For all our relations: Indigenous climate justice at the forefront of the just transition to renewable energies
I was recently hanging out at the beach surrounded by bush with my family and a close Lubicon Cree friend and sister Melina Laboucan-Massimo. We had not seen each other for 12 years and at had both been travelling a lot so this time out was important for reconnecting with the source, sun, ocean, bush, trying to shake off the city. We looked up to see a huge graceful Kankanka — the great sea eagle. This evoked a silence as we watched with awe, Kankanka soared with the winds effortlessly but with clear intent across the bay and out and beyond. They had come to share a message, but in the moment we knew it’s meaning may come later.
Looking after country, our lands and waters is an ancient role and way of life for all Indigenous peoples.
Melina has worked tirelessly on the frontline of social, environmental and climate justice issues for the past 15 years. As we talked, we saw that all the issues were connected, it was same-same, especially on the angle of our communities and homelands bearing the brunt of the extractive industrial complex. I had been following her amazing transformative work, which is full of challenges and tragedies that she has overcome with a strength so much so that she lead her community in Little Buffalo with their own epic solar project. The project creates green jobs and was built by the community for the community. She framed her work as part of a just transition: “A just transition needs to prioritise communities like First Nations that are already impacted by dirty fossil fuels. A just transition means our communities will no longer be sacrifice zones. That is why this summer in the heart of the tar sands I will be helping my community implement a solar installation to help power our community.”
It was part of her family responsibilities to country and too each other that spans back to time immemorial. Looking after country, our lands and waters is an ancient role and way of life for all Indigenous peoples. It’s a family thing and this is our strength as it involves all of our relations. As original peoples we have always born the brunt of the destructive colonising practices and neoliberal policies that support the extractive industrial complex. The fight for climate justice is playing a big role in the aligning of our movements globally. Not only through political or systemic synergies but also in a much deeper way, a relational way that recognises our deep connection with the land and all animals and beings.
This has been a powerful few years in Borroloola, through local actions telling mining companies to frackoff.
What is the first thing we do when we gather? We always make some sort of relational connection to establish meaningful ways to work together and to maintain that relationship. Not only are we honouring and reconnecting as Indigenous peoples fighting for our own lands, but as related peoples globally and as seekers of life interconnected with the fate of the Earth for all peoples.
For our Garrwa youth they are taking this to the next level, enacting our own laws/lores and practices under the guidance of some of our most rebel Elders who have stayed strong and determined to say no to mining and development. This has been a powerful few years in Borroloola, through local actions telling mining companies to frackoff, through to powerful grass roots alliances with SeedMob and Don’t Frack The Territory amongst others. In our way the Elders have offered up the importance of being Darrbarrwarr or good warriors in todays world through projects like the Garrwa Youth Project and within Murnkiji Murku, the way of being in family and kinship — all of our countrymen and relations (all living beings on our lands). This is part of our shielding strategy that harnesses our worldmaking prowess and the myriad of songs and dances that renew our interrelational responsibilities and connections. To be effective our Garrwa Elders have harnessed environmental alliances with strong environmental supporters with expertise for navigating bias systems, policies and resourcing like the Environmental Defenders Office NT andLock the Gate and transformative research partners like my team at Jumbunna Research UTS and people like Sean Kerrins at CAEPR. The strategy is about reclaiming of our own way of articulating the struggle to protect Gulf country in the Northern Territory and towards the decolonising of our reliance on western rights frameworks as a default human rights mechanism. Why should we keep to our original ways and guiding principles of our Elders. Quite simply because all over the world and especially in Australia we see the legislating of western human rights recognitions revoked and reworked by an out of touch colonial legislature. Do I need to raise the rushed Native Title amendments going through right now? Did you have time to make a submission? It was so rushed, a government tactic to maintain the status quo and to ensure that these submissions reach deaf ears or are subsumed into the deficit discourse merry go round that we are all sick to death of. So much for free prior and informed consent — a basic right afforded internationally in the Declaration of Indigenous Peoples Rights. We will have to wait and see what the Land Councils responses these amendments will be. But in reality this is happening all over the world and in subtly different contexts.’
Protecting country is a sacred and eternal duty tied also to protecting our families.
Last week we went to an international Indigenous peoples conference He Manawa Whenua in Aotearoa/NZ at Te Kotahi Reseach Institute. The world leading Maori legal scholar and activist Moana Jackson warned us in his key note to stop making submissions. Make statements he urged! Stop submitting to these colonial and co-opted processes which legitimize these regimes. After years of experience trying to get the Te Tiriti o Waitangi/The Treaty of Waitangi honoured Moana describes the treaty settlement (in my own words) as a fraught process that ‘lawyerises’ our cultural concepts of power into the western system, and that the process of placing our authority into this form of treaty a way to lose moral integrity and generosity of spirit. I pondered this in the moment and reflected on the other keynotes. Silvia McAdams is Neyihaw and is co-founder of a global grassroots Indigenous led movement called ‘Idle No More’. She shared her family story of how it all began with her and her nephew camping out on her homelands and blocking the road from the trucks. Aunty Pua Case is Kanaka Maoli and a spiritual and cultural leader who created Mauna Kea ‘Ohana Na Kia’I Mauna, Idle No More Hawai’i, Warriors Rising, Idle No More Mauna Kea to challenge developments on sacred places like Mauna Kea. Her resounding message was that song was to be a powerful force in the movements globally and our families have to be strong spiritually also to overcome the massive ordeals we are facing. The massive Standing Rock movement has sent a strong message that we are protectors and not just activists. Our very own Larissa Behrendt keynoted an inspirational moment, sparking our work up as creative advocacy and activism in research highlighting our deeply holistic work with the Bowraville families fighting for justice for their 3 murdered children. Larissa reminded us that the abuse of our women and children is deeply tied to the destruction of our lands and waters. As Melina has pointed out through her own tragic loss of her sister, the thousands of murdered and missing First Nations women in Turtle Island are tied in with the dark violence associated with the colonial project and the destruction of our homelands.
Protecting country is a sacred and eternal duty tied also to protecting our families. But how does this translate in the context of our homelands movements here in Australia and what can we learn from our international families and alliances? Firstly we have our own powerful movements to support and take inspiration from. In Australia we are witnessing the outrageous taking of Aboriginal babies and kids at a rate that far exceeds previous stolen generation estimates. Grandmothers against removal are challenging these violent acts of the state and their enforcement agents. Secondly, in my mind the most powerful potential sits within the just transition paradigm, and the urgent actions involved in prioritising our communities as the leaders in the activation of these renewable energy movements. This renewable energy paradigm is changing the way we perceive and engage with energy. This is not just a green manifesto. It is a deeply grounded movement that is determined to activate a just transition in alignment with Indigenous self determination, maximum autonomy and homeland movements. Our homelands must be at the forefront of this just transition, so that protectors of the land are in a position to do it the right way and benefit from the resources and delivery of clean energy solutions to all that live in our homelands and communities.
A good motivator for this relational approach is manifest in the panel that we are hosting tomorrow which brings together leaders here in fighting for country. We are very excited to hear from Murrawah Johnson, a Wirdi women and hails from the broader Birragubba peoples of Central and North Queensland. Murrawah is a spokesperson, community organiser and campaigner for the Wangan & Jagalingou Traditional Owners Family Council who are fighting the Adani Carmichael coal mine proposed on their country. Dolly and Steve Talbott also join the panel Dolly and Steve have been active in the fight against fossil fuel projects including Whitehaven Coal’s Maules Creek mine, the proposed Shenua mega-mine and Santos’ plans for CSG expansion on Gamilaraay lands. There is no doubt in my mind that while they try to be build pipelines and mines we know we will prevail. As our revered Elders Grandfather McDinny (and now our younger Garrwa leaders like Gadrian Hoosan continue to assert) — the whitefella has a piece of paper to show title over land and we have our kujika (songlines) — that is all we need.
We believe these panels are important for harmonising our songs of resistance as winds of change within our movements globally and are key to activating and maintaining our relational links as a global family of original peoples. As Melina has shared with us, and within her homeland strategies in the North American context: “These winds of resistance in British Columbia and across Turtle Island should be a signal to our governments and to investors. When we rise, we rise as one. A light breeze becomes an unstoppable gale.”
So perhaps this is the meaning behind the visit from Kankanka — the grandmother sea eagle who came to visit us on the coast. Both Melina and I felt this was a moment in seeing our relation visit us. As for both of us we call the Kankanka grandmother and we know the grandmother guides us in the pathway by riding the winds of change, holding us and giving us all strength and inspiration to stay true to the way of our ancestors.
Keen to hear more from Melina and Murrawah and other amazing Indigenous activists? We went live at the Indigenous Research Synergies Panel: Indigenous Climate Activism at UTS here: https://www.facebook.com/pg/UTSJumbunnaResearch/videos/
Authors note: originally published thanks to @NITV
