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Native Sun News: Indigenous activists take a stand on climate

Monday, December 28, 2015

Cutline: During a climate justice action at the close of Paris U.N. negotiations, Casey Camp-Horinek of the Ponca Nation, carried a traditional cradleboard she said represents future generations. Photo by Allan Lissner, courtesy Indigenous Environmental Network

'Red line’ formed by indigenous activists
By Talli Nauman
Native Sun News
Health & Environment Editor

PARIS – Indigenous activists were among the most critical of the U.N. accord reached at the Paris Climate Summit on Dec. 12, although the official framers of the agreement gave them and other grassroots stakeholders credit for pressure resulting in a treaty binding on 190 nations.

Demonstrators from various native nations joined hands to form a “red line” at the Arc de Triomphe on the eve of concluding treaty negotiations, condemning the leadership of nations for excluding indigenous rights and human rights from the operational text of the Paris agreement.

Kandi Mossett, a Mandan Hidatsa and Arikara tribal member who spoke at the action, charged negotiators with “proposing false solutions to the climate crisis. They are proposing a commodification of the sacred,” she said.

“They want to put a price on the air we breathe. They want to go into other countries, displace our indigenous brothers and sisters, so that they in the U.S. can continue killing our people,” she said. “We are the frontlines; we are the red lines.”

During the action, Casey Camp-Horinek of the Ponca Nation, carried a traditional cradleboard as a presented to the people of Paris, who suffered a deadly terrorist attack just a month earlier. She said the cradleboard represents future generations.

“We come here with a present for Paris, We know what happened on Nov. 13,” she said. “We indigenous people know how that feels to have someone kill the innocent ones. We offer this symbol in memory of lives lost, and we thank you for hosting us on this sacred day.”