Pushkin, this is solvable. I'm Ronald Young Junior. Last month I spoke with doctor Adrian King, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and notable Native scholar and author. We talked about Native erasure. We covered everything from visibility to lance, sovereignty to appropriation. But there was one part of our conversation that didn't make it into the episode that I
kept returning to when putting together this week's show. If we're thinking about the future and like the climate catastrophe that is coming and everything that is just feels like it's about to come tumbling down around us, Indigenous knowledges to me really offer us a pathway forward. We talk about climate change a lot on this show, but not often enough with members of indigenous communities. In fact, Indigenous voices and native perspectives are noticeably under represented and climate
conversations overall on a global scale. But the indie In Collective and Indigenous Led organization based in South Dakota believes that effective climate policy can only be achieved by considering all communities, perspectives, and solutions. Indigenous peoples across the world are the world's first climate scientists. We were understanding ecosystems and how they worked, long before Columbus set foot in the America's long before there was such a thing as
a climate scientist. Jade Bigey is the director of the Indian Collectives Climate Justice Campaign and is Navajo and Tasuki Pueblo of New Mexico. Much of her work centers around including Indigenous voices and climate discussions and finding opportunities to employ indigenous solutions and the fight for our future. I want to see climate policy informed by our people, for
our people. We spoke with Jade as she was attending the United Nations Conference of the Parties or the cop where thousands of people were gathering to discuss climate solutions. Native and Indigenous practices can be injected into the climate fight to solve previously unsolvable problems. Jade, would you consider yourself to be a nature lover? I do consider myself a nature lover. Check my Airbnb profile. I am like I'm like, I'd rather be in the rural forests and
the places with no Wi Fi. And yeah, definitely. I'm a horse writer at heart. I'm a backcountry hiker and skier. That's what I do during my off time to find joy I grew up playing in the snow and in the mountains with all the aspens. That's where I feel almost myself. And I think we become more centered, more grounded, and really can connect with who we truly are when
we're in these spaces. So I'm seeing you light up when you're talking about nature and you mentioned being in it makes you feel more like who you truly are. Tell me more about your identity and how that impacts and inspires the work that you do. Yeah, I believe my tribal identity and my cultural identity is ninety nine point nine percent of why I do what I do. Definitely, growing up traditionally so connected to my language and ceremony
has also been a really huge factor. And a lot of people I've worked with from indigenous communities, whether that's indigenous peoples in the Amazon or indigenous peoples in the Arctic, if they lose their territories, if they have a river that is poisoned by oil or by any other type of pollution, that is a part of their identity. You can't have the health of community and the health of
nature be separate. And something I would love to see in climate policy that would honor indigenous rights and indigenous cosmology. Is the rights of nature something that we're seeing playing out in places like New Zealand where rivers have rights just like humans have rights. Jade, you gave us an example from New Zealand. What do you think US climate policy might look like when it better reflects and incorporates native values? Where should it start? I think it'd be
great to see climate policy reflect our demands for land back. Generally, when we're talking about land back as organizing groups, as grassroots organizations, as frontline communities, we're not talking about making people go back to wherever they came from, but it's really about having sovereignty and having self determination over lands that were stolen from us, and reconnecting and revitalizing culture and land practices so that we can bring the environment
the climate back into a balance. The ability to have self determination it covers being able to practice our cosmologies and to practice our ways of life and have the right to be able to do so in the future. Talking about, you know, sovereignty of native lands, and you're talking about the landback movement. Last month we talked with doctor Adrian Keane and she mentioned that there's indigenous knowledge that could provide a pathway forward, especially when it comes
to the impending climate catastrophe. Can you talk through what some of that knowledge is. Yeah, So, indigenous peoples across the world are the world's first climate scientists. We were understanding ecosystems and how they worked long before Columbus set foot, you know in the America's or long before you know, there was such a thing as a climate scientist. And so we have this intrinsic and this is you know, yes for people like from my community, but also indigenous
peoples all over the world. We have this really old knowledge about how to keep ecosystems in balance, like whether that's knowing how to have safe birds of woods or forests to ensure that there's a reduced risk of wildfire, whether that's knowing how to create safety barriers on coasts
to protect people from erosion and floods. There's all kinds of knowledge that exists out there, and those are real climate solutions and they need to be invested in, but they also need to be acknowledged in places like here at the cop where thousands of people are about to get here and discuss, you know, climate solutions Indigenous knowledge really needs to be upheld in these types of spaces, and also at the level of local and city climate
management and building. When cities and towns build climate plans or adaptation plans, they need to consider local indigenous knowledge and really make relationships with those people to inform those plans. Do you have any examples of where indigenous solutions are in place to help fight climate change currently? Yeah, there's
so many indigenous led solutions. One I'll speak about is a local regenerative economy based on the farming of kelp and the fishing practices in southeast Alaska and the Kelp is is a many fold two, three, fourfold solution where it cleans the water, it removes carbon dioxide, it becomes a fuel, it can become a food source. They're building an economy out of that, so creating a local product that they can sell with the community and provide food
to the community. And then with the fishing, they're doing something that they've always done and turning that into a program where they feed their elders and providing jobs and so it's this whole circular model, but it's addressing all the things food and equity, job and security, climate change. So that is being led by native conservancy and building land trusts and reclaiming land. And so those are the types of models that we want to empower and invest
in and support. And I'll shout out my team at Expedition Studios where my dear friend and colleague and I are working on a film called Salec Yellow, which translate to Sultan Sky. And this film is about lithium mining in ChIL And so this is another climate story about how as we're building the renewable economy here in the global North and all over the world, all of those solar panels, all of those wind turbines, electric cars, etc. Etc.
They need lithium, They need minerals for the batteries. But where where does that come from? Indigenous lands? So again we're creating this other, you know, this other dynamic of consuming and taking too much than what a community or the earth can handle. And how do we deal with that. Part of the problem of pushing for policy change is that there's a tendency to try to solve many nuanced
issues with one federal bill. Is there a strategy for addressing the ways in which different communities are affected by climate change with a more tailored approach. Yeah, so I think a lot of climate and environmental justice dis groups are already saying one says does not fit all. With my role in the wee Jack, the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, I'm actually fairly impressed by the diversity
of people on that Advisory Council to do. To do just this, we have to pressure within the EPA, within you know, the White House Climate Team, the Army Corps of Engineers, etc. Make who make these decisions that impact our community. We have to create indicators for them to get the capacity to understand the nuances of all these different communities. And it's not just with you know, solutions building,
it's also about investment. And my team at end In Collective we wrote a memo on this this past summer. We knew that the infrastructure package was coming down the line, and one big capacity gap in small communities or rural communities and tribes for example, is capacity to distribute funding equitably.
And so something that we're doing now is advising these groups, these agencies to also invest in capacity so that when these communities receive all this funding, it can flow and not just flow in one zone, but flow across the community in an equitable way. So I'm pretty passionate about race, and I think that's come through on the show were the one episode. But I think one thing that I don't think about is often is issues of environmental justice.
How does the fight for racial equity intersect with with your work to craft climate policy. Racial equity is climate justice, and climate justice is racial equities. So climate policy could include practical ideas of decolonization, taking into account things like truth, reconciliation, and reparations. You know, those types of practices on the city council level, at the state level, at the national level really do have impacts that you know, are really
connected to like racial equity. You know, when we are able to claim land back or reclaim our lands. In some cases, yes, maybe there is like conservation models happening where we're protecting land or protecting sacred sites, but in other cases developing land so that we can welcome our relatives who have had to move because of climate impacts. We're really thinking about where we're headed and these are the realities, and we're really trying to prepare for all
of the challenges. You're on the Environmental Justice Advisory council, So you're actually in there doing the work. What's it like working within that political system knowing that it's a system that in the past has been oppressive towards Native and Indigenous folks? What does that look like working in that system in order to actually create the type of change that you need. Working in this system, it's been challenging, it's been frustrating, but all with the nuance that we've
made a lot of progress. Deb Halland is the Secretary of Interior and managing department that oversees the BIA, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and never before has an Indigenous person held that role. Now we have an Indigenous person making decisions about a department that really impacts our people and our tribes. So I feel a lot more comfortable working within a system that has made that type of progress.
I'm also seeing grassroots leaders such as myself in these types of roles, advising, giving guidance, helping these agencies navigate really the changing landscape when we're talking about what equity means, when we talk about what justice means, and really from a foundational place of wanting to dismantle white supremacy within these systems, I also see grassroots leaders holding roles in
the Department of Indian Energy. For example, my clan sister Hala John's as Salt of the Earth organizer from Navajo Nation, who has worked so hard for her people to transition from coal energy to renewable energy, is now leading that department. So I think it's all to say that it's always going to be frustrating working within these systems until we've really changed them, until we've achieved our big movement goals
of systems change. But the progress that we've made, especially considering the last four years, it's really huge, and I urge people all the time that I work with, that I speak to, that follow me on social media to not take that for granted, knowing that in the next four years we could have a different president who has a different agenda. How do you plan to keep this agenda moving forward despite ever changing political landscape, Ronald, This
is a fast and nuanced question. We won the twenty twenty election by a hair you know, it was so close, and so we need to be working in better relationship now and through next year in the lead up to the next presidential election. If we continue to play this kind of you know, woke police against each other and shut each other down because we're not, you know, the perfect model of equity or justice, then we're really going to continue to stay divided and see our progressive movements
separate and diverge. You know what I'm not seeing is the other side separate in the way that we are, and that really concerns me. Where can listeners learn more about the causes that you're focused on? Are there films, books, anything like that? Yeah? Yeah, so our handles are all the same on all the platforms. And DAN Collective and then my entire undergrad I was watching documentaries and learning
about people. A lot of these stories were about the environment, and one documentary that impacted me the most, I think to move into this direction was the documentary Chasing Ice, which is about the rate at which glaciers are melting and that advocates or climate justice. The film is by jeff Orlaski, who I can now call a really dearer and close friend and colleague. Jay, thank you so much for being with us today. We learned so much. Thank you.
It's an honor to speak with you. Ja Biggay is the Indian Collectives Climate Justice Campaign director She is Navajo and Tasuki Pueblo, has a Master of Arts degree in environmental leadership and as part of President Biden's White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council. You can find a link to the Indian Collective and to Jade's film sell E Cielo in our show notes. Solvable is produced by Jocelyn Frank,
researched by David Jah, booking by Lisa Dunn. Our managing producer is Sasha Matthias, and our executive producer is Mio LaBelle. I'm Ronald Young Jr. Thanks for listening.