The communities of Indigenous America are in a state of grief and
deprivation because of toxic contamination of our lands, air,
water, and sacred web of life. A comprehensive discourse of
community members attending the Symposium expressed our concerns,
dilemmas, and frustrations. We have come from throughout North
America to listen, learn and to provide First nations voice and
perspectives to the Symposium on Health Research Needs to Ensure
Environmental Justice. We are here to raise our voices as community
members of our respective tribes and as officers of tribal
governments. We expect to be heard in the same way as other
participants of color who are here as committed citizens of their
respective states. Our issues are varied and many, yet share a
common thread.
Our spiritual traditions are inextricably tied to the
environmental integrity of our ancestral lands. Hazardous waste
contamination of our lands, and exploitation of our natural
resources and intellectual and cultural property rights, therefore,
denies us of freedom of religion as guaranteed to us in the 1978
American Indian Religious Freedom Act. Consequences of hazardous
waste contamination include the inability to practice and enforce
values, traditions, and beliefs. This results in social instability,
disease, violence, demographic decrease, and cultural and physical
extinction.
Our concerns are defined not only by what was said but by the
frequency with which these concerns were raised. We are concerned
with the continuing threat of physical extinction as evidenced by
the Shoalwater Peoples of the Northwest whose fecundity has been
diminished so as to effectively extinguish this Indigenous group.
We are concerned that the historical and systematic threat of
genocide of our peoples is recapitulated in hazardous waste
contamination of our traditional lifestyle and subsistence economic
base. The bodies of Indigenous women are the first environment of
our future generations. Whole ecosystems, such as the Great Lakes -
St. Lawrence River Basin, are contaminated with toxic substances to
the degree that our people can no longer be in primary relationship
to the fish, a traditional sign of fertility.
In spite of this burden of grief, we continue to live and work for
our families and in the community. We will continue to create
culturally cogent definitions, strategies, and solutions to the
problem of toxic contamination of our environment. We will continue
to articulate the need for effective community response to and
analysis of development projects which reflect the ideology of
progress at the base of western economic enterprise.
A clean environment is a fundamental human right of all peoples.
Indigenous peoples for millenia have developed and maintained a
sustainable relationship to the land and all creation. We must
consider the impact of our decisions regarding this relationship on
our children seven generations in the future, whose faces are yet
coming towards us out of the mother earth which is now contaminated
ground. Therefore, as Indigenous Peoples, we maintain that there
are no acceptable levels of contamination of our common earth.
Of particular concern are the limitations of health risk assessment
methodologics currently in use by federal agencies. Risk assessment
is used by the United States government, its federal agencies, and
industry to continue activities that damage all elements that
sustain living things. These assessments fail to consider long-term
impacts on conditions necessary to sustain the sacred web of life
and the capacity for what our elders call "continuous birth," or
"continuous creation." These assessments consider only the risks
involved in damaging the environment as opposed to the benefits of
co-existing within the natural environment.
Our unique perspectives on risk analysis must be included in any
studies conducted in our territories. All federal agencies and
industry must recognize established international agreements,
covenants, treaties, and trust relationships between the United
States and Indigenous People. This includes Indigenous Peoples'
territories occupied and unrecognized by the United States.
In the struggle to obtain environmental justice, we demand that all
environmental and health policy be based on mutual respect for
Indigenous Peoples' inherent rights and that all Indigenous
governments and community members have a right to participate as
equal partners at every level of decision-making regarding
environmental and human health.
Therefore, the Indigenous Caucus proposes the following:
1. Our vision is to give precedence to Indigenous cultural and
spiritual traditional beliefs over economical considerations in
determining the environment we leave for our future generations.
2. Health risk assessments in Indigenous communities must be
accountable to the communities affected and must consider all
sources of damage and all affects identified by Indigenous
Peoples. Principles of cultural relativism must be incorporated
into risk analysis, as desecration of lands and resources can lead
to socio-cultural injury and cultural extinction.
3. Assessments must be made of all alternative proposals, beneficial
and detrimental to the environment, not merely proposals to damage
the environment. Indigenous proposals must form the foundation of the
assessments.
4. There must be permanent ombudsmen positions established within
federal agencies interacting with Indigenous Peoples with clear
oversight authority on programs involving environmental and health
assessments relating to indigenous communities. These offices must be
adequately staffed and funded to the satisfaction of the indigenous
communities. The ombudsmen's oversight responsibilities include, but
are not limited to, identifying underfunded liabilities in federal
programs. These liabilities should be included in agencies' reports to
Congress such at the Federal Management Financial Integrity Act.
5. We assert the right to reject levels of contamination identified
as acceptable by industrialized societies.
To insure environmental justice, adequate funding must be established
for implementing the Indigenous Caucus proposal to overcome lack of
financial and human resources in the communities.
Signatories of Indigenous Organizations
And Individuals
Tom Goldtooth, National Spokesperson
Indigenous Environmental Network
Patricia Bellanger, Board Member
International Indian Treat Council
Katsi Cook, Project Director
First Environment Project
Dave Arquette, Environmental Health
Specialist, Akwesasne Task Force on the
Environment
John Benally, Member
Dine'/Hopi Alliance
Earl Tully, President
Dine' Citizens Against Ruining our
Environment
Danny Zapata, Member
Peabody Watch
Mary Fadden, Toxicologist
Cornell University, American Indian
Program
Joseph J. Hill, Vice-President
Native American Law Student Association
University at Buffalo, Law School
Shelley McKosato, Environmental
Director, Native Lands Institute
-----------
~+*~+*~+*~+*~+~+*~+*~+*~+*~+~+*~+*~+*~+*~+~+*~+*~+*~+*~+~+*~+*~+*~+*+
"When we walk upon Mother Earth, we always plant our feet carefully
because we know the faces of our future generations are looking
up at us from beneath the ground. We never forget them."
-Oren Lyons, Onondaga Nation
*~+*~+*~+*~+*~+*~+*~+*~+*~+*~+*~+*~+*~+*~+*~+*~+*~+*~+*~+*~+*~+*~+~*
milo@scicom.alphacdc.com Michele Lord Alpha Institute
+*+ +*+ +*+ +*+ +*+ +*+