“When you go to that land you have to take a look at how sacred it is, and the things that live there. And that’s part of understanding, knowing all the beings that live on that land, because each one of them–from the smallest ant to the biggest tree–all of them work together to help it survive. That’s the spirit of that land.”
–Calvin Hecocta (1941-2016), Owens Valley Northern Paiute Nation and former board member of Native Forest Council
The last intact ecosystems and wildlife populations in the United States/Turtle Island are under their greatest assault in history at the hands of industry, government, anti-environmental NGOs, and others who see nature as something from which to take and never give back.
We at Eco-Integrity Alliance believe it’s time to acknowledge that, despite its many valiant efforts and admirable achievements, the U.S. mainstream “conservation” movement has failed to achieve its goal of protecting the natural world from the worst abuses of humankind. To the contrary, things are only getting worse every day.
Therefore, the only chance we have of defending these lands, waters, and living creatures is by evolving our approach to environmentalism. And we feel one crucial effort is to integrate the input and traditional knowledge of indigenous cultures—cultures that adapted over millennia to coexist with the wild species and natural biomes from which we all come—into our advocacy.
Unfortunately, our federal, state, county, and municipal government agencies (U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, County Open Space, etc.) continue to degrade and destroy these lands, many of which were once inhabited, traversed, and/or revered by hundreds of Native American tribes. Adding insult to injury, these agencies falsely and disrespectfully claim that traditional indigenous practices which were light on the land and for purposes of survival (such as localized cultural burning) are the same as modern industrial land mismanagement with feller-bunchers, bulldozers, and logging trucks.
Eco-Integrity Alliance believes it’s crucial that the voices of indigenous people who believe in protecting and restoring nature be central to this revitalized movement. And that we must do all we can to help broadcast this Earth-centric message throughout the U.S. environmental community while supporting Native Americans’ struggle to safeguard ancestral lands from government and industry extraction (i.e. “Land Back”).
“We call upon the forests, the great trees racing strongly to the sky with earth in their roots and the heavens in their branches, the fir and the pine and the cedar, and we ask them to teach us, and show us the Way.”
-Anonymous member of Chinook Tribe, 18th century
Eco-Integrity Alliance 