312: Rising Tides: How indigenous communities are facing the climate crisis

Christiana: [00:15:41] If you want. Yes. Yes, please. I am so wanting to be there. Wow. What a story. Thank you so much for for sharing that. I have to tell you at the end of that conversation, clearly. Well, I had tears in my eyes. How does it impact you?

Paul: [00:16:00] I would say that I've enjoyed how she's Solomon Islander, right. So she's, you know, a sensitive ties as you could expect to the culture. And yet she herself said that she was rushing in to sort of teach and then realize that her fellow citizens had been planning the ocean for a long time. They had plans for 500 years, and that her particular contribution had to fit in within their plans, rather than that she was going to use some kind of technocratic leadership. I thought that was a wonderful lesson, and she said it with such charm.

Andrew Higham: [00:16:37] She spoke from the heart all the way. And the solutions are defined by the context. And they're not put up the front. And she's really working through the long term lived experience as well. But how do you how do you make that transition for when we have real sea level rise? Because it's just beginning now. What's the approach that that community will take when they really have to raise their islands?

Christiana: [00:17:05] Yeah. And how do you do it? Stone by stone. I can so understand. And actually, it's a fun comment that as I walked into this Orca meeting and I was late and I arrived and I walked in in the middle of a panel that was discussing several topics. And the first statement that I heard was, international negotiations are such a torture. And I went like, yes, but it was exactly Lisa who had said that. And then, of course, the next day when I interviewed her, I really understood what she was talking about because, Andrew, you and I have been at the drafting table for years and it's a torture if you're at the drafting table for years and you have to figure out where the comma goes, but it's even more of a torture if you're actually on the front lines living the reality.

Andrew Higham: [00:17:55] It's a total disconnect.

Christiana: [00:17:56] It's a total disconnect.

Andrew Higham: [00:17:57] I mean, you go there thinking that we're going to have a good conversation about how to put these solutions into into practice around the world, and you discover that you're actually you've slipped through some sort of parallel universe to a different conversation, which doesn't make any sense to people who are living in those situations.

Paul: [00:18:16] And just also to to mention that she did talk about being born into mangroves. And I think that there is something interesting to think about the role of nature, mangroves in being sea defences. This is something I'm learning more and more about or hearing more and more about. I mean, have you seen that in your experience?

Andrew Higham: [00:18:33] I have, I've seen that's happening, I think all around the Pacific and also in Southeast Asia. People are really investing in mangroves. Mangroves. Yeah.

Paul: [00:18:42] And what how does it work? You know, just for those who are not I don't know. I'm so ignorant of so many things. I don't even know what a mangrove looks like.

Andrew Higham: [00:18:48] Mangrove is, you know, sort of like a plant ecosystem that lives on that transition between the the dry and the wet, and it sort of binds the ground together through these amazing root systems that come out of the ground and hold that organic matter into into place.

Paul: [00:19:05] And can deal with saltwater.

Christiana: [00:19:07] They have this amazing capacity because the roots that are in saltwater have this amazing capacity to transport all the excess salt all the way up the bark to the leaves. And then that's how they get rid of the salt. So if you're in a mangrove forest, you can pick a leaf, put it on your tongue, and it is the saltiest thing that you have ever tasted.

Andrew Higham: [00:19:32] But a great source of food.

Christiana: [00:19:33] Great source of food. The mangrove forest is a place where many fish and shrimp, and many marine animals choose to have their young and reproduce because it protects them.

Andrew Higham: [00:19:45] And also capturing so much carbon in the at the same time.

Paul: [00:19:49] So we could see that the insurance companies worried about storm surge, would be making friends with the mangroves and trying to.

Christiana: [00:19:55] 100%, 100%. Okay, shall we move to another conversation? Different part of the world also had the opportunity to speak with Wáahlaal  from Alaska, and I was so impressed with her humility, how she recognizes that she has been co-opted by this mentality of the colonizers or the West or whatever, have the better solutions, and how her son is her teacher and how her son brings her back to indigenous First Nations wisdom. And I was really impressed with her humility to learn in public, to be very honest about the fact that her son is teaching her the wisdom of the ancestors. Well, thank you so much for for joining us. You know, I would love for you to describe the relationship between your community and the ocean.

Wáahlaal Gidaag: [00:21:07] You know, the the relationship we have as Haida people, especially for my mother's people. There's one that has always been an ancestral DNA, one that is inherited, but a responsibility, a connection to not only a connection to the greater world, but a connection to our ancestors as well, a connection beyond humans as our clan systems go from my region. I'm Raven from the shark house. The sharks that live in the water are my brothers and sisters. My grandfather's people were Thynnidae or the dog salmon people. And so the salmon people are my brothers and sisters. And so the way that we see our relationship with the world around us is not just one of seeing them as resources to be extracted, but one as relatives to who we are. And that includes the ocean, and that includes the currents and all of the other beings that exist within, within our world.

Christiana: [00:21:57] That is such beautiful ancestral wisdom. Is that still being kept alive?

Wáahlaal Gidaag: [00:22:02] Yes. Our ancestral wisdom carries through to our children today. They understand, and they're being raised with their responsibility not only to themselves, but to the greater community and to the world around them. I'll just say, my son, as an example, you know, as he's out there and providing for our family, whether it be hunting, fishing or gathering, he understands that his responsibility is not just to provide for himself, but to provide for our community. And when he's also gathering, he's also understanding that he doesn't take more than is necessary, that his his take of, say, going out to Berry pick in our woods or going out to harvest cedar bark cannot be more than what nature can withstand.

Christiana: [00:22:40] And he knows where that limit is.

Wáahlaal Gidaag: [00:22:42] Yes, he knows where that limit is, because he understands from his grandmother, from myself and from other community members what that limit should look like. And when it's time to stop, and every time that he is also in those spaces, he's also giving thanks to everything that has has offered itself to us so that it is an appreciation and an understanding that we're not just taking without, without giving thanks to also the gift of these, these different foods or these different ways of being that that are carried on today.

Christiana: [00:23:10] Well, that wisdom stands in such contrast to what the rest of the world has been doing for 100, 200 years, which is basically extract, extract, use waste, discard. So how do you deal with the contrast when you see it at your doorstep.

Wáahlaal Gidaag: [00:23:30] You know, and it's a hard balance to to kind of understand. Again, using my son as an example.

Christiana: [00:23:36] Your son is how old?

Wáahlaal Gidaag: [00:23:37] He's 18 now. But just watching him grow, he's taught me so much about things that I wouldn't have even recognized on the way to operate, in the way that we should be acting where we live right now is is the indigenous name is Santa Kahini. It's otherwise known as Juneau, Alaska. It is not our homelands. Even though we're Alaska Native, we are guests in somebody else's homelands.

Christiana: [00:23:57] As of how many years ago?

Wáahlaal Gidaag: [00:23:58] Ten years ago. We've been there for ten years now. And I want to say seven years ago we were getting ready to go out fishing. I had to get a permit from the state of Alaska in order to go out and fish in these waters. And my son looked at me and he said, mom, why do you have to get a permit from the state of Alaska? These are our lands. Shouldn't you get a permit from the Aquan in order to go fish in their home waters? And I said, you know, question, right? I said, but that's a really great observation. Like, we do have a responsibility. And I said, well, what should we do to honor that responsibility? And he said, well, these are our lands and we're catching fish in their waters. We should give them some of our fish. And so from that point on, whatever we harvest from that place, we have to give back to the aquan. A portion of our catch, whether we're gathering berries or we're out in the woods gathering cedar bark, or if we're in the ocean gathering fish, we always.

Christiana: [00:24:49] As a family principle.

Wáahlaal Gidaag: [00:24:50] As a family principle, we're a big tourist driven town, and there's a big extraction industry of taking lots of fish. And so battling that in the way that we have been taught by honoring those those sacred lands and sacred waters that belong to certain certain clans and certain peoples was a great way that my son taught me. So much of it is being brought back through our spirituality, through our practices, our dances, our songs, and just being native in our places. You definitely see a lot more of that, that coming to to the light and the more that we Storytell a lot of folks like to think that our stories are only precious when they were the sacred stories of pre-contact. But the stories we tell even today about my son. These are stories that carry forward for our people. These are stories about the way that we should be operating in the world, that help guide us into the future and help guide future ancestors.

Christiana: [00:25:41] As you reclaim your identity, your culture, your customs, your beliefs. How do you notice that the context in which you live, which is a colonized context, how does that context either interact or react with your commitment to reclaim your identity?

Wáahlaal Gidaag: [00:26:04] There's different, different examples of of how colonization has been a part of our lives and how it complements in some aspects. Our people were always adapting. We were always going to use the best tools at our disposal. Some of those things are conflicting, though. Some of the, the, the, the way that we operate in the world and the way that colonization shows up in our lives are conflicting. My son is my muse, so pardon me for always using him. But a few years ago, as we're preparing for college, my son has been a heavy competitor in what we call Native Youth Olympics for about the last 6 or 7 years. Won gold medals in, you know, in international forums.

Christiana: [00:26:43] Native youth Olympics. You're going to have to explain that to me.

Wáahlaal Gidaag: [00:26:47] Okay. So these are sports that are rooted in our traditional games as indigenous people, and they're competing across the Arctic. And so international spaces where they compete in these traditional games of strengthening our young men and women for what it would take to be able to live in these environments. And so he's competed for years. And so I looked at him the summer he was going into his junior year, and I said, well, what about soccer or baseball this year?

Christiana: [00:27:13] Heresy, my dear.

Wáahlaal Gidaag: [00:27:14] Right. And he said, heresy.

Christiana: [00:27:16] He said, mom.

Wáahlaal Gidaag: [00:27:17] Why would why.

Christiana: [00:27:18] Would I want to do that?

Wáahlaal Gidaag: [00:27:19] I love native youth. I'm good at it. I'm strong and I do this. And I looked at him and I.

Christiana: [00:27:25] Were you really proud?

Wáahlaal Gidaag: [00:27:26] Emotional. Of course, I have let the world of colonization embed in myself so deeply that I was willing to judge my own son. I was judging his want of being a part of the native community so hard that I see. I saw it as less than because society told me that it wasn't soccer or baseball or something that was going to get him into college. So I sat with it that night, and I went to him the next day and I said, I'm sorry, and I never want you to feel that I'm not proud of you for being so involved in your, your culture and your way of being. But I realized at that moment how much it just seeps in in the back of your mind. Insidious. Yeah, yeah, it's just there.

Christiana: [00:28:05] I bet he was proud of his mother when you said that.

Wáahlaal Gidaag: [00:28:08] Yeah.

Christiana: [00:28:09] Talk to me also about, um, the relationship with oceans. Where do you see the challenges with continuing that responsibility of being stewards of the ocean health.

Wáahlaal Gidaag: [00:28:20] If we're not involved in this space, we are not upholding the spirit of these. Beyond humans, we have an ancestral imperative to ensure that they are respected, that they are treated well, and that the way that that the world is interacting with these beyond humans is one of of respect, of intimacy, of reciprocity. And the way that the world is operating today is obviously not that. And as we're we're watching the decimation of of the world around us and the collapse of species across Alaska and across our homelands, we're recognizing that it's not only a failure on society, but it's a failure of our imperative, of our ancestral imperative, of one that was handed down from our ancestors to continue and make sure that these things are are passed on for generations. And so if we are the generation that severs that tie to our ancestors so that future generations don't have that, then we've we've definitely failed not only the world, but we've failed our people. And that is embedded in also our responsibility. This is something that that most of us take to heart, whether we're operationalizing that protection on a micro level or on a macro level, each of us is taking that responsibility and carrying it into the future.

Christiana: [00:29:26] Do you see any progress with this?

Wáahlaal Gidaag: [00:29:28] I see progress in that. A lot of the world is waking up to the knowledge of indigenous people. We had a grandma who everybody calls her Grandma Faye and she's Nelchina. The Sky clan, that's her clan. And she stood up and she said, you know, these folks have tried everything. They keep trying all these different solutions, and they're failing and they're realizing that we had the answers all along, all along. And so now they're waking up, and now they're actually looking to us for some of those answers, and it's going to help. And I was like, wow, you really said it. And I'm hopeful that the rest of the world will see. And I recognize that not all the world is is dominated by colonial forces. It's not the way for the world, but for Alaska and at least for the Arctic we are. And that knowledge has been asleep for too long, and it's time to wake it up.

Christiana: [00:30:16] Thank you.

Wáahlaal Gidaag: [00:30:16] Yes.

Speaker6: [00:30:17] Thank you. Thank you so much.

Andrew Higham: [00:30:27] So how do we learn from the younger generation as we are also learning from First Nations people in these processes? I mean, there must be ways where you can do a better job of creating a voice for young people and for indigenous people.

Christiana: [00:30:41] So you've held the pen on negotiations for so many years. How would you do it?

Andrew Higham: [00:30:46] It has to be part of the process, right? I mean, at the moment, the way we do the process, it's just the nation states essentially.

Christiana: [00:30:51] You mean when you say the process, that's a word that we use for.

Andrew Higham: [00:30:55] Well, it's essentially a conversation about how we get to an agreement, how we get to an aligned understanding. And you can't do that in closed door rooms. You need to do it in open fora and where everyone has the opportunity to express themselves and dialogue with each other.

Christiana: [00:31:12] What did you take from it?

Paul: [00:31:13] I mean, it starts off talking about, you know, these people are sharp people and the other people, The salmon people. And it's funny when you sort of contextualize yourself within another species, you know, then it sort of gets humans off their high horse and puts us with our sisters and brothers in the kind of more than human world, if you will. But no, I mean, the thing that I think I was most struck by, along with the idea that her son was somehow able to re-embody pre-colonial wisdom, that she felt that she'd lost in her self-awareness there. And, I mean, I was very struck by this idea that her son is saying, like, why are you going to the Alaskan government to get a fishing permit? Because we're going for these aqua people, and we should ask them for permission and actually encouraging them to, to share the the kind of crop with, with these people, just different definitions and sort of in a sense like making not not fun, but having appropriate disinterest in the nation state as this sort of abstract concept and thinking really about where you are and what's happening, where you are and doing the right thing at a at a local level. But the thing that took my breath away Was describing this elder, speaking about us, speaking about me and people I know.

Paul: [00:32:22] She says these folks are trying everything and they failed. And now they're looking to us. And I just, I think it's so true. I think we sit around this table in our own optimism and a whole bunch of other people sitting a whole bunch of other places sort of saying, you know, we've got this kind of rampant capitalism, but it seems to be destroying us, and we're not sure what to do about the political process. And I feel like we've, you know, we have really tried lots of different things. And if there were to be another great Covid pause, I would I would dedicate it to listening to First Nations who have now found their way into, I know the IPCC in their scientific report, say, you know, we really need to pay attention to indigenous people who are extremely effective custodians of the environment. So that final thing was this idea that they kind of colonize us, the colonists. And then there's climate change, but they're sort of the same thing. They're all part of a attitudinal or a behavior that leads to kind of consequences that escalate in the wrong direction.

Andrew Higham: [00:33:16] She speaks of both rights and responsibilities, and she emphasizes the responsibility, which is, I think, really interesting to me, these two things being paired with each other. And I think that Western perspective emphasizes the rights and not the responsibility.

Paul: [00:33:32] You know, that famous one, that there should be a statue of responsibility on the West Coast to match the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast?

Christiana: [00:33:38] The point you brought up about the relationship between colonization and climate change was in in a different context, in the Plum Village retreat that we had in Fiji, where Andrew was also with us.

Paul: [00:33:56] Can you just explain the Plum Village retreat for the listener?

Christiana: [00:33:58] Yeah, we have as global optimism. We've been hosting retreats with the Plum Village monastics around the world, and our latest retreat was in Fiji for Pacific island leaders and activists in both biodiversity and climate change. And Andrew was, of course, there. And what I took home from that retreat is the parallel between colonization and climate change. Because from their perspective, from the First Nation perspective, colonization that robbed them of their land, robbed them of their rights, robbed them of their dignity, rob them of their livelihood. That was chapter one. And chapter two is climate change. That has been caused also by the very same colonizers that has robbed them of their dignity, that is robbing them of their livelihoods, that is robbing them of their lands. And the parallel between those two was just painfully evident during that week. Would you agree, Andrew?

Andrew Higham: [00:35:06] Yes. And and I also that it brings into this connection with ancestors. The lack of listening about ancestral knowledge, all of those other dimensions as well that we've just been talking about with Lisa.

Christiana: [00:35:19] So on the topic of the relationship between, let's say, the Western world and First Nations. Should we also listen to Parnuna from Greenland, because she was so eloquent about the relationship of Greenlanders, original inhabitants of Greenland, and their relationship with Denmark? A very interesting conversation about that relationship and how it is currently being managed.

Paul: [00:35:50] Somewhat topical too. So let's listen.

Christiana: [00:35:52] Quite topical. Quite topical.

Christiana: [00:35:58] Nuna, thank you so much. Thank you for for taking the time to have a little chat here.

Christiana: [00:36:04] Greenland is definitely in the news for reasons that Greenland never wanted.

Parnuna: [00:36:10] Exactly.

Christiana: [00:36:13] But I would love to have your take on indigenous rights, spatial organization, policy making. How does all of that come together in a coherent whole?

Parnuna: [00:36:29] So for Greenland, which have this self-government, we are indigenous peoples governing indigenous peoples, and we manage our coastal zones on our own. But then we're still part of the Kingdom of Denmark, which then manages the outer zones of our waters. And those two different layers have to collaborate. Legislation wise, it's separate, but in practice it's all helping each other. So Denmark is aiding us, managing the zones and helping with search and rescue operations, for example. And then Greenland will be managing all the fisheries and those work together. Quite all right, I would say. So the only real conflict we will have in our, in our own spatial planning, it is maybe conflicts between users of our indigenous peoples.

Christiana: [00:37:23] Between different peoples, indigenous peoples, between them.

Parnuna: [00:37:27] Yes. Internally you would say.

Christiana: [00:37:29] Internally.

Parnuna: [00:37:29] Yeah, we're the same people, but some are have dogsleds, some have snow scooters. They will have some internal conflicts, some are fishing for crabs, some are bottom trawling for shrimps or Greenland halibut. They will have conflicts. There are the tourist operators, their ships coming with goods and food to the settlements, and they're also collecting fish products from the freezers and settlements, bringing them back. There's a lot of things going on and mostly it's governed internally.

Christiana: [00:38:01] So Denmark controls the water management and Greenlanders control the land management among themselves. Did I understand that right?

Parnuna: [00:38:13] Not exactly. I would say Greenland controls its fisheries in its waters.

Christiana: [00:38:19] Okay.

Parnuna: [00:38:19] Denmark is controlling the foreign affairs. So it's about military presence. Foreign security matters.

Christiana: [00:38:28] But you make it sound very harmonious. Is it?

Parnuna: [00:38:31] The collaboration is is so far pretty close to each other. So the challenges are coming from the outside, not from within the kingdom, at least in this field. There are a lot of other areas that might have conflicts of interests, such as? Such as with foreign policy. Um, Greenland wants uh, we have like a mantra that the government invented and that we are all joining. It's nothing about Greenland without Greenland. But the Kingdom of Denmark is managing a lot of the foreign policies, doing all the negotiations, and they're not always bringing Greenland along at the table. They have been becoming better at it recently, so this negative attention from the West has actually only one positive thing about it, and it is that Denmark has been eager to show that they are a reliable and trustable partner. So things that we have been trying to achieve for for years suddenly starts moving within months. You know, suddenly we have really great agreements.

Christiana: [00:39:34] Are you about to write a thank you letter to Trump? No, I am not.

Parnuna: [00:39:38] Because as I said, it's the only positive thing about that.

Christiana: [00:39:42] The only positive.

Parnuna: [00:39:43] Thing. There's a lot of other negative things that are outweighing that.

Christiana: [00:39:46] I don't think most people know that. Greenland just recently joined the Paris Agreement. I would be interested to know the background to that. Why did Greenland decide that it was in your interest to join the agreement? What does Greenland expect to get out of it? I learned that Greenland is preparing their NDC. That would be the first NDC. I don't think anybody was expecting you to, but this was a voluntary step. Why did Gwenlyn do it?

Parnuna: [00:40:19] You know, there's a general procedure that whenever Denmark is joining an international agreement, they always make an exception for Greenland and the Faroe Islands until Greenland and the Faroe Islands themselves decide that they are ready to join.

Christiana: [00:40:32] That's correct.

Parnuna: [00:40:33] So this is exactly what happened. Greenland did not join automatically. Although we are part of the Kingdom of Denmark, we're still developing. We're not those underdeveloped countries, but we're still, you know, on the borderline. Sure, sure. But there was a general perception that when we complained to the world that they're not doing enough to stop climate change, which we are affected by. How can we complain if we're not doing anything ourselves? Others would say, well, Greenland, the population is so small it doesn't make really a difference, but it's the symbolic part that we too should be doing our part, showing the world that we are taking this seriously. And when we're asking them to do more, showing them that we also want to do more. I'm not sure what it will mean in practice. The government is still talking about making an actual strategy to implement it, and are at the moment gathering input from different stakeholders, different groups and the society. And so this is very exciting, and we're hoping to see a final strategy in some time not too far away.

Christiana: [00:41:38] Will indigenous rights be part of that strategy?

Parnuna: [00:41:41] This is the strange part about Greenland. Externally, to the rest of the world. The Inuit in Greenland have been acknowledged to be an indigenous peoples.

Christiana: [00:41:50] But internally you're just Greenlanders.

Parnuna: [00:41:53] Greenlanders?

Christiana: [00:41:54] Yes.

Parnuna: [00:41:54] And the way we structured the self-government. And I don't agree on this, but the Self-Government act does not mention that we are an indigenous peoples and that indigenous peoples rights and the whole nation building aspect of it. Even as I grew up, I didn't know what indigenous peoples were and that we were one of them.

Christiana: [00:42:14] How?

Parnuna: [00:42:14] It's only in my grown life that I learned, oh my God, we have almost like this toolbox that we can use at our convenience in international settings. Yes, but what about internally? There is a growing group where we call ourselves Inuit and acknowledge that we are indigenous peoples and that we have some rights. And we shouldn't just adopt a structure that we inherited from our former colonizer. We should also honour these indigenous rights. Some would say, well, having the self-government is the way we want to govern our rights, but in reality, I feel that a lot of the communities don't find it enough. They want to have a say in in projects that affect their daily lives. We're still trying to find that balance. And for. Oceans. We're trying to to bring the voices from the local communities, the fishers, the hunters to the table. We do have our own opinions and stances, but we also want to listen to what the communities have to say about, for example, sustainable fisheries and hunting or healthy oceans. And they might also have local solutions that fit in their context. At the same time, they could also always use some inspiration from others. So we see a good spot for trying to facilitate knowledge exchange between communities of what works and what doesn't work. And what we then see is that most people actually understand that we need to regulate our activities to some degree. We do have an impact. There is still a smaller group that doesn't really believe that humans have an impact on nature. This is really interesting coming from a society where we have been so few in such a huge, massive Of environment, land mass.

Christiana: [00:44:00] Yeah.

Parnuna: [00:44:00] You know, we always say nature is is the ruler in Greenland. And whatever we do doesn't matter. It's nature that determines if we can travel, if we live or we will die or if we can fish that day. So some of these people actually have a hard understanding of like, can I make an impact? I realized then I have to talk with them in another way. Trying to talk about sustainability. They don't they don't get that. But if I start talking about more efficient fishery, where we wait until the fish are bigger and they will make more, the fish stock will grow. They can understand that.

Christiana: [00:44:37] And that should be in their tradition and wisdom anyway.

Parnuna: [00:44:40] Yes, but we are getting more people and we are getting more and more effective. A lot of the knowledge they would have would fit if you had a kayak or a skin boat, and you would have to actively hunt a lot more in your range would be a lot shorter. But today with these motorboats, you can go much, much further and back. And sometimes people forget to take that into account. And then we hear stories that, yes, the fish were bigger in the older days. They are getting smaller, just to say, one of the activities we as an organization have been doing is exactly trying to facilitate knowledge exchange between communities, bringing, for example, hunters from from Canada to Greenland, and now planning to bring a group of Greenlanders to Canada where they have all these dialogues. We don't have to do much ourselves. They will immediately start talking about what matters.

Christiana: [00:45:33] And identify, teach each other.

Parnuna: [00:45:35] Exactly.

Christiana: [00:45:36] Wonderful. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Andrew. What does that bring up for you?

Andrew Higham: [00:45:48] Well, just thinking about the process that we went through to create the Paris Agreement. And as you were talking about, what is that process? And we would want it to have involved indigenous people right from the very beginning, right through to the decision making process. But we would also want to have the power structures in that agreement that would enable for indigenous people to have a voice into the decision making process, to shape the solutions throughout the implementation of the agreement. How do we get to that point? Like, how do we get from where we are now? Are there other examples of where we've been able to get there?

Christiana: [00:46:24] Yes, yes. Can I share good news?

Christiana: [00:46:27] Go for it.

Christiana: [00:46:28] Drum roll. Paul Dickinson. So in the last cop. Not of the climate convention, but the biodiversity convention that's otherwise known as the CBD Convention on Biological Diversity. There was a lot of discussion about the rights of indigenous people who have been stewarding lands for thousands of years. There was a lot of discussion about their wisdom. How do we get on our knees and listen to their wisdom? And it has. I would say the CBD has advanced that conversation much more than the climate convention, and certainly than the desertification convention. And the good news that came out of the last cop of CBD is that they actually created a subsidiary body that Andrew will now explain to us what a subsidiary body is.

Andrew Higham: [00:47:26] Well, it's just a decision making platform place for the governments and everyone else in the world to make decisions together. That's great.

Christiana: [00:47:34] And so within the convention, these are the decision making platforms that are created. And they agreed to create a subsidiary body specifically for indigenous peoples and local communities. That is a first that establishes a precedent for other conventions. It was the result of a lot of work, a lot of discussion, and I'm afraid it, of course, like everything related to the UN, it carries a UN name, which is sbh. J.

Paul: [00:48:11] Why you were excited when you found that out?

Christiana: [00:48:13] I know because the article, AJ, is the article in the Convention of Biological Diversity that actually talks about how do we maintain traditional knowledge. How do we respect the continued stewardship of traditional lands and the rights of indigenous and local communities about their prior and informed consent, and about their participation in the benefits of the use of biodiversity? So that whole package was already there in the article, but it had never been taken to the decision platform, which is what Andrew points out, right? So the issue was there, but no one had ever given them the right, as though we had the right to give them the right, by the way. But no one, you know, the collection of governments had never sat down to say, yes, we recognize that First Nations have extraordinary wisdom, have extraordinary experience, and deserve absolutely because of that, to benefit from the use. And this was the first time.

Andrew Higham: [00:49:23] How do we get from that first time, that beachhead to a situation where we have really transformed the global? And how do we do this in the context of Greenland being threatened with a takeover from Donald Trump and this sort of move to populism where you can't even imagine having a voice to Parliament in Australia for indigenous people, let alone a voice to within the UN system.

Christiana: [00:49:48] Can you share with us what happened in Australia? Because there was an attempt right to bring First Nations into the political system, and then that got co-opted. What happened?

Christiana: [00:50:01] Well, what was what.

Christiana: [00:50:02] Was the intent?

Andrew Higham: [00:50:03] The pretext is an agreement amongst indigenous people about how they move forward to a full reconciliation and full treatment of their rights and reparation from colonisation that they've experienced. So that voice to Parliament, that was one part of a much more sophisticated, more complicated set of arrangements, including a treaty including processes whereby truth telling would be made. And but it became politicised.

Christiana: [00:50:34] So all of that was on the table.

Andrew Higham: [00:50:36] It was all it's all still on the table, and it is all moving forward at different levels of government. But this one thing became a political football in Australia and it became very divisive And unfortunately, the Liberal National Coalition switched sides, decided that they would not support the voice. And then it became a partisan political partisan campaign. And it was it was terrible. Now we're building back the movement and reconsidering.

Christiana: [00:51:05] So First Nations must feel incredibly betrayed, because first they see the possibility of being at the decision table, and then it's taken away from them.

Andrew Higham: [00:51:15] Exactly.

Christiana: [00:51:16] Again.

Andrew Higham: [00:51:16] Betrayed again. But, you know, this is the this is the experience all around the world, is it not? Um, and, uh, you know, the interviews that we've heard are telling those stories, but as you've said, we've made progress in one part of the multilateral process. I mean, the question is how to move that all forward now.

Christiana: [00:51:35] And how to move it at the multilateral level, how to move it at the national level, as Australia has been struggling to do quite unsuccessfully and more than anything, how to do it at our own personal level, right? Because if we don't open our space for that, our internal space for that, it's never going to happen.

Paul: [00:51:54] I mean, when you talked about the frustration that First Nations must feel at this setback, I'm reminded of that silly phrase. You know, it's not the despair that kills you. What kills you is the hope. But I like to think that, you know, it's always nice to quote Doctor Martin Luther King. You know, the arc of time is long, but it bends towards justice. And I do believe that that is true. Um, something I think amusing has occurred to me and that is that, you know, there are bureaucracies and they can be supportive. The UN is is quite a bureaucracy.

Christiana: [00:52:24] Wait a minute.

Christiana: [00:52:25] We don't agree with that, do we, Andrew?

Paul: [00:52:27] Well, I was about to make the observation. I think you do agree in your ironic way. I was about to make the observation that you, Christiana and you, Andrew, are the two least bureaucratic people I have met in my entire life. Honestly, hand on heart. And I think that's probably why you were so successful at the UN in Paris. And it brings me on to the question when you talk about this, H.J., S.B., H.J. if you think of it from the perspective of our listeners, and if you think about people who understand how bureaucracy can help and support what might be lessons that people can draw, or hints or advice about how actually to use subsidiary body H.J. in that and that new structure to sort of make positive outcomes.

Andrew Higham: [00:53:10] Start with a tone of humility, I think is the first lesson I would take and the way that that conversation is set up. It has to be one where there's real value here, right? I mean, we're struggling to deal with these major crises, and indigenous people have got a lot of knowledge to share, a lot of solutions. And once that is recognized, it changes the tone of the conversation. It becomes something that is reciprocal.

Christiana: [00:53:36] And not a repetition of colonial mentality. Yeah. Totally agree.

Paul: [00:53:42] Change of mentality. So in a way I'm going to try and put that in my own language, try and answer my own question. You might be working on whatever, wherever you might draw attention to the fact that the intergovernmental process in the United Nations have recognized this important aspect of our responding to climate change. And what this tells us is that we should learn to listen and respect and have empathy with the experience of First Nations, and respect the wisdom of the thousands of years of custody of the earth and the environment that we seem to have inadvertently, but very really messed up in 100 years, especially the last 50.

Christiana: [00:54:24] Listening, listening.

Christiana: [00:54:25] And also impatience, I would add, because the CBD, the Convention on Biodiversity and the Climate Convention, and the third smaller brother, the Desertification convention, they came out of the real meeting in 1992. Yeah. And it took us until 2025 to finally set up this bureaucracy. Okay. A subsidiary body, but that within the UN system, that actually is a recognition of authority and of political influence.

Andrew Higham: [00:55:01] That's the shift of power, right?

Christiana: [00:55:03] That is the shift of power.

Andrew Higham: [00:55:04] And that's where the Greenland example is very interesting because it's that recognition of sovereignty.

Christiana: [00:55:09] So, Andrew, I'm tempted here to complicate matters for our unfcc colleagues. What would it look like to have a subsidiary body for indigenous peoples and local communities within the climate convention?

Andrew Higham: [00:55:25] Wouldn't it be great to have a real conversation in the climate convention about how to get to a point where we do have a decision making process that really embraces indigenous people and knowledge at the core.

Christiana: [00:55:37] And, you know, we do know that the Brazilian Cop presidency is very open to the voice of, well, in their case, of their own indigenous peoples. And and I just wonder, it is a several year process to get to this point of having a subsidiary body. But I wonder if that could be the beginning of that, because they are so open to that conversation?

Andrew Higham: [00:55:59] Yes, some kind of start which would then be taken forward in Cop 31, maybe with an actual outcome at that. And where might.

Christiana: [00:56:07] Cop 31.

Andrew Higham: [00:56:07] Be? Could be in Australia.

Christiana: [00:56:09] Could be in Australia.

Andrew Higham: [00:56:10] Could be. It would be an ideal situation, wouldn't it?

Christiana: [00:56:12] Wouldn't it be ideal? I think we've come up here with a very interesting challenge.

Andrew Higham: [00:56:18] Yeah. You've always been one for setting challenges.

Paul: [00:56:22] And you live in Australia.

Paul: [00:56:24] So Andrew here we go. Can you deliver us?

Christiana: [00:56:28] Well Paul and Andrew, thank you so much for joining us on this fascinating conversation.

Speaker13: [00:56:32] Thank you.

Paul: [00:56:32] Christina, for.

Christiana: [00:56:33] We don't we don't do this enough. Yeah okay. We you know, we don't do this enough to to give the microphone to those who have ancestral wisdom. And I'm very glad that we have done a little bit of that and can commit to further.

Paul: [00:56:48] Well, thank you for for being such a good listener to the wisdom of the First Nation elders, stepping back into something older and more familiar and very, very urgently needed. So thank you, Christine.

Christiana: [00:57:00] Andrew, thank you so much for joining us.

Andrew Higham: [00:57:02] Again.

Andrew Higham: [00:57:02] For taking us to the front lines.

Christiana: [00:57:05] And listeners, we hear that Andrew is considering a podcast of his own.

Andrew Higham: [00:57:10] Da da da da.

Christiana: [00:57:12] Is there anything you can say about it publicly, or is it still a secret?

Andrew Higham: [00:57:16] Well, it's imagine you're sitting in the back seat and you're asking your parents the question, when are we going to get there?

Christiana: [00:57:22] Are we there yet?

Paul: [00:57:23] Are we nearly there yet?

Andrew Higham: [00:57:24] I hope we get there soon.

Christiana: [00:57:26] Okay.

Paul: [00:57:27] All right, well, whatever happens, there will be news on this podcast of whatever you do, whenever you do it.

Paul: [00:57:32] Andrew, thank you so much for joining us

Andrew Higham: [00:57:33] Thank you Christiana.

Speaker12: [00:57:34] Thank you.

Paul: [00:57:35] All right. See you next week.

All hosts: [00:57:36] Bye bye. Bye.