Indian Time - A Voice from the Eastern Door

(April 29, 2017) Washington – Native Nations led hundreds of thousands of people in Saturday's People's Climate March from the US Capitol Building to the White House and ultimately to the Washington Monument. Ahead of the march, Leonardo DiCaprio joined the Indigenous Environmental Network and Amazon Watch in a roundtable discussion with Indigenous leaders to better understand their fight to keep fossil fuels in the ground, protect indigenous rights, and stop climate change.

"Six months ago, my kids woke up to half a foot of water in our living room," said Cherri Foytlin, director of BOLD Louisiana and spokesperson from the Indigenous Environmental Network. "Now, Trump wants to open up the Gulf Coast to even more offshore drilling. But we have a message for him: we are not afraid, and we will not stop fighting. With 100 and 500 year storms now coming every year, we are fighting for our lives."

Native Nations led the march with traditional drumming and huge signs calling for Trump to respect indigenous rights, keep fossil fuels in the ground, and stop the Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipeline. The theme of the delegation was worn on red headbands: Defend, Resist, Protect, Renew.

"Trump's aggression towards Native Nations is unacceptable," said Dallas Goldtooth, Keep it in the Ground Campaigner for the Indigenous Environmental Network. "We are here leading the People's Climate March because we need to keep fossil fuels in the ground if we are going to stop climate change."

From tar sands, to pipelines, to fracking, to offshore drilling -Indigenous Peoples are impacted the hardest by the fossil fuel industry, and their traditional livelihoods are especially threatened by climate change. Photo by Indigenous Rising Media.

"Alaska's Indigenous Peoples still rely upon the land for our food security, making this climate crisis incredibly devastating to our ancestral ways of life," said Faith Gemmill from Arctic Village, Alaska, and Executive Director of Resisting Environmental Destruction on Indigenous Lands (REDOIL) "We see firsthand climate chaos in our traditional territories, while we are simultaneously forced to defend our ancestral territories from Trump's greed driven mentality which sacrifices us. Yesterday the Trump administration reopened the Arctic to offshore drilling. This is an incredibly irresponsible move at this time. These attacks are relentless, we must resist to survive."

Organizers of the Indigenous Environmental Network led a huge rally at the end of the march with rousing chants of: "What do we do when our land is under attack, stand up fight back!" and "What do we do when our water is under attack, stand up fight back!"

"We want to live, we want to survive and continue to celebrate life," said Manari Ushigua, chief of the Akameno Sapara tribe in the Ecuadorian Amazon in the roundtable discussion. "We are here to defend the very future of humanity."

The Indigenous Environmental Network is an international environmental justice nonprofit that works with tribal grassroots organizations to build the capacity of Indigenous communities. Learn more at: http://www.ienearth.org.