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00:00:30.000Hello, and welcome to For the Wild podcast. I'm Ayanna Young. Today, I'm speaking with
00:00:41.740I would tell the coming generation that we are preparing ourselves for you. We are readying
00:00:50.860this place for you. And that you, our descendants, are worthy of fighting for.
00:01:00.000that you are worthy of a safe and healthy home.
00:01:06.240Ruth Savaya Kison is a Dena'ina Athabaskan and Ashkenazi Russian Jewish woman raised in
00:01:13.040Degayakak, Alaska. She is a member of the Chilean tribe from the Lake Clark region
00:01:18.660and also has roots in Bristol Bay. She is a recent graduate from Brown University,
00:01:23.960built on occupied Wampanoag and Narragansett lands, and received a BA in critical development
00:01:31.040studies with a focus on Indigenous resistance and liberation. Ruth is the Climate Justice and
00:01:37.220Just Transition Director for Native Movement, a matriarchal grassroots Indigenous organization.
00:01:43.960She has worked many years towards climate justice and a regenerative economy for all on her lands
00:01:49.000and beyond. Her work also includes international advocacy, including attending the UN Permanent
00:01:54.720Forum on Indigenous Issues, the UN Youth Climate Summit, COP25 in Madrid, Spain, and the Continental
00:02:01.720Gathering of Indigenous Women of the Americas. She is a daughter, a granddaughter, an auntie,
00:02:08.060a language learner, a traditional beadworker, and a subsistence fisherwoman.
00:02:12.560oh Ruth I am so happy to be having this time with you I'm so just excited I've been excited
00:02:27.120to talk with you on the podcast and beyond so this moment together is already warming my heart
00:02:34.440and I'm so looking forward to all the places we're about to go
00:02:37.680I absolutely share the same sentiment it feels precious it's like precious
00:02:44.880seeds we're planting to get there I love that well Ruth to begin I wonder if you would like
00:02:53.460to introduce yourself to our listeners of course everyone
00:03:07.680My English name is Ruth Miller, and my Dena'ina Athabasca name is Lshivayak Eason, gifted
00:03:24.420to me by Danita Slasin of Tyonic Village, my first language teacher.
00:03:28.800And I'll also share that my Jewish name is Khut Shlomo de Yisrael.
00:03:32.000I was born and raised here in my Dena'ina homelands of Dehaye Kak, otherwise known as Anchorage, Alaska.
00:03:38.380But my family is from the Lake Clark area, traveling down to Bristol Bay before coming into Anchorage.
00:03:44.600And I'm presently the climate justice director for a grassroots matriarchal indigenous nonprofit here in Alaska called Native Movement.
00:03:54.980And I'm so happy to be speaking here today.
00:03:56.720Thank you so much for grounding us with that introduction. And yeah, I want to start by asking about how you define a just transition. And this term has gained so much momentum, but often I think many default to a very limited understanding of it that focuses on its implications in context, you know, to jobs, the economy and policy.
00:04:25.660But I read some of your reflections that powerfully remind us that a just transition can also be understood not just as a linear objective, but as a cyclical movement inspired by reciprocity, kinship, and care.
00:04:43.100So as a climate justice organizer working towards just transition, can you share what the totality of this idea means for you?
00:04:51.600well let me take us back a little bit um you know my elders and my culture remind me that we always
00:04:59.640have to begin with stories and for me to be telling the story you know our listeners have
00:05:04.960to remember that i don't come to this work as an environmentalist i don't identify as an
00:05:09.360environmentalist everything that it means to be an indigenous woman intrinsically is connected
00:05:15.260to the protection of our lands our waters our air and the protection of one another
00:05:19.700our call to justice, our call to reciprocity, to community care and fundamental compassion.
00:05:26.700And so being an indigenous climate justice activist or organizer, you know, are all ways
00:05:33.580of saying the same thing, that I am investing every spark of my being into a world founded
00:05:43.740on reciprocity that my ancestors would recognize and that my descendants would be grateful for.
00:05:50.400And so when we think of just transition, we're not thinking of an economic shift, although that
00:05:56.720is one aspect of moving from an extractive economy to a regenerative economy. But the just
00:06:02.880transition framework, when it first came to Alaska, resonated here because it is everything that is
00:06:08.520so intrinsic to Indigenous well-being and the success and the thriving of Indigenous societies.
00:06:15.060When Just Transition came to Alaska, we realized that we needed a different name for it, that we
00:06:19.980needed something that we could see ourselves in. And so we began calling Just Transition
00:06:25.300which in the language of the Benti Kanaga language means we remember, remembering forward.
00:06:33.100That is what just transition is to us. It is an act of remembering forward, an ethos, an ideology of bringing our sacred teachings, our traditional life ways and practices, and our fundamental value of reciprocity and interdependency and interconnectedness that bring our economy into a spiral that both takes inspiration from the past and thinks about tending to the future.
00:06:59.940So that's an economy that incorporates aspects of just government management. It also incorporates food security, justice for workers and immigrants, justice for families, and the care economy incorporates aspects of education, and of course, you know, renewable resources.
00:07:19.760but it also introduces a reminder that all of this economy, all of this economic transition
00:07:27.080must be founded on a worldview of reciprocity, a worldview of responsibility for one another
00:07:33.800and fundamental community. Wow, what a beautiful response. Thank you for
00:07:41.660taking us there. Now, as mentioned, you recently moved into the role of climate justice director
00:07:48.660with Native movement. And I'd love to hear your reflections on this because certainly land defense
00:07:55.780and environmental protection is something that Indigenous people have been doing long before
00:08:01.300there was this idea of a, you know, climate change movement. But I'd say in the past decade,
00:08:08.920things have definitely shifted in terms of the strategies and difficulties that arise in context
00:08:15.400to what many might understand as oncoming climate chaos. So what does climate justice work
00:08:23.260look like right now? And what do you think are some of the most important areas that we need
00:08:30.520to course correct? Well, instead of speaking of my most recent job position, I think I'd like to
00:08:37.120speak to my very first, which was when I was 15 years old. I flew out to Bristol Bay, the area
00:08:43.700that my grandmother was raised. And I began working for a summer with the United Tribes of
00:08:48.160Bristol Bay, particularly gathering testimony and doing community education, civic education around
00:08:54.860the proposed pebble mine, which would have devastated our entire watershed, the last great
00:09:00.220salmon fishery in the world. And not only a supporter of 14,000 plus jobs annually, but
00:09:07.880additionally you know our salmon are our blood our salmon are our lifelines they're our predominant
00:09:14.700food source and they're also the backbone of our culture in the bay and so I flew out and
00:09:20.940stayed with a wonderful precious family of mine who's you know very close to me to this day
00:09:26.340and was getting nervous for my first day of work first real job when I realized that I had to call
00:09:35.340in and tell my boss I couldn't go to work. And the reason was because the night before
00:09:42.180I was supposed to begin my job, the King Sam, the Lhika had hit the nets and it was time to pick1.00
00:09:47.740fish. And I called my boss, a very dear mentor of mine, Alana Hurley, and told her, hey, the fish0.99
00:09:55.640came in. And without a second of hesitation, she said, yep, go work. See you tomorrow. And, you
00:10:02.480know, in retrospect, that was my first day of climate advocacy. It wasn't, you know, sitting
00:10:09.000in an office writing testimony templates for our people. It was being with my people on the land,
00:10:16.080cutting and processing fish, returning the hospitality that I was gifted with, you know,
00:10:22.540my labor and my work, using our hands together to learn and prepare this fish to feed our families
00:10:30.940for the months and months to come, it was an act of honoring the animal relatives that I would then
00:10:36.580go on to fight for in other forms. And so when I think about what climate justice work looks like
00:10:43.100today, I'm always reminded of those first days on the shoreline, picking fish and centering myself
00:11:07.840But the core of that work is the heart
00:11:10.140that will never leave those shores of the Bay
00:11:13.380and that will never leave my approach to climate justice.
00:11:17.660And so now when we're thinking about what areas of,
00:11:21.540you know, climate policy, climate organizing that we need to course correct. I still fundamentally
00:11:29.080feel that it is that ideology, that sentiment that underlies all of our work and our approach
00:11:34.520to one another. You know, whether it's working with environmental big green groups here in Alaska
00:11:39.980and challenging them to decolonize and come to just transition principles, center frontline
00:11:44.860voices, you know, that's a huge aspect of our work. So is, you know, advocating within national
00:11:51.180and international platforms, be it with the Green New Deal Network and the Thrive Agenda,
00:11:55.640or in preparations for COP26 in Glasgow of this year, the ideology that guides our work
00:12:05.080has to be a reminder of why we are fighting. It has to be spiritual. It has to be soulful.
00:12:13.220It has to be warming. It has to be comforting. The why of our work and the principles that
00:12:20.620underlie climate justice advocacy will lead to justice-informed policies. They will lead
00:12:27.560to negotiations that center frontline voices and grassroots communities.
00:12:34.480If we are able to reintroduce an ethos of care and a determination to see our values being
00:12:42.020centered at the heart of every policy writing and decision-making space and to hear our
00:12:47.880indigenous voices in those rooms, that is the biggest change that I think we could see
00:12:53.700implemented. That's the biggest shift that we could advocate for because that value system1.00
00:13:02.660would then trickle down into those policies and into those decisions, ensuring that we can see
00:13:08.140ourselves in all forms of climate justice advocacy. Wow, I'm hanging on every word and I really
00:13:17.860appreciate the form that you're speaking about this work within. And, you know, a theme that
00:13:26.960has been very present for me and one that I'm always reminded of in context to so much of the
00:13:33.440grassroots organizing going on in Alaska is that of abundance. And you recently shared some
00:13:40.000reflections on abundance as a mindset. And I'm hoping we could revisit this topic as it feels
00:13:46.860like it's so often overlooked in mainstream movements because there is this emphasis on
00:13:53.320scarcity and saviorism. And I wonder if you could speak to how abundance shows up in your work or
00:14:02.280perhaps what it could mean for our objectives, organizing community and personal well-being
00:14:10.080if we took a more abundance-centric approach to this work?
00:14:15.020I think that deficit thinking was one of the most toxic and predatory forms of colonization0.99
00:14:22.580that was brought to Indigenous peoples.0.91
00:14:25.060Deficit thinking teaches us to be scared.0.98
00:14:27.920It teaches us to fear one another, to fear the future.
00:14:33.620It shuts down our ability to think creatively.
00:14:36.420And it sends us into forms of all or nothing thinking, me or you thinking, that is fundamentally opposed to the types of community investment that our people thrived within for 20,000 plus years.
00:14:54.360Abundance thinking, however, is a fundamental part of who we are as Indigenous peoples and who we must be as a global community.
00:15:03.520In my culture, one of the most principled, insisted upon practices is sharing our harvest. I don't know that I can think of a more shameful act than hoarding food and hoarding harvest for yourself.
00:15:24.380in our communities, the first catch, the first hunt, the first bucket of berries always, always,
00:15:32.360always goes to our elders. And from then on, everything is shared across community. We share
00:15:38.000our harvest, we share our hunt so that no one goes without, but also because it deepens our
00:15:44.040relationships with one another. Being in a mindset where we always have more to share, regardless of
00:15:50.880how much you have materially, you will always have more to share, whether it's time or energy
00:15:56.060or a shoulder to lean on, or whether it's a full freezer that you can share out with others who
00:16:02.240don't have that abundance. Being in relationships of reciprocity mean that you can rely on me
00:16:10.420because I can rely on you. And the currency of this gift economy is gratitude and relationship
00:16:17.640instead of money. And that in and of itself is exercising ideological resistance to this
00:16:26.480colonial scarcity thinking that teaches us that we are poor, that teaches us that we are oppressed,
00:16:32.100that teaches us that we are less than. Recentering ourselves away from capitalism and a market
00:16:39.100economy means that we have the ability to redefine our successes and our cultural wealth and our
00:16:47.880linguistical wealth and our ancestral knowledge that so many others don't have and therefore
00:16:52.960resist ethos of a market economy that base wealth in private accumulation. It reminds me so much of
00:17:03.860the writings and works of Robin Wall Kimmerer, of course, a huge light in my life. She wrote
00:17:12.900particularly on abundance in her work titled The Serviceberry. And she spoke on the ethic
00:17:21.140of reciprocity at the heart of the gift economy. And this in and of itself is what it means to be
00:17:28.480indigenous and is one of the most critical aspects of, um, not just climate organizing,
00:17:36.280but, but being with one another, being in community and building healthy communities
00:17:41.160based on wellness and community investment. And so when we translate this to thinking about,
00:17:48.560you know, an abundance centric approach and climate organizing, um, one of my favorite
00:17:54.700reminders that I'll yell from the rooftops is that we have our solutions. The climate crisis
00:18:00.940was not inevitable. It is not irreparable. And every choice that was made by power hoarders
00:18:09.580that got us to this moment of climate chaos was that it was a choice. And we as a collective,
00:18:15.960we as a people have the ability to make different choices, to learn from those mistakes and to learn
00:18:23.440from our ancestral imperatives that successfully lived in tandem and in harmony with our lands
00:18:32.280and waters and heirs, our plant and animal relatives with one another, with diverse nations
00:18:36.620for millennia. The legacy of colonization, of course, is a process and not an event,
00:18:43.640But it was a relatively small, dark mark on, and is a, it continues to be a dark mark on a much, much longer history of abundance, of thriving, of reciprocity, of all these, you know, concepts that we've evoked just in our short conversation so far.
00:19:04.060And so reminding our people, you know, we have the solutions that are hidden in our languages. We have the solutions that are hidden in our subsistence practices. We know in our spirits, we know in our hearts what it means to live in right relationship with the world. And now it is our role to take those teachings, to take those successes and translate them to the scale and the demand at which we need change now.
00:19:27.660I am just following your words really closely and I appreciate all of the heart and love and thoughtfulness that you have put into understanding so much intensity and beauty and all that jazz.
00:19:47.760But I wanted to bring up that, you know, last month, as we all know, in March of 2021, Deb Haaland was confirmed as the first Native American Interior Secretary, a position which oversees federal lands, natural resources, protecting cultural heritage, and many programs related to the United States' trust responsibility to Indigenous peoples.
00:20:13.020and i know that this is a topic that we could talk about for the whole hour because it holds
00:20:19.620so much within it you know history the purpose of these departments the recognition of deb hall
00:20:26.180and criticisms etc but i'd just like to share something you wrote on instagram and reflections
00:20:32.900of this moment quote leading a department that has caused our people unspeakable trauma and pain
00:20:41.080we now have the opportunity for sacred transformation, deep healing, and profound
00:20:47.800justice to our peoples and all our lands, end quote. So as an entrance into discussing
00:20:58.000the importance and limitations of policy work, I wonder if for listeners you could share
00:21:04.720what this appointment signifies for folks who are doing the kind of work that you are and
00:21:10.920what it could mean for the next four years? Well, for listeners who might not understand
00:21:18.700the full implications of what this means for not just Indian country, but for this nation as a
00:21:23.980whole, I would remind them that the Department of Interior is a powerful branch of the U.S.
00:21:29.960government that is devoted to not only all lands management, but within it holds the Bureau of
00:21:36.060Indian Affairs. Now, the Department of the Interior, many don't know this, was formerly
00:21:42.100the Department of War. And it was the same department that managed the mass genocide and
00:21:48.840attempted extinction of indigenous peoples across Turtle Island, what is now called America.
00:21:54.620And this Department of War was consistently determined not only to extinguish all indigenous
00:22:02.520Aboriginal title to land, but to exterminate Indian people. They did this first through0.69
00:22:10.020warfare as the Department of War. And later when the department changed, it was sought through
00:22:16.540education, unfortunately. And so this department, through the Department of the Interior, through
00:22:24.140the Bureau of Indian Affairs, was most well-known to many of us through their abusive and just0.52
00:22:32.500tragically devastating education system, which took our children from their home communities and0.98
00:22:39.880attempted to assimilate them. The very common phrase that I hate to hear leaving my own mouth
00:22:48.780is the ethos of that time, which was kill the Indian, save the man. These were the boarding0.93
00:22:54.260schools where our children were taken to have their hair cut, to be whipped, beaten, often violated0.81
00:23:00.900and raped so that they would forget what it meant to be indigenous. Not that there was0.98
00:23:05.920much potential, even if they were to, you know, whiten and lighten themselves for advancement in0.56
00:23:15.420white supremacist society. So now that we have a Native American interior secretary, the first in0.91
00:23:22.860171 years of this department and 53 secretaries, the question that we're actually getting at is0.52
00:23:30.400how can we do radical work within a fundamentally white supremacist structure? Is that possible?
00:23:37.900And truth be told, it's a question that I ask myself all the time in my pathways for advocacy.
00:23:44.040But not only is Deb Haaland's appointment, you know, Auntie Deb's appointment symbolic and
00:23:50.720powerful because of this dark history of trauma, but it is also a serious impetus for change.
00:23:57.940You know, I recommend readers check out some writing done by Nick Estes, an Indigenous scholar on this change in the administration. But Deb Haaland has a difficult road ahead of her and will have to negotiate, you know, rather centrist and pro-corporation interests even within the Democratic Party and Biden's administration.
00:24:21.060So Auntie Deb needs us to push her. She will not be able to achieve the forms of radical change and ideological shift that has been ingrained in this department for 171 plus years without our loud and proud advocacy insisting on these radical shifts that we need to see.
00:24:45.440You know, I have to imagine that even within these structures that, you know, are unequivocally founded on extreme racism and white supremacy and radical individualism and all these aspects of this oppressive regime, the U.S. empire that many of us can wear our voices out analyzing.
00:25:10.620Even within a structure such as that, a Native woman leading lands management in this country brings with it not only all of her ancestral teachings and her cultural learnings, but it brings with it so much potential and so much opportunity because Auntie Deb will not be the last.
00:25:34.180She will be the first of many, many, many. But everything that gets done under her watch will come from the people. And so I'd really encourage folks not to sit back and relax because we won one, but to work in collaboration with our shared interests and with our shared vision.
00:26:02.640Because it will continue to take pushing, it will continue to take, you know, radical imagination and insistence and ambitious, audacious demands from the people who are intent on preserving our lands and our peoples for generations to come.
00:27:30.440And I feel that rising happening within us, within the folks around us. I feel that desire from people to want to be involved, want to be engaged, wanting to be within this radical imagination movement towards something that many of us can't even begin to imagine what it could look like.
00:27:59.700But pushing ourselves to imagine, I think, is so important and sticking with it.
00:28:05.580And, you know, there is this other thought that comes up for me and, you know, just something
00:28:11.540where you're really going to have to grapple with in the next couple of years is the creation
00:28:17.700of more and more sacrifice zones should aggressive development of green energy be pushed through.
00:28:23.340Now, in the so-called United States, we know what these sacrifice zones look like in context to uranium mining and oil and gas, etc.
00:28:33.020But going forward, I believe we'll need to expand our understanding of these zones in relationship to green energy.
00:28:41.980And I'm curious how you contend with this, and if you think you'll see this in Alaska, and how we should begin to wrap our minds around this.
00:28:51.600so first I think I'd like to take us back to a bit of a reflection on Alaska in particular
00:29:00.460and paint a better picture of where we are today resource extraction began only really about 50
00:29:10.460years ago a number of decades ago when the land began to be seen by settler society as a resource
00:29:20.660that can be extracted from, that is fundamentally oppositional to any indigenous perspective that
00:29:27.960cannot understand land or earth, our relative, our mother as a resource that can be taken
00:29:36.040and seized, even owned, much less destroyed and left in despair and devastation.
00:29:43.060This reminds us of the gift economy that we had pre-contact and still manifest today. That is one of reciprocity.
00:29:54.480Resource extraction in our lands is what brought the U.S. empire to annex Alaska, basically, without the consent of the indigenous peoples here to falsely purchase it from Russia, who certainly never owned it in the first place, and to begin to seek exercising legal jurisdiction, formal jurisdiction over land claims.
00:30:24.480here. So what this means is that our communities that have always lived closest with the land,
00:30:33.120that have always been the experts on climate in these precious places that are woven into
00:30:40.560our genealogies, are also now the first to suffer at the hand of climate chaos.
00:30:45.540So not only are we seeing increased resource extraction contributing to rising global
00:30:52.200temperatures, which leaves our communities vulnerable to melting sea ice, to coastal
00:30:57.920erosion, to melting permafrost, but also locally, resource extraction in state has led to extraordinarily
00:31:06.460high rates of toxins being leached into our atmosphere and our waters, into our food
00:31:12.060systems, whether it be turning the marrow of our caribou black, or whether it be higher
00:31:19.740rates of respiratory illness and cancers and decreased fertility in our rural communities.
00:31:27.360And additionally, of course, proximity to development, unfortunately and tragically,
00:31:33.740as our relatives in so-called Canada know all too well, also correlates with an increased rate of
00:31:41.640violence against our Indigenous women and girls and two-spirit relatives.
00:31:46.180So we, our bodies as indigenous people have become the battlegrounds of climate chaos. So when I think about sacrifice zones, I'm not just thinking about, you know, sites and mines and oil fields, our bodies are the sacrifice zones of development.
00:32:05.260And if green renewables, if this new green economy continues to perpetuate the same ethos that resource extraction has, then we will not find any solutions and we will see our suffering perpetuated.
00:32:28.380When it comes to the push for green energy, we seriously have to consider if we are just trying to replicate the systems of overconsumption and consumerism that have gotten us into this mess in the first place, or if we are willing to create new patterns and behaviors that are committed to abolishing human rights violations from resource supply chains,
00:32:53.480And that are committed to abolishing high waste overconsumption as a societal practice. My next reading on this, because of course I have much more learning to do, is a piece that I just found by War on Want titled The Material Transition, which examines the potential devastation by the rush on transition materials, materials and minerals needed for transitioning energy economy.
00:33:19.200And in my little reading that I have done, they really emphasize the potential for circular economies being introduced, which would be a departure from the way even green energy is being approached now.
00:33:35.880And by circular economies, they mean economies and systems where in all aspects of biological and technical nutrients, inputs, flow and cycles, that we're an economy where we repurpose, we repair, reuse, refurbish, recycle, but we also compost and integrate smart design to ensure that these systems of green energy will be different than the extractive practices and the exploitative practices.
00:34:05.880that got us here in the first place. And if they're not determined to break those cycles
00:34:10.020of exploitation, then we will not see any relief as a climate or as a society.
00:34:16.740And so I think specifically of renewables that are rooted in Indigenous ideologies,
00:34:22.640but that are also supporting our frontline Indigenous communities. I think of Walia
00:34:27.040Johns, who is the founder of Native Renewables, an Indigenous-owned solar company that's brought
00:34:33.740solar energy to 15,000 homes on the Navajo reservation. I think of the work of Edwin
00:34:39.640Byfelt here in Alaska, the creator of Alaska Native Renewable Industries that's bringing
00:34:44.720Kotzebue, one of our rural hubs, to at least 50% renewables, plus dozens and dozens of local
00:34:52.120hires. We have to integrate a value system. We have to integrate holistic, whole system thinking
00:35:00.400into any type of new energy economy that we're creating.
00:35:05.900Otherwise, we'll just be substituting materials
00:35:08.280and creating more destruction and devastation
00:35:30.400Thank you for speaking to this really complicated arrangement with such grace and transparency and clarity.
00:35:40.940I appreciate just the care that you are taking when thinking about this and a lot of respect.
00:35:49.400But going back to radical imagination and, you know, I'd like to ask you about this fruitful space of bridging radical imagination and policy as a meaningful step into creating futures that are non-extractive.
00:36:06.660And as someone who has worked at the intersections of climate justice, regenerative economies, and international advocacy, while having a background in critical development studies, how can you encourage folks to think about policy in a way that challenges the sort of understanding that frames it as a very stagnant form of compromise?
00:36:30.020You know, I struggle with this all the dang time. It is absolutely a legitimate challenge
00:36:38.260to these very slow systems of change. But I actually would encourage folks to sit in that
00:36:48.020discomfort, to continue weighing impatience and patience, to continue weighing compromise and
00:36:55.080our North Star demands, and to stay in that unease, because that is where we get to the
00:37:02.440core of what we need. That is where we get to the most ambitious solutions, if we stay in that
00:37:08.140discomfort. You know, personally, for me, working between radical imagination and policy, I
00:37:14.060am frustrated all the time. And I am sometimes doubtful. And I'm sometimes hopeful. And that
00:37:24.900movement, that conversation, that interplay between, you know, whether it be a North Star,
00:37:32.340whether it be a visionary dream, or whether it be an Overton window, what is politically realistic,
00:37:38.780has to continue that dialogue. We must always be determined to push for, you know, not just
00:37:49.980what we think we can get, but what we know that we need. That might happen incrementally.
00:37:58.000You know, our elders teach us patience, but the fundamental lesson is that we must take the next
00:38:04.880best wise step toward that vision. And so I don't think that working incrementally has to be
00:38:11.860stagnant. I don't think that the types of policy change that we might see, you know,
00:38:21.100month by month or year by year comes without years of expertise and years of knowledge and
00:38:28.400advocacy and such, you know, little wins are still wins, but ensuring that they continue to build and
00:38:35.540that momentum is not lost, is so crucially important. It makes me think, living here in
00:38:43.160Alaska, anyone who spends time out on the land would know the difference between a stagnant
00:38:51.000body of water, stagnant lagoon versus a body of water that has some movement, that has some
00:38:56.860spirit, that's making progress, that's changing and shifting, or a frozen lake versus a lake
00:39:04.940That's slowly thawing. That's slowly changing. The qualities of these relatives are so distinct. The qualities teach us that, you know, change is happening even if we don't necessarily see it on the surface. And I think that that has to be the type of radical imagination that we engage when we think about policy advocacy.
00:39:25.060And I personally am no expert in policy specifics or legislative lobbying, but in my experience, that consistency, that determined drive to continue being visionary and to continue to engage imagination is what will continuously open more doors for conversation and progress.
00:42:19.860It's also thinking a lot about the care economy and how we implement reproductive justice
00:42:26.540in, in, uh, in a recovery. And so it's, it's acts like the thrive agenda, the thrive act
00:42:33.140that really, you know, whether they get passed or not, these pieces inspire me to think creatively
00:42:42.320about what policy can achieve for us and what it means to have an act written in this way,
00:42:48.780written by these communities in tandem and in coalition and in allyship with one another.
00:42:54.380So I'd really encourage folks to go check that out if they'd like to, thriveagenda.org. It's something that we in Alaska see ourselves in because so much of the progress being made and articulated in this act comes from us.
00:43:08.140It's what we have already been doing for centuries, if not millennia, but it's also resonant of our devoted communities that are working on justice in the carceral system and justice for immigrants and indigenous sovereignty and self-determination.
00:43:26.100This is a piece of policy that, again, we can see ourselves in and that will give us frameworks and tools beyond just the singular act to continue to build on and to continue to push Congress on as we work to make progress.
00:44:26.080It might break your fall, but when the fall stands, the heart still, it fall.
00:44:41.120Fumble through the days, can't sleep, I just lie, starvingly in love.
00:44:52.580Yeah, I want to talk about your roots a bit.
00:44:58.500And, you know, you had mentioned with roots in Bristol Bay, you've long been involved in work around protecting this bay from the proposed pebble mine.
00:45:08.420And just as a reminder for listeners, Bristol Bay is home to the world's largest sockeye salmon run.
00:45:15.040but alongside it is the pebble deposit which contains an estimated 500 billion dollars worth
00:45:22.160of copper and gold ultimately in november of 2020 the army corps of engineers rejected an essential
00:45:29.960permit for the project and i know you began working with the united tribes of bristol bay at 15 i love
00:45:36.680that story from earlier you know encouraging fishermen to testify against this mine and
00:45:41.760This example just evokes a lot of different thoughts around how we come together, understanding success, and the long-term commitment of protecting place.
00:45:53.720And I think Pebble Mine is maybe an example that the work isn't ever truly done.
00:45:58.640In fact, I've heard you speak about how the chronology is not linear.
00:46:05.660And I believe you've shared similar reflections on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as well.
00:46:10.140So I'd love if you could speak about the importance of balancing the joy of success while also understanding that we must ask ourselves to hold our attention to place beyond a deadline.
00:46:23.020absolutely you know especially considering the end of last year november 25th i'll always remember
00:46:31.180you know the day that this decision came out about pebble it it felt like our energy and
00:46:39.020celebration was just hanging on the air it was in every breath it was in every movement it
00:46:44.780came with such a huge wave of relief but also absolute disbelief everyone was like wait really
00:46:52.220Did that, huh? And I thought about that, that kind of suspended disbelief where this campaign
00:47:02.100that has been passed down from leader to leader for over 20 years now, finally reaching a point
00:47:09.780of celebration was almost, I don't want to say it was taken from us, but it was an important
00:47:17.760learning opportunity for us. When you live in tandem with the land, you know that your health,
00:47:25.460your community's health, your family's health is one and the same as the health of our lands and
00:47:29.360waters. And so to think about, you know, after 20 plus years of threat and fear that our xika or
00:47:37.580salmon would be taken from us, that our cultures, our way of life would be destroyed because of
00:47:42.860their loss. To have this moment of peace felt almost short-lived. Pebble will appeal the
00:47:53.940decision by the Army Corps of Engineers. And so, you know, there's not a nail in the coffin yet.
00:48:00.860But, you know, I had to take this into my personal learning because it was too easy to just run to
00:48:06.040the next Zoom meeting. I think that, you know, the most important lesson that we can take for
00:48:12.560moments like this, especially when we consider that pebble mine, the Trump administration
00:48:20.740changed the tune it had been singing for four years because Donald Trump Jr. came to Alaska
00:48:27.900and fell in love with this place and is a sports fisherman that has traveled to Bristol
00:48:34.020Bay and decided that he stood in opposition to the mine.
00:48:37.940So the lesson that I think is about is, wow, all of this advocacy work is about bodily lived experience. It is about being in the moment. It is that moment of breathtaking awe that somehow Donald Trump Jr. must have had at being here on the land.
00:48:57.840It's that it was the land saving itself through someone that we never thought we would find
00:49:06.200And that same bodily experiences was that moment of shock and relief and disbelief that
00:49:12.680we felt when this decision finally came down.
00:49:16.960And so if we remember that the joy of success is allowed to live in our bodies just as much
00:49:25.000as I know we all take on the pain of hard work and, and the labor and the burdens, uh, and the,
00:49:31.660the devastation that comes with losses, you know, bringing all of those aspects into our lived
00:49:37.620experience, into our bodies, remind us that this work is one in the same, um, and that we deserve
00:49:45.980these successes just as much as we take on the weight, uh, of the burdens as, as we're in the
00:49:52.900process of advocacy. I am not good at celebrating. I'm not good at resting. And that is a tragedy.
00:50:04.640That is something that I personally will continue to grow in as an advocate and activist, but really
00:50:11.740just as a human being. How do we take these successes and these wins and these moments of rest
00:50:18.180into our whole selves how do we down regulate our our uh stress response how do we uh think about
00:50:27.480the ways that the sustaining of our lands and waters like this landmark pebble decision can
00:50:34.120also contribute to the sustaining of our minds bodies and spirits i love that you said that
00:50:41.460it's a tragedy to not be able to rest and um feel relief and just feel like we have to expect
00:50:53.520ourselves to fight 24 7 and i yeah i appreciate you bringing that up in context to pebble mind
00:51:01.020because i think it's such a good way of viewing um this relationship to the work and
00:51:10.660yeah so definitely gonna be sitting with that long after this interview has come to a close
00:51:18.440but um just thinking about Alaska and this narrative that it is solely dependent on oil
00:51:28.600and gas and it's oil rich and resource rich um but of course there was so much richness prior
00:51:37.160to capitalism that had nothing to do with these resources. And, you know, I know also I've heard
00:51:43.920folks say, oh, Alaska is the resource colony for the lower 48. So I'm just thinking about
00:51:50.520Pebble and other projects. And, you know, if you could share what climate justice organizing
00:51:57.320looks like in Alaska, especially regarding these massive resource extraction projects, or
00:52:03.320Are there any issues you'd like listeners to pay special attention to at this moment in time?
00:52:10.840Well, I guess taking the first part of your question, thinking about, you know, this false narrative of oil rich, you know, it began before oil was even being extracted in Alaska with, you know, this myth that Alaska is the last frontier.
00:52:31.580This was a settler narrative that painted Alaska as this mysterious, wild wilderness that was foreign to people, that is white people, that was yet to be conquered.
00:52:45.620And it was the last such place, the last frontier where this type of, you know, adventure could be found.
00:52:53.420And so obviously I hope our listeners put two and two together to realize that this is an extremely racist approach to a place that has always had a reciprocal and harmonious relationship with humanity, with our indigenous peoples who have been here for more than 30,000 years.
00:53:13.920um because we are one in nature we as humans are not excluded from nature and that the ethos of
00:53:22.720the last frontier well who was it the last two it was it was the last place that you know white
00:53:28.460settler society had yet to invade um and again you know frontier is the language it's vocabulary
00:53:35.880used to talk about battlegrounds and warfare so that eventually transitioned to um
00:53:43.480talk about oil rich as yet another compliment to the ways that Alaska and its lands and resources
00:53:54.300can serve this growing U.S. empire. It was rich because it offered a commodity that could be
00:54:04.980accumulated. It is crucial to challenge this narrative by remembering that our peoples here,
00:54:11.800Our indigenous peoples of Alaska and of other lands had thriving and holistic economies, economy meaning management of home, that were pre-commodification, that were pre-material wealth, that saw wealth as cultural wealth and linguistic wealth and a happy thriving community that was well, that had deep interconnections, that could support one another, that could share the harvest, and that could care for elders.
00:54:41.420and invest in youth. That was what a healthy economy meant. You know, we were and continue
00:54:48.460to be extremely culturally wealthy people. And so, you know, with that reframing, I rarely ever
00:54:55.860call our people, you know, vulnerable or in need because we have so many riches that are such a
00:55:04.680far cry from oil and gas, that are such a far cry from this extractive system of exploitation
00:55:10.240and commodification that it was only very recently brought to these lands. And so if we engage with
00:55:17.360with remembering forward, with just transition, we remember that we already have our solutions
00:55:23.880at our fingertips. We already have our teachings and our learnings to live in a holistically
00:55:29.340wealth society and have wealth if we reframe what wealth means to us.
00:55:37.600Gosh, yes. Yes. I really, I feel that so much this reframing, this internalized reframing
00:55:48.320and narrative shift is just really at the foundation of our work. And I think sometimes
00:55:56.840it gets buried under these other forms of work that feel more important, but without what you
00:56:02.940just spoke to, we can't really get to where we want to go. So gosh, yeah, really appreciated that.
00:56:11.140And you've previously noted the importance of building a politics of love, and I'd really
00:56:19.580like to explore this further and where such a politic might be able to breathe.
00:56:26.120You know, we are in a time where the spirit needs lifting because many are living in conditions
00:56:32.000desolate of care and love, existing in varying stages of despair. So how have you come to this
00:56:42.340place of truly understanding the importance of radical softness and a politic of love as we tend
00:56:51.620vessels to move us out of this storm. I really spent a lot of time the past few years reflecting
00:57:00.880on this, my politics of softness, my politics of love at the end of a very, very draining
00:57:07.960and difficult. Four years of college, these were the words that I decided I most wanted to share
00:57:14.340when having the opportunity to speak to our graduating class. The politics of love remind me
00:57:23.140that whatever we do, whatever intervention we make, it has to be soulful. It has to be life
00:57:30.380sustaining. It has to contribute to our wellness. And this is difficult in a society that insists on
00:57:38.700productivity and monetary wealth and strict time management. I struggle feeling caught between
00:57:47.920these two worlds every day. But the politics of love remind us that anything that's good
00:57:55.600will come from the heart. It will be tested and true by the way that we experience pleasure in it,
00:58:03.940by the way that we engage softness within it. Anything that we invest our spirit in has to be
00:58:10.840just that. We have to see a part of ourselves in it. So I think of incredible scholar mentors
00:58:17.260like Adrienne Marie Brown writing on pleasure activism and emergent strategy. I think of
00:58:22.100bell hooks writing all about love it's about instilling caring compassion strength in all
00:58:29.820that we do so that it can contribute to systems of wellness so that it can begin to construct
00:58:36.700little by little instead of systems based on oppression and exploitation and division we can
00:58:42.700create systems that are based on caring and compassion and you know this is as much a lesson
00:58:51.620as it is a practice. It's an exploration of how to be soft in a sharp world. It's about how to
00:58:58.580resist what is rigid and unforgiving and instead create places for ourself to be revolutionarily
00:59:06.200soft, to be cozy, to be kind, to be patient, and to live the types of practices that we want to see
00:59:15.300our systems and our creations founded upon. I have chills and I literally feel love growing
00:59:26.920within me as you're speaking. I'm so grateful that you can speak to so many intersections
00:59:34.500of this deep work. It's really, it's very heart opening. And I could imagine the folks listening
00:59:44.440to are feeling that pulse within us and also the desire to be soft in a sharp world um to feel that
00:59:54.760love to come from that place to feel others coming from that place as we interact there's just so
01:00:01.600much healing within that so i want to be clear too you know we've annie and i've discussed this
01:00:08.400before, it's really hard. It is really difficult. I certainly feel the responsibility to give my
01:00:19.500labor in infinite time, to perform emotional labor, to give all that I can, not just to this
01:00:28.300cause, but to just about everyone, everyone else in my life. And setting those personal boundaries
01:00:35.020is a lifelong lesson. I received a really beautiful teaching from a Wampanoag elder
01:00:43.460upon whose lands I was visiting while I was in college. And he reminded us that,
01:00:50.560you know, you have to tend to your own fire. You have to kindle your own flame before you
01:00:56.220can keep others warm. And that was like a smack upside my head because I had spent so many years
01:01:05.000working so hard to tend to the, not only the needs of others, but the needs of the movement.
01:01:11.400And I still do that. I suffer greatly emotionally with depression and anxiety, also physically
01:01:20.380manifesting chronic pain and, and burdensome conditions through this, you know, limitless
01:01:28.720stress that I thought I could live in. And so when we challenge ourselves to be soft, it's not,
01:01:34.800you know this airy fairy um kind of you know take baths and do face masks it's it is a sign of
01:01:43.100strength to be soft it is a sign of of care and devotion uh to our bodies our first territories0.60
01:01:51.960our first vessels so that we can manifest more so that we can give more so that we can use
01:01:57.340our personal power in tender and meaningful ways. Some sister friends recently reminded me
01:02:07.140that we have the sovereignty to create and contribute on our own terms. And I think that
01:02:15.920first act of sovereignty has to be a dedication to wellness. If we hope to create systems based
01:02:24.160on wellness, then dang, we better get better at practicing it ourselves.