{"id":8799,"date":"2020-08-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-09T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www-prod.greenpeace.org\/usa\/celebrating-indigenous-resistance\/"},"modified":"2024-11-20T04:08:23","modified_gmt":"2024-11-20T04:08:23","slug":"celebrating-indigenous-resistance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/usa\/celebrating-indigenous-resistance\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating Indigenous Resistance and Protectors Around the Nation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today, on International Day of the World’s Indigenous People, and every day, it is crucial to work in solidarity with Indigenous protectors. Climate, water, and justice depend on it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thousands Rally in Support of Native Nation in Washington D.C.
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Thousands of marchers rally in Washington DC to stand up for indigenous rights in 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

My peoples are native to the lands that make up present-day Mexico and the border region of Arizona. They are some of the last in North America to maintain their pre-Columbian cultural traditions. But with every year that passes, my people lose more and more of themselves and the culture they have protected for millennia, as well as the lands they have stewarded.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Our legacies on our lands are being swept away as the Mexican government develops on them and builds new highways, and as the American government desecrates them by building a racist “border wall.” This is not a unique story, but a tragically common experience with Indigenous Peoples in every corner of the earth.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nature is found at the intersection of most Indigenous Peoples\u2019 identity, religion, culture, and community. We are therefore compelled to protect it. We hold many elements of the natural world as sacred; plants, animals, water, land, rain, wind, the seas. Indigenous roots have always and will always run deep in the lands that colonialism has stolen.<\/span><\/p>\n

The land is our culture and a vital piece of our legacy.\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Audrey Siegl, a Musqueam woman from Canada, defiantly signaling Shell\u2019s subcontracted drilling rig to stop.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Indigenous resistance is a key component in the environmental movement here in the US. Indigenous People are on the frontlines of the climate crisis, protecting some of the most endangered lands, as well as the water, animals, and people to which they provide a home.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nearly four years ago, the nation watched as Indigenous water protectors took on Energy Transfer Partners’ Dakota Access Pipeline in Standing Rock. Last year, the world watched as Indigenous Hawaiians are protecting their most sacred mountain, Mauna Kea, from the scientific imperialism in the form of the Thirty Meter Telescope. And now we watch as the Kumeyaay resist against the construction of the border wall on their lands. All across the nation and the world \u2014 Indigenous resistance and protection of what is rightfully theirs is not new, and it’s no small feat.<\/span><\/p>\n

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A line of National Guard and police advance toward a water protector holding an eagle feather at a camp near the Standing Rock Reservation in the direct path of the Dakota Access pipeline.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

At Greenpeace, we know that climate justice means Indigenous sovereignty. Traditional Indigenous territories encompass approximately <\/span>22% of the world\u2019s land surface, yet they hold 80% of the world\u2019s biodiversity<\/span><\/a>. This biodiversity is under threat from mining, fossil fuel extraction, agriculture, deforestation, and climate change.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Maintaining the covenant between humans and the natural world is essential to our survival, and it begins with protecting and affirming the collective and individual rights of Indigenous Peoples.<\/span><\/p>\n

This protection of fundamental rights of Indigenous Peoples and other communities is essential to achieve solutions to the climate breakdown and other massive environmental problems.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u00a9 Honor the Earth<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Greenpeace is in solidarity with our Indigenous allies in this movement. Let’s join in celebrating the brave activists and defenders who are on the frontlines of environmental protection.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Indigenous Peoples Power Project<\/a><\/strong> in the United States, who work to offer non-violent direct action training, action support, and network building for Native activists that is customized to fit the traditions of Indigenous communities.<\/span><\/p>\n

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A post shared by IP3 (@ip3action)<\/a> on