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Environmental Philosophy of the Haudenosaunee

The Haudenosaunee have lived in peace and harmony with the natural world for thousands of years. We share a deep spiritual relationship with our surrounding environment rooted in a respect for all life. We recognize our long-term health is based on living in a healthy environment. Our lifestyles, knowledge systems, philosophies and culture allowed us to be sustainable communities.

In today’s world, we face new environmental problems that our ancestors never had to consider. There were no polluting factories, gasoline stations, and human-made chemicals like PCBs to harm the environment. There was no need for formalized environmental regulations. The challenge before us is finding ways to continue protecting the natural world while preserving our unique relationship with it.

Over the past twenty years, the United States federal government has increasingly recognized the inherent sovereignty of Indian nations and their right to self-determination in the field of environmental law. Part of the inherent sovereignty of Indian nations is the power to create, regulate, and assume primacy over environmental issues. The federal government recognizes this right by treating Indian tribes as states under numerous provisions of federal environmental laws. Many Indian nations have created environmental codes in the last few decades in an effort to build environmental protection capacity as they identify, plan, develop, and implement environmental programs. However, the majority of tribal environmental codes, for the most part, are absent of traditional laws and knowledge. Instead, they represent a restatement of federal and state environmental law adapted to the local level.

Federal and state environmental laws are based on western society perspectives, lifestyles, laws, policies, and world views that are very different from the cultural and spiritual based traditional laws and knowledge of the Haudenosaunee. Western Society based environmental laws are driven by an economic development agenda, whereas,

Haudenosaunee society is driven by the need to live in peace and harmony with the natural world.

The Haudenosaunee are proceeding with a project to develop an environmental protection process based on our traditional teachings, on our indigenous world view and relationship with the natural world. Such an environmental protection process will enable the individual nations and communities of the Haudenosaunee to protect and restore the natural world, while helping to preserve our unique relationship with it, as a sustainable society.

The Haudenosaunee contend that this is the best way to protect the environment consistent with our culture. We recognize the need for our environmental protection process to incorporate our traditional knowledge and laws to maintain our sovereignty and culture. At the same time, if we ever need the ship (in the guise of the U.S. federal government) to help us protect the river, we must demonstrate that our process meets and=or exceeds the requirements of federal environmental laws.

Haudenosaunee Environmental Task Force

In 1992, in accordance with the Great Law of Peace, the Grand Council passed and agreed, based on Haudenosaunee Protocols and cultural beliefs, to establish the Haudenosaunee Environmental Task Force. The Haudenosaunee Environmental Task Force is composed of delegates (Haudenosaunee leaders, environmental technicians and scientists) chosen by each of the Haudenosaunee Nations who are committed to identifying environmental problems in their communities and working to find solutions to these problems.

The leaders of the Haudenosaunee have always considered three principles when making decisions: will a decision threaten peace, the natural world or future generations.

The delegates of the Haudenosaunee Environmental Task Force have

accepted these principles and use the following questions to guide us in our decision making:

• What effect will our decision have on peace?

• What effect will our decision have on the natural world?

• What effect will our decision have on future generations?

The mission of the Haudenosaunee Environmental Task Force is to assist Haudenosaunee Nations in their efforts to conserve, preserve, protect and restore their environmental, natural, and cultural resources; to promote the health and survival of the sacred web of life for future generations; to support other Indigenous Nations working on environmental issues; and to fulfill our responsibilities to the natural world as our Creator instructed without jeopardizing peace, sovereignty, or treaty obligations.

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