Lessons from Standing Rock

Standing Rock Indian Reservation has been in the news recently for the protests by the Sioux Native Americans against the nearly completed Dakota Access Pipeline. The pipeline will transport crude oil from a North Dakota oil field to a refinery in Illinois near Chicago but protesters, who are trying to halt construction, say the pipeline would endanger sacred native lands and the supply of drinking water from the Missouri River. Peaceful protest techniques such as setting up camps, prayer circles, and blocking roads have been met by a militarized police force using tear gas, pepper spray, arresting of Native protesters and generally using "unnecessary force". Interestingly for this case, are the 1.4 million people "checking in" to Standing Rock on Facebook. The purpose of this "checking in", from people all over the world, is supposedly to confuse the police about the number and identity of the protesters actually on site. Despite the police denying the use of social media to track protester movement, it is interesting that so many people, who had probably never heard of the protests before it started trending on Facebook (me included), have taken interest in "standing with Standing Rock" online. With environmental activists also resisting the pipeline because it will help to increase fossil fuel emissions, I want to look at whether granting and respecting indigenous land rights is one way forward in helping protect the environment, and how non-Native citizens can help.

Protesters at Standing Rock.
Source: Huffington Post

Traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), is the knowledge, practices and institutions developed and maintained by indigenous and local peoples in relation to the biophysical environments in which they live. This knowledge varies between different indigenous and local groups, reflecting differences in values, worldviews, and environmental ethics, but it has often been passed down through many generations to help secure livelihoods within dynamic ecosystems. Since the 1980s, TEK has garnered growing interest among Western scientists and policy makers for how it can be used alongside dominant Western science to sustainably manage land and resources, as well as building long-term resilience of socio-ecological systems. This is because the experiential data held by TEK holders can allow greater understanding of local environments, ecosystem services, and adaptations made in response to changing environments and pressures such as logging and overfishing. An example of TEK importance:

• slash and burn agriculture, or swidden, is a form of agriculture where crops are cultivated in land cleared by fire, followed by a longer fallow period where vegetation regrows and soil fertility is naturally replenished (see diagram below). Swidden has long been considered by colonial and Western science as a wasteful, primitive type of agriculture characterised by unplanned deforestation and lack of foresight. Countries like the Philippines, under the guise of conservation, have gone as far as criminalizing and pressuring swiddeners to adopt more intensive agricultural methods. In the Indonesian transmigrant projects, where citizens from overcrowded islands were moved to less populated islands and upland areas, the new migrants were encouraged by the government to practice settled agriculture. However, the poor upland soils were unsuitable for continuous cultivation of crops, leading many of the swiddeners to teach the transmigrants how to practice swidden agriculture. Indeed, swidden agriculture is not as destructive to the environment as previously thought, as it can actually be important for maintaining biodiversity through its creation of a mosaic of varied habitats that support many different species. The example of swidden shows that Western science and tradition is not always the most sustainable in local contexts.

System diagram for slash and burn agriculture.
Source: Pennsylvania State University  

Of course TEK holders may sometimes have scientifically incorrect understandings of their local environments, but TEK still needs to be preserved in order to increase adaptation options for the future. One way of preserving the ever-declining TEK is supporting indigenous land rights. Local and indigenous people often have the environment's health in their best interest, especially if they rely on the ecosystem for their livelihoods; thus they can be very good environmental stewards. Indeed, when indigenous land rights are recognized, evidence suggests that the rate of deforestation goes down, which means the forests continue locking in carbon. The Peruvian indigenous group, the Asheninka, are an example of a community fighting to gain formal land tenures in order to have more autonomy and legal recognition; this would help the Asheninka protect the forest from trespassing of illegal loggers, as well as bring in new education opportunities that would help prepare community members for future defending of the land, forest, its resources, and carrying on the traditional Asheninka way of life.

I've only scratched the surface of this topic here, but I'm trying to get across that TEK and indigenous land rights are two really important ways of helping protect the environment and mitigating climate change. Yet there is so much resistance, with 2015 being the worst year on record for killings of land and environment defenders, with a disproportionate 40% of the 185 total killed coming from indigenous groups. We need scientists, policy makers, markets and indigenous/local peoples to all work together more fully and respectfully to sustainably manage the Earth's resources. On an individual level, Máxima Acuña, an indigenous woman from Peru who is protesting against the opening of a new gold mine on Native land, suggests that citizens in the Western countries need "to just be really alert and become aware of...the abuse, the aggression, the violation of [our] rights.”. So keep talking about indigenous land rights, listen to what indigenous people have to say, pressure the big corporations to become more responsible, support indigenous land claims, and donate money and supplies (more specific Standing Rock support in this article). Hopefully, the high coverage of Standing Rock has increased the visibility of indigenous struggles around the world and increased momentum for defense from Native and non-Native citizens alike. 

Watch Leo DiCaprio's "Before the Flood" climate change documentary

Just found out today that until November 6th, you can watch Leonardo DiCaprio's climate change documentary "Before the Flood" for free on the National Geographic (link here).

Summary: the documentary provides a good overview of the climate change threat, with DiCaprio (the UN's Messenger of Peace on Climate Change- who knew?) visiting and exploring the destructive Canadian tar sands; Beijing's industrial pollution; Indonesian forests cut down for palm oil production; agricultural disasters in India because of changed precipitation patterns; coastal flooding in Florida; and ice retreat in Greenland and the Arctic. He talks to locals; experts; Pope Francis; as well as John Kerry and Barack Obama when touching upon a  key question of the role of America and other governments in climate change mitigation.

Beautiful Canadian tar sands, eh? 

Favourite moment: Sunita Narain from the Centre for Science and Environment in Delhi making DiCaprio uncomfortable about America's high consumption habits, then shaking her head at his reply that despite the evidence he doesn't think Americans will change lifestyles, and finally ending with Narain's bombshell "What is the US doing which the rest of the world can learn from? You're a fossil-addicted country, but if you are seriously disengaging, it's something for us to learn from. It'll be leadership that we can all hold up to our governments and say listen if the US can do it, and the US is doing it... we can do it as well."

Sunita Narain is unimpressed with Leo. 

Resonating message: "think about the shame that each of us will carry when our children and grandchildren look back and realise that we had the means of stopping this devastation but simply lacked the political will to do so". While this speech by DiCaprio was specifically directed to the leaders of the world gathered at the UN, we all have a role in finding this will and actually acting to help climate change mitigation and stop environmental degradation.

Leo and Obama discussing climate change. 

Final thoughts: As climate change becomes more and more politicised, and more parties join the debate, celebrities emerge as increasingly important non-state actors in influencing climate change discourse and action. Celebrities can be seen as newly authorized speakers who engage new sections of the public through making climate change more relatable and easier to understand (than scientists, governments and businesses) as well as making climate change more interactive through new media (e.g. social media). DiCaprio in particular, is a relatively well-liked celebrity and thus arguably very influential.

Of course, DiCaprio has faced accusations of hypocrisy, with suggestions that he undermines his pro-environment message by continuing to live a carbon-intense lifestyle himself as well as issues surrounding his credibility to talk on the subject. The cynics among us may also argue that DiCaprio's activism in environment and climate change is simply a part of his brand that the public, as consumers, buy into; or perhaps celebrity involvement simply mobilises action as a temporary fad that then fades when the celebrity becomes less popular and loses influence. Celebrity involvement may also simply be a form of entertainment that distracts from the fundamental issues of political and scientific communication on climate change.

Personally however, I think DiCaprio presents a new opportunity for spreading the climate change message. After DiCaprio's Oscar acceptance speech where he touched upon climate change, tweets and Google searches about the topic soared, with the authors of one study concluding that the "DiCaprio Effect" had engaged so many people about climate change that it rivalled traditional top-down strategies for spreading the message. With the influence of DiCaprio obvious, I think he's doing well in engaging the public and raising awareness; my only niggles would include hypocrisy and leading more by example to encourage individual behavioural change.