Red Alert!: Saving the Planet with Indigenous Knowledge (Speaker's Corner)

Indigenous peoples, as the term is used here, refers to peoples or nations who take their tribal identities as members of the human species from the landscapes and seascapes that gave them their unique tribal cultures.

In a world where increasing numbers of people live in highly manufactured landscapes of suburbs and subdivisions, the ancient deep spatial knowledges of people and place held by American Indians and Alaska Natives are crucial if humankind is to find sustainable ways to live in a life-enhancing manner.

Collins reminded me that scientific knowledge can be useful to humankind, but, in and of itself, insufficient in generating life-enhancing knowledges for humankind.

The dualisms or dichotomies between the spiritual and material, culture and nature, subjective and objective, sacred and profane that operate so deeply in the Western worldview appear largely absent from the American Indian and Alaska Native worldviews of which I am familiar.

the deepest insights are gained in our doing.

Captain Richard Henry Pratt’s guiding principle for Indian education, as summed up at the nineteenth annual National Conference of Charities and Correction held in Denver, Colorado, in 1892: “Kill the Indian in him and save the man.” This principle resulted in a policy now widely recognized as the embodiment of cultural genocide.

a climate shift in our thinking and behavior: a cultural climate shift.

we have a responsibility to live respectfully for our children seven generations into the future.

Before we focus exclusively on looking for new technological solutions—and there will certainly be some—we should look at indigenous tribal knowledges for insights into how humankind might not merely survive this global crisis, but thrive in indigenously inspired cultures of life enhancement.