Heritage Lands
FROM TIME IMMEMORIAL
Ecologies are disappearing!
The history of displacement and land dispossession for Indigenous communities has had negative impacts on those communities and on the lands they once stewarded.
Agriculture, mining, and development, supercharged by the industrial revolution and unfettered capitalism, has brought Earth’s natural systems to the brink of collapse and human society to the brink of extinction.
Indigenous heritage is being erased!
The displacement and attempted erasure of Indigenous Peoples as the original land stewards of global ecosystems has also negatively impacted their heritage, history, language, and culture which shaped these landscapes.
Mass species extinction and climate change threaten the living relational heritage these communities have had for thousands of years with their plant and animal relatives that provide food, shelter, and medicine for all of us. Evidence of defacement and looting of culturally significant sites is also highly prevalent.
Indigenous Knowledge is being lost!
Elders are the knowledge keepers who have guided Indigenous communities for millennia to deeper relationships with the Earth. With the passing of every Elder, a living library disappears.
Indigenous youth and young professionals have been forced to prioritize their education and career over their Tribal heritage and ways of being. This has led to a rift in intergenerational knowledge transmission which threatens the very existence of Traditional Ecological Knowledge, Indigenous languages, and epistemologies.
Indigenous history and culture is misrepresented!
Many efforts at educating the public about Indigenous heritage have only served to misrepresent and mischaracterize these communities and their culture.
Much of the signage and educational material shared with the public at these culturally significant sites is at best comically inaccurate and at worst dehumanizing to Indigenous communities. Indigenous communities are often not consulted when these signs or educational materials are created.
Place names have erased Indigenous presence!
The attempted erasure of Indigenous history, culture, knowledge, and language continues to be reflected in the landscape itself.
The imposition of place names that reflect dominant, non-Tribal narratives has been and still is commonplace. Parks, hiking trails, roads, cities, buildings, etc. are littered with names that speak to the attempted erasure of Indigenous presence.
Consultation is a painful process!
There has been a lot of positive energy and movement in political circles to prioritize Tribal consultation and Indigenous Knowledge. Several factors have made the process of Tribal engagement painful for these communities.
The high turnover rate in government agencies forces Tribal communities to undergo an economically and emotionally costly cycle of building trusting relationships with representatives from these agencies. Moreover, new staff often lack the experience and skill sets necessary to work with Tribes. Lack of funding for Tribal Historic Preservation and Natural Resources Departments also leads to significant turnover rates and labor shortages in Tribal communities.
