Mountain Sentinels Fellow Promotes 30×30

Mountain Sentinels Fellow 2020-2021

The lack of sustainable energy was exacerbated through COVID. COVID made it very apparent that tribes across the nation don’t have running water or electricity. Those two resources are commodities in a capitalistic nation, that in which we live. To incorporate our tribal values and Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) in our current lives and make it sustainable is a key goal in the current 30×30 moratorium. These issues weren’t an issue before colonialism. Today, with colonial capitalistic attitudes, living a clean life is very difficult. Tribal health is impacted along with lack of clean water, land and air. Now is a great time to start transitioning. 30×30 here means by 2030 30% of our extractive industry and contributions of carbon-based fuels will be eliminated and replaced with renewables. How tribes replace that will be a unique challenge, especially with respect to tax revenue and how they can replace fossil fuels and extractive fuels while continuing to diversify tribal revenue and markets.

I worked under the idea of 30×30 by understanding what the issues at hand are for my tribe. I researched what renewable energy was and how carbon extractive resources like oil and gas are in general, and how they are impacting our health and climate. I also looked at how other tribes have transitioned and what they did in order to organize and to have the ability to transition to meet the climate change emergency. Many tribes and other great nations are transitioning to low carbon footprint processes to generate sustainable futures. COVID may have exacerbated these impacts in tribes; however, the fact that there’s always been a lack of even general everyday resources is totally unacceptable. Everyone should have clean water and the ability to have water that warms up to kill germs. By bridging the traditional tribal world with tribal values and ancient teachings tribes are at the forefront of transitioning for the betterment of future generations – we also see it as protecting mother nature from future extractions. Knowing all this information has helped me generate and research how other tribes have transitioned and have ideas and models to help my tribe in transition. I have finalized my findings and depending on how I present this information I will be able to have a great discussion on how to achieve 30×30.

 

Remember Tribal Transitions=Tribal Traditions. Thanks. #Tribaltraditionalsequaltribaltraditions, #TTequalTT