Written by Emily Zhang
Rimga Viskanta is a Senior Management Analyst for the City of Solana Beach where her primary focus is on Environmental Sustainability projects. This past May, Viskanta attended the 2022 Southwestern Tribal Climate Change Summit. The summit—one of the most impactful she had ever attended—took an off-agenda approach following tribal customs rather than western traditions. Participants spent much of the conference sitting in circles and would pass a small sage wreath from person to person as a signal of whose turn it was to speak. They spoke for as long as they needed to share a relevant story while everyone else listened. When they felt they were finished, they passed the wreath on to the next person, and then it was their turn. Surrounded by the beauty of nature and wildlife, Summit participants also had the opportunity to listen to tribal Elders recount stories from before the invasion of colonizers, who forced indigenous peoples from their homelands into isolated reservations.
Viskanta attended the summit with the following question in mind: How can we incorporate indigenous voices into our climate action planning processes? What does it look like to do so? Through storytelling and genuine conversations, she found the Summit allowed her to fully immerse herself in the stories of other attendees, and she specifically connected when one elder described her memory of being forced by male soldiers from her village. Viskanta heard stories resembling this one from her own grandparents who were violently forced to leave Lithuania when Russian soldiers invaded and took it over to become part of the Soviet Union. Ukraine’s invasion in late February of this year brought those images of war and mass deportation to the forefront of her mind and she and fellow Lithuanians felt the pain of generational trauma that comes from displacement. She felt angry that members of tribal nations living throughout San Diego today were the victims of even greater mass deportations and were still experiencing the negative impacts of displacement today.
But it is not only the indigenous people who are suffering. The lands they used to live on and care for are suffering as well. Before the invasion of the Europeans, native communities had lived in a sustainable relationship with the land since 9000 BC. One of the significant focuses of the summit was fire control, an indigenous technique that can help prevent the raging wildfires often seen destroying our forests today. By setting relatively small fires in certain areas, indigenous tribes managed the fuels in an area by clearing out dead matter and allowing new growth to take root. However, this is just one of many indigenous methods which have been ignored or even disallowed by the US Government. Indigenous tribes have implemented multiple other efficient methods, harnessing the gift of our environment. Viskanta stated that when nature would change, indigenous people would change with it. Yet just like the colonizers who drained tribal lagoons for irrigation, and allowed their cattle to destroy indigenously cultivated grasslands, we continue to ignore the techniques which supported and sustained native peoples through the tests of time.
The Europeans disregarded indigenous people and their practices that adapted to the environment, which has led us to our present-day industrialized, polluted, and destroyed environment. Tribal nations were forced onto reservations, and their highly effective practices were deemed obsolete. Their progress, efforts, and evolution were halted and restricted. Now, indigenous folks require cultural burning permits in order to implement their techniques. The same colonizers who wrecked their environment now wrongfully control their rights to mend their land.
Native and indigenous people have been implementing solutions that take the health of the planet into account far before American media attracted attention to the current situation. Through this summit, Viskanta understood that simply involving native voices is not enough. We need to listen to indigenous solutions that have undergone the test of time. As Viskanta says herself, “You can't solve a problem with the same mindset that created it.” How much longer will we listen to the voice of the colonizer, the one responsible for the climate disaster?
If we are to save our earth, we need to look toward the people who have been aligned with nature and working with our environment. We need to shift our perspective and previous ideas about climate protection. Indigenous people are not the past, they are the present and they could well be our planet’s future if we pass the wreath to them and listen.
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Gilbert, Samuel. “Native Americans' Farming Practices May Help Feed a Warming World.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 10 Dec. 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/interactive/2021/native-americans-farming-practices-may-help-feed-warming-world/. Kuhn, Casey. “'Fire Is Medicine': How Indigenous Practices Could Help Curb Wildfires.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, 23 July 2021, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/fire-is-medicine-how-indigenous-practices-could-help-curb-wildfires.
