ORAL HISTORIES - Pacific Northwest Tribal Leaders and Elders
Since August 2022 the Indigenous Climate Project has conducted 25 interviews with tribal leaders, stewards, and elders in 14 different Native communities in the Pacific Northwest. The wisdom and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) they have shared with us have been life-changing. From a true sense of place and ancestry guiding them, and an emerging position of political and economic power, the tribes and bands of the Pacific Northwest are battling climate change head-on and inspiring us all.
FEATURE-LENGTH DOCUMENTARY - "CLIMATE STORY"
In this fourth special in the series — and the second since our co-founder and host passed away in May 2014 — THIS IS INDIAN COUNTRY finishes the story Billy started, and certainly what he’d still be working on today. Climate action and resiliency among the Pacific Northwest’s first people, led by habitat protection and restoration, empowered by the very thing Billy and other Fish Warriors fought for and won, the U.S. v Washington, the Boldt Decision. On the 50th anniversary of that landmark ruling, which not only preserved treaty fishing rights but a government-to-government place at the table but the tribes are now using to battle the existential threat of climate change, to “protect what we have, restore what we’ve lost.” While the non-Native world continues to fiddle while Rome burns, the tribes are taking action, saving the lifeways of their people and all of us. Because they have to. “The debate is over,” says Quinault elder Ed Johnstone. “We’re not going anywhere.” This is the Indigenous Climate Project.
CURRICULUM – Protecting the Circle
CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE TRIBES
As you will learn in this curriculum, tribes are greatly impacted by Climate Change. They have contributed very little to its cause, but they are actively engaged in the effort to lessen its impacts. They are place-based nations which have existed in the Northwest from time immemorial—thousands of years. As such, they have borne witness to the beauty and bounty of nature, and to the development of climate change caused primarily by those who came to this continent from other countries. We hope this powerful curriculum and the stories we've witnessed and now share through THIS IS INDIAN COUNTRY With Billy Frank Jr.: will inspire hope and encourage action.