By FRANK CARINI/ecoRI News staff
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| Bella Noka, a Narragansett Indian Tribe member and a member of the Indigenous Transition steering committee, said society long ago stopped listening to Mother Earth. (Michael Roles) |
The affable quartet noted that indigenous people like them have
been largely shut out of efforts, both locally and nationally, to address the
climate crisis and the connected issue of economic inequality.
“The smartest person in the room needs to get out of the room,”
said Bella Noka, a Rhode Island resident and Narragansett Indian Tribe member.
“We need to listen to the child in the corner. We need to listen to everybody.”
“We need to listen to the child in the corner. We need to listen to everybody.”
The Green New Deal makes a
lone mention of indigenous people, but, according to Cristina Cabrera, a member
of the Pocasset Wampanoag Tribe of the Pokanoket Nation,
few, if any, helped craft the document and few have been asked for their
thoughts on the issues it addresses.
She noted that efforts at the local level to decarbonize don’t include indigenous people.
She noted that efforts at the local level to decarbonize don’t include indigenous people.
Cabrera said climate and social policy are being increasingly
shaped by corporations and the politicians they help elect, which creates a
revolving door of corporate interests in government.
She noted that corporations enjoy the status of personhood but Mother Earth does not. She said these influences are visible in the Green New Deal.
She noted that corporations enjoy the status of personhood but Mother Earth does not. She said these influences are visible in the Green New Deal.
“Corporations continue to extract, mine, dump, and trash, and net-zero formulas and taxing carbon aren’t going to stop the destruction,” the Rhode Island activist and Uruguay native said.
“Corporations will capitalize on the solutions. The culture needs to change. We need a celebration of culture, not extraction.”
Cabrera, Noka, her husband, Randy, and Wayne Everett — Randy and
Everett are also Narragansett Indian Tribe members; the tribe has about 3,000
members — said indigenous people need to lead a “just transition” from fossil
fuels and an extractive economy.
While the Indigenous Environmental Network
has praised the Green New Deal “for its vision, intention, and scope,” the
nonprofit, created 30 years ago to address environmental and economic-justice
issues, said the resolution “will leave incentives by industries and
governments to continue causing harm to Indigenous communities.”
“Furthermore, as our communities who live on the frontline of the
climate crisis have been saying for generations, the most impactful and direct
way to address the problem is to keep fossil fuels in the ground,” according to
the Minnesota-based organization.
“We can no longer leave any options for the fossil fuel industry to determine the economic and energy future of this country.”
“We can no longer leave any options for the fossil fuel industry to determine the economic and energy future of this country.”
The five people ecoRI News recently spoke with in the coffee shop
at The Village at South County Commons, including Michael Roles, a white
activist working with Rhode Island’s indigenous population on these issues, all
agreed that it’s time for the principles long held by this country’s native
inhabitants to shape “the healing of Mother Earth.”
This just transition, according to the Indigenous Environmental Network,
would include, among other points, a system change for all people to become
true stewards of the places where they live, adopting laws that recognize the
rights of ecosystems, the elimination of harmful projects, and the rejection of
all market-based mechanisms that allow the quantification and commodification
of natural resources by rebranding them as “ecosystem services,” “carbon
trading,” and “carbon offsets.”
“People who lead institutions and people who are white need to
step outside comfort zones,” Roles said. “They need to meet people where they
live and work.”
Bella Noka said society has never listened to indigenous people
nor followed their lead when it to comes to protecting — working in harmony
with — the environment.
“They treated the land like they treated indigenous people,” she
said.
An eight-member steering committee, which includes Noka, Cabrera,
and Everett, of the Indigenous Transition is working at the grassroots level
with community partners such as the African Alliance of Rhode Island
to address affordable housing, transportation, jobs, energy, gentrification,
shoreline access, and climate-related issues.
Everett noted that to address these issues justly, people of color
need to be involved in the discussions. They’re seldom even invited to
participate, he said.
“We need to be working together,” Everett said. “We need to be
building bridges to communities. Stewardship of Mother Earth needs to come
back, and it can’t be tied to a political narrative, organization, or religion.”
Bella Noka was more blunt in her call for a just transition and
what it will take to get there.
“I’m tired of the abuse. Tired of the injustice. Tired of the suffering,” she said. “Everyone plays a role in fixing Mother Earth. We can’t afford to get this wrong. Come to the table without a hidden agenda or for political gain. Come for the right reasons. Be willing to listen.”
