecting \u2014 the tribe\u2019s traditional knowledge.<\/p>\n

Native communities are one of the groups\u00a0most impacted<\/a>\u00a0by a changing climate \u2014 and many of the human activities that have precipitated it. They are also a necessary\u00a0part of the solution<\/a>, according to the newest\u00a0Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Indigenous peoples comprise only\u00a05 percent<\/a>\u00a0of the world\u2019s population, yet their lands encompass\u00a022 percent<\/a>\u00a0of its surface.\u00a0Eighty percent<\/a>\u00a0of the planet\u2019s biodiversity is on the lands where they live \u2014 and it may not be a coincidence. A significant part of traditional indigenous identity is linked to\u00a0the natural world<\/a>. \u201cThere is medium evidence and high agreement that indigenous knowledge is critical for adaptation,\u201d the 2018 IPCC report states. And that\u2019s due to their methods of managing forests and agro-ecological systems, as well as their traditions passed down through the generations.<\/p>\n

Indeed, some in these communities believe that disseminating these traditions can help to address challenges, like climate change, that the world faces. But while the wider environmental community \u2014 and the rest of us \u2014 may benefit from gaining access to their knowledge, indigenous communities have no guarantee that their cultural values, secrets, and traditions will be respected if they offer it. That potential pitfall is prompting some Native Americans to question whether there is a way to share this knowledge that benefits the environment, as well as a tribe.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s both a risk and an opportunity for indigenous peoples,\u201d said Preston Hardison, policy analyst at the Tulalip Tribes Natural Resources Treaty Rights Office in Washington state. According to Hardison, many elders feel that they\u2019d like to help the world heal, but they want their knowledge to be employed in the right way (without any sort of exploitation). For instance, sharing their knowledge about their land and how they use it could be employed to indigenous people\u2019s detriment by limiting their access to it.<\/p>\n

Even when the government taps indigenous groups for input, many of the resulting collaborations don\u2019t show respect for the tribal people or the accumulated knowledge they possess. Take, for instance, in\u00a02011<\/a>, when the Saint Regis Mohawk received an EPA grant to create a climate adaptation plan for its natural resources \u2014 their animals, their crops, their medicinal plants. Initially, the EPA called for a plethora of scientific vulnerability and risk assessments to parse what resources were important for the Akwesasne way of life. But tribal members felt the testing was an unnecessary step to get to the heart of the issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t need them to tell us what\u2019s important to us,\u201d said Amberdawn Lafrance, coordinator at the Saint Regis Mohawk Environment Division. \u201cWe already know.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Ron His Horse Is Thunder, a spokesperson for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, looks over a river during Dakota Access pipeline protests in 2016.<\/span>\u00a0Robyn Beck \/ AFP \/ Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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There are a lot of well-intentioned guidelines for asking indigenous groups to share their environmental knowledge with outsiders. The\u00a0United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples<\/a>\u00a0states that, if you do have access to these communities\u2019 resources or knowledge, it should only be with their free, prior, and informed consent. In 2014, the EPA released\u00a0a report<\/a>\u00a0with 17 policy recommendations for its work assisting tribal groups in protecting their health and resources. But the protocols don\u2019t include requirements to forcefully protect tribal knowledge. Take principle seven, for example:<\/p>\n

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The EPA considers confidentiality concerns regarding information on sacred sites, cultural resources, and other traditional knowledge, as permitted by law. The EPA acknowledges that unique situations and relationships may exist in regard to sacred sites and cultural resources information for federally recognized tribes and indigenous peoples.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In other words, the agency will do its best not to disseminate sensitive tribal information relevant to environmental impact. But once tribal information is shared with a governmental body, it\u2019s not always easy to keep it under wraps.<\/p>\n

The Department of the Interior approached the Klamath and Basin tribes in 1995 when deciding how to allocate water rights in southern Oregon and northern California. Communities located in the Klamath Basin shared confidential information with the government about their fishing methods and other cultural practices in order to inform the decision. Then the\u00a0Klamath Water Users Protective Association<\/a>, a nonprofit group of farmers and ranchers in the region dedicated to maintaining irrigated agriculture filed federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with the Bureau of Indian Affairs within the Department of Interior, demanding that the tribes\u2019 responses be disclosed. When the agency refused, the association\u00a0took them to court.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Supreme Court concluded that if a tribe consults with an agency, most of the information provided during such consultations is subject to FOIA. (Hence the EPA\u2019s \u201cwe\u2019ll try our best\u201d stance.)<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately, tribes face a Hobson\u2019s Choice,\u201d wrote legal scholar Sophia E. Amberson in a 2017\u00a0Washington Law Review article<\/a>. \u201cRisk disclosing proprietary information, or lose their seat at the environmental regulatory table.\u201d<\/p>\n

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For many indigenous groups, losing control over anything from their traditional knowledge, dress, imagery, or even name is an all-too-common story. And it\u2019s not always clear what, if any, legal recourse tribes have when they find themselves in those situations.<\/p>\n

The clothing store Urban Outfitters landed in hot water in 2012 for selling \u201cNavajo hipster panties\u201d and a \u201cNavajo print flask.\u201d The Navajo Nation\u00a0filed a lawsuit<\/a>\u00a0against the company, alleging trademark violation.<\/p>\n

Although the technique worked, and the lawsuit was settled in 2016, there is some debate as to whether intellectual property is the best legal avenue to pursue when tribal knowledge is appropriated by outsiders. One big issue is that intellectual property rights expire. For example, if you publish a book, you typically own the rights to it for your\u00a0lifetime plus 70 years<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a blink of an eye for indigenous peoples,\u201d said Hardison of the Tulalip Tribes. \u201cThey\u2019ve have had their knowledge since time immemorial.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unlike when they\u2019re exploited by chain stores or sports teams, tribal communities stand a better chance to benefit when they share cultural knowledge for environmental preservation or cleanup. At the same time, indigenous people don\u2019t want platforms like the scientists who contribute to the IPCC to become a giant knowledge-mining expedition for Native culture. \u201cIt should be about a true permanent durable relationship with indigenous peoples,\u201d Hardison said.<\/p>\n

Even though sharing suggests that both parties will also reap benefits, indigenous peoples are concerned the result will end up not meaningfully different from an episode of appropriation at the hands of Urban Outfitters.<\/p>\n

In fact, once the indigenous knowledge gets outside of the local tribal community, there\u2019s an increased risk for exploitation, said Gary Morishima, technical advisor at the Quinault Management Center just outside of Seattle. He said he\u2019s heard of indigenous communities getting ripped off through informal sharing relationships. \u201c[Outsiders] try to gain access to their knowledge and claim it as their own,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

Despite the risk, some indigenous advocates are pushing for tribes to share more of their wisdom more freely with environmental groups. \u201cThe time for secrets is done,\u201d said Larry Merculieff, an Unagan tribal member based in Anchorage, Alaska, who is one of the biggest proponents. \u201cThere\u2019s urgency because of the plight of Mother Earth. That includes climate crises, complete corruption, the abuse of women, abuse of Mother Earth-based cultures, and wars.\u201d<\/p>\n

To Merculieff that means giving outsiders unprecedented access to indigenous practices \u2014 even allowing them behind-the-scenes for sacred ceremonies and discussions, albeit via video. He is part of a group called\u00a0Wisdom Weavers of the World\u00a0<\/a>\u2014 a gathering of what he likes to call \u201cwisdom keepers\u201d \u2014 which has produced 30 hours of films on Native knowledge.<\/p>\n