JSIS 495: Task Force - Winter 2018: Task Force E

Patrick Christie MW 130-320, THO 331

Native Americans in North America are at the front lines of environmental protection and economic/energy systems transformation. Their efforts safeguard their rights, culture and livelihoods, as well as those of non-Native Americans. The policies, social movements, and conflicts are inherently international in nature. Native American tribes are frequently sovereign nations engaged in struggles that cross national boundaries and against the aspirations of multi-national corporations wishing to extract and transport valuable commodities, such as petroleum, across national boundaries and sovereign tribal lands. International protocols call for universal human rights and respect for indigenous people’s rights. Tribes also are in the vanguard of economic and energy-system transformations. Investments in ecological systems restoration, renewable energies, and supportive policies may be coded as part of a new paradigm for a sustainable future. Yet, many challenges lie ahead. The current political environment in the US is not favorable to the above aspirations. Tribes also face numerous social and economic challenges, many the result of colonial legacies and genocide.

Reservation lands and other lands in the hands of indigenous people are vast reserves of biodiversity and energy potential.  These lands have been historically plundered for the advancement of an industrialized Euro-western culture.  Globally, nationally, and locally, we are seeing the final push for extreme extraction and the final gasps of the petroleum age. With or without carbon taxes and the end of subsides, the petrochemical industrial complex will come to an end due to the lack of raw resources.  The communities that will most suffer during the climate chaos this extreme extraction will cause, the communities in the extraction zones, and those already underserved by the existing inefficient fossil fuel energy systems are indigenous peoples.  

Preparing for a sustainable future for all will require investment in and experimentation with sustainable industries. In the upper Midwest, wild rice and maple syrup have been gathered, and used for subsistence and commerce for millennia.

With the above as a backdrop, students will collaborate with Winona LaDuke as their task force external evaluator and others at the newly formed Anishinaabe Agricultural Institute. Winona LaDuke is one of the world’s leading indigenous scholars and activists (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winona_LaDuke).