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November 10, 2021 19 mins

Jade Begay is the NDN collective’s Climate Justice Campaign Director. She is Diné and Tesuque Pueblo, has a Master of Arts degree in Environmental Leadership and is part of President Biden’s White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council.

 

Here are some resources that Jade Begay mentions in this episode:

NDN Collective

https://ndncollective.org/


Chasing Ice, Documentary

https://chasingice.com/


Sal Y Cielo, Documentary

https://www.taylorfreesolorees.com/project/sal-y-cielo


The New Zealand river that became a legal person, BBC March 2020

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20200319-the-new-zealand-river-that-became-a-legal-person


Will Northwest Seaweed Farming Finally Take Off?

https://www.nativeconservancy.org/2020/12/16/will-northwest-seaweed-farming-finally-take-off/


Solvable is produced by Jocelyn Frank, research by David Zha, booking by Lisa Dunn, our managing producer is Sachar Mathias and our Executive Producer is Mia Lobel. 

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin, this is solvable. I'm Ronald Young Junior. Last month
I spoke with doctor Adrian King, a citizen of the
Cherokee Nation and notable Native scholar and author. We talked
about Native erasure. We covered everything from visibility to lance,

(00:35):
sovereignty to appropriation. But there was one part of our
conversation that didn't make it into the episode that I
kept returning to when putting together this week's show. If
we're thinking about the future and like the climate catastrophe
that is coming and everything that is just feels like
it's about to come tumbling down around us, Indigenous knowledges

(00:56):
to me really offer us a pathway forward. We talk
about climate change a lot on this show, but not
often enough with members of indigenous communities. In fact, Indigenous
voices and native perspectives are noticeably under represented and climate
conversations overall on a global scale. But the indie In
Collective and Indigenous Led organization based in South Dakota believes

(01:19):
that effective climate policy can only be achieved by considering
all communities, perspectives, and solutions. Indigenous peoples across the world
are the world's first climate scientists. We were understanding ecosystems
and how they worked, long before Columbus set foot in

(01:43):
the America's long before there was such a thing as
a climate scientist. Jade Bigey is the director of the
Indian Collectives Climate Justice Campaign and is Navajo and Tasuki
Pueblo of New Mexico. Much of her work centers around
including Indigenous voices and climate discussions and finding opportunities to

(02:06):
employ indigenous solutions and the fight for our future. I
want to see climate policy informed by our people, for
our people. We spoke with Jade as she was attending
the United Nations Conference of the Parties or the cop
where thousands of people were gathering to discuss climate solutions.
Native and Indigenous practices can be injected into the climate

(02:29):
fight to solve previously unsolvable problems. Jade, would you consider
yourself to be a nature lover? I do consider myself
a nature lover. Check my Airbnb profile. I am like

(02:50):
I'm like, I'd rather be in the rural forests and
the places with no Wi Fi. And yeah, definitely. I'm
a horse writer at heart. I'm a backcountry hiker and skier.
That's what I do during my off time to find
joy I grew up playing in the snow and in

(03:13):
the mountains with all the aspens. That's where I feel
almost myself. And I think we become more centered, more grounded,
and really can connect with who we truly are when
we're in these spaces. So I'm seeing you light up
when you're talking about nature and you mentioned being in

(03:34):
it makes you feel more like who you truly are.
Tell me more about your identity and how that impacts
and inspires the work that you do. Yeah, I believe
my tribal identity and my cultural identity is ninety nine
point nine percent of why I do what I do. Definitely,

(03:59):
growing up traditionally so connected to my language and ceremony
has also been a really huge factor. And a lot
of people I've worked with from indigenous communities, whether that's
indigenous peoples in the Amazon or indigenous peoples in the Arctic,

(04:21):
if they lose their territories, if they have a river
that is poisoned by oil or by any other type
of pollution, that is a part of their identity. You
can't have the health of community and the health of

(04:42):
nature be separate. And something I would love to see
in climate policy that would honor indigenous rights and indigenous cosmology.
Is the rights of nature something that we're seeing playing
out in places like New Zealand where rivers have rights

(05:03):
just like humans have rights. Jade, you gave us an
example from New Zealand. What do you think US climate
policy might look like when it better reflects and incorporates
native values? Where should it start? I think it'd be
great to see climate policy reflect our demands for land back. Generally,

(05:28):
when we're talking about land back as organizing groups, as
grassroots organizations, as frontline communities, we're not talking about making
people go back to wherever they came from, but it's
really about having sovereignty and having self determination over lands

(05:49):
that were stolen from us, and reconnecting and revitalizing culture
and land practices so that we can bring the environment
the climate back into a balance. The ability to have
self determination it covers being able to practice our cosmologies

(06:10):
and to practice our ways of life and have the
right to be able to do so in the future.
Talking about, you know, sovereignty of native lands, and you're
talking about the landback movement. Last month we talked with
doctor Adrian Keane and she mentioned that there's indigenous knowledge
that could provide a pathway forward, especially when it comes

(06:30):
to the impending climate catastrophe. Can you talk through what
some of that knowledge is. Yeah, So, indigenous peoples across
the world are the world's first climate scientists. We were
understanding ecosystems and how they worked long before Columbus set foot,

(06:55):
you know in the America's or long before you know,
there was such a thing as a climate scientist. And
so we have this intrinsic and this is you know,
yes for people like from my community, but also indigenous
peoples all over the world. We have this really old

(07:16):
knowledge about how to keep ecosystems in balance, like whether
that's knowing how to have safe birds of woods or
forests to ensure that there's a reduced risk of wildfire,
whether that's knowing how to create safety barriers on coasts

(07:41):
to protect people from erosion and floods. There's all kinds
of knowledge that exists out there, and those are real
climate solutions and they need to be invested in, but
they also need to be acknowledged in places like here
at the cop where thousands of people are about to
get here and discuss, you know, climate solutions Indigenous knowledge

(08:05):
really needs to be upheld in these types of spaces,
and also at the level of local and city climate
management and building. When cities and towns build climate plans
or adaptation plans, they need to consider local indigenous knowledge
and really make relationships with those people to inform those plans.

(08:28):
Do you have any examples of where indigenous solutions are
in place to help fight climate change currently? Yeah, there's
so many indigenous led solutions. One I'll speak about is
a local regenerative economy based on the farming of kelp
and the fishing practices in southeast Alaska and the Kelp

(08:51):
is is a many fold two, three, fourfold solution where
it cleans the water, it removes carbon dioxide, it becomes
a fuel, it can become a food source. They're building
an economy out of that, so creating a local product
that they can sell with the community and provide food

(09:13):
to the community. And then with the fishing, they're doing
something that they've always done and turning that into a
program where they feed their elders and providing jobs and
so it's this whole circular model, but it's addressing all
the things food and equity, job and security, climate change.

(09:34):
So that is being led by native conservancy and building
land trusts and reclaiming land. And so those are the
types of models that we want to empower and invest
in and support. And I'll shout out my team at
Expedition Studios where my dear friend and colleague and I

(09:57):
are working on a film called Salec Yellow, which translate
to Sultan Sky. And this film is about lithium mining
in ChIL And so this is another climate story about
how as we're building the renewable economy here in the
global North and all over the world, all of those

(10:21):
solar panels, all of those wind turbines, electric cars, etc. Etc.
They need lithium, They need minerals for the batteries. But
where where does that come from? Indigenous lands? So again
we're creating this other, you know, this other dynamic of
consuming and taking too much than what a community or

(10:43):
the earth can handle. And how do we deal with that.
Part of the problem of pushing for policy change is
that there's a tendency to try to solve many nuanced
issues with one federal bill. Is there a strategy for
addressing the ways in which different communities are affected by
climate change with a more tailored approach. Yeah, so I

(11:06):
think a lot of climate and environmental justice dis groups
are already saying one says does not fit all. With
my role in the wee Jack, the White House Environmental
Justice Advisory Council, I'm actually fairly impressed by the diversity
of people on that Advisory Council to do. To do

(11:27):
just this, we have to pressure within the EPA, within
you know, the White House Climate Team, the Army Corps
of Engineers, etc. Make who make these decisions that impact
our community. We have to create indicators for them to
get the capacity to understand the nuances of all these

(11:50):
different communities. And it's not just with you know, solutions building,
it's also about investment. And my team at end In
Collective we wrote a memo on this this past summer.
We knew that the infrastructure package was coming down the line,
and one big capacity gap in small communities or rural

(12:12):
communities and tribes for example, is capacity to distribute funding equitably.
And so something that we're doing now is advising these groups,
these agencies to also invest in capacity so that when
these communities receive all this funding, it can flow and

(12:36):
not just flow in one zone, but flow across the
community in an equitable way. So I'm pretty passionate about race,
and I think that's come through on the show were

(12:58):
the one episode. But I think one thing that I
don't think about is often is issues of environmental justice.
How does the fight for racial equity intersect with with
your work to craft climate policy. Racial equity is climate justice,
and climate justice is racial equities. So climate policy could

(13:20):
include practical ideas of decolonization, taking into account things like truth, reconciliation,
and reparations. You know, those types of practices on the
city council level, at the state level, at the national
level really do have impacts that you know, are really

(13:41):
connected to like racial equity. You know, when we are
able to claim land back or reclaim our lands. In
some cases, yes, maybe there is like conservation models happening
where we're protecting land or protecting sacred sites, but in
other cases developing land so that we can welcome our

(14:03):
relatives who have had to move because of climate impacts.
We're really thinking about where we're headed and these are
the realities, and we're really trying to prepare for all
of the challenges. You're on the Environmental Justice Advisory council,
So you're actually in there doing the work. What's it

(14:24):
like working within that political system knowing that it's a
system that in the past has been oppressive towards Native
and Indigenous folks? What does that look like working in
that system in order to actually create the type of
change that you need. Working in this system, it's been challenging,
it's been frustrating, but all with the nuance that we've

(14:49):
made a lot of progress. Deb Halland is the Secretary
of Interior and managing department that oversees the BIA, the
Bureau of Indian Affairs, and never before has an Indigenous
person held that role. Now we have an Indigenous person

(15:10):
making decisions about a department that really impacts our people
and our tribes. So I feel a lot more comfortable
working within a system that has made that type of progress.
I'm also seeing grassroots leaders such as myself in these

(15:30):
types of roles, advising, giving guidance, helping these agencies navigate
really the changing landscape when we're talking about what equity means,
when we talk about what justice means, and really from
a foundational place of wanting to dismantle white supremacy within

(15:51):
these systems, I also see grassroots leaders holding roles in
the Department of Indian Energy. For example, my clan sister
Hala John's as Salt of the Earth organizer from Navajo Nation,
who has worked so hard for her people to transition
from coal energy to renewable energy, is now leading that department.

(16:16):
So I think it's all to say that it's always
going to be frustrating working within these systems until we've
really changed them, until we've achieved our big movement goals
of systems change. But the progress that we've made, especially
considering the last four years, it's really huge, and I

(16:39):
urge people all the time that I work with, that
I speak to, that follow me on social media to
not take that for granted, knowing that in the next
four years we could have a different president who has
a different agenda. How do you plan to keep this
agenda moving forward despite ever changing political landscape, Ronald, This

(17:01):
is a fast and nuanced question. We won the twenty
twenty election by a hair you know, it was so close,
and so we need to be working in better relationship
now and through next year in the lead up to

(17:22):
the next presidential election. If we continue to play this
kind of you know, woke police against each other and
shut each other down because we're not, you know, the
perfect model of equity or justice, then we're really going
to continue to stay divided and see our progressive movements

(17:45):
separate and diverge. You know what I'm not seeing is
the other side separate in the way that we are,
and that really concerns me. Where can listeners learn more
about the causes that you're focused on? Are there films, books,

(18:06):
anything like that? Yeah? Yeah, so our handles are all
the same on all the platforms. And DAN Collective and
then my entire undergrad I was watching documentaries and learning
about people. A lot of these stories were about the environment,
and one documentary that impacted me the most, I think

(18:29):
to move into this direction was the documentary Chasing Ice,
which is about the rate at which glaciers are melting
and that advocates or climate justice. The film is by
jeff Orlaski, who I can now call a really dearer

(18:51):
and close friend and colleague. Jay, thank you so much
for being with us today. We learned so much. Thank you.
It's an honor to speak with you. Ja Biggay is
the Indian Collectives Climate Justice Campaign director She is Navajo
and Tasuki Pueblo, has a Master of Arts degree in
environmental leadership and as part of President Biden's White House

(19:13):
Environmental Justice Advisory Council. You can find a link to
the Indian Collective and to Jade's film sell E Cielo
in our show notes. Solvable is produced by Jocelyn Frank,
researched by David Jah, booking by Lisa Dunn. Our managing
producer is Sasha Matthias, and our executive producer is Mio LaBelle.
I'm Ronald Young Jr. Thanks for listening.
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