Even avid Trump supporters may be alarmed about his plans for our national parks.
President Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), often called the “conservation president,” is widely recognized as the father of the national park system because he established five new national parks, 18 national monuments, and protected over 230 million acres of public land during his presidency from 1901 – 1909.
Guided into the Yosemite wilderness in 1903 by naturalist John Muir (1838-1914), Roosevelt went on a three-day wilderness trip in Yosemite National Park. Muir seized the opportunity “to do some forest good in talking freely around the campfire“. The President is quoted as saying “Of course, of all the people in the world, he was the one with whom it was best worthwhile thus to see the Yosemite.”
John Muir: An Appreciation by Theodore Roosevelt. John Muir was America’s most famous and influential naturalist and conservationist. He is one of California’s most important historical personalities. He has been called “The Father of our National Parks,” “Wilderness Prophet,” and “Citizen of the Universe.”
The Sierra Club which Muir founded in 1892 and where he served as President until his death says: “Perhaps his greatest legacy is not even wilderness preservation or national parks as such, but his teaching us the essential characteristic of the science of ecology, the interrelatedness of all living things. He summed it up nicely: “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.””
Roosevelt’s experiences in the Dakota Territory where he hunted bison and ran a cattle ranch shaped his beliefs about conservation and influenced his policies as president. The National Park Service memorializes him with Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, where he spent time in the Badlands.
Roosevelt and his most trusted advisor, Pinchot, sought a new term for a new era of environmental action in the early 20th century. They settled on “conservation,” and its popularization is one of his most important legacies. In 1907, Roosevelt declared: “The conservation of natural resources is the fundamental problem. Unless we solve that problem it will avail us little to solve all others.”
Roosevelt established approximately 230 million acres of public lands between 1901 and 1909, including 150 national forests, the first 55 federal bird reservation and game preserves, 5 national parks, and the first 18 national monuments. In 1905, Roosevelt created the U.S. Forest Service with Gifford Pinchot as its first Chief Forester. Pinchot’s acute eye for habitat helped add critical forests and wilderness areas.An avid ornithologist, Roosevelt began an ongoing experiment to carve out habitat for his beloved wildlife by creating what would become the National Wildlife Refuge System on March 14, 1903. This early experiment included Pelican Island, Florida, Breton Island, Louisiana, and National Bison Range, Montana, perhaps our nation’s first attempt at wildlife restoration.
Trump’s Threat To Our National Parks
Eric Hanson explains in the video below the impact for all Americans of Trump’s cuts to the parks. Eric is a freelance journalist, photographer, and filmmaker specializing in outdoor adventure and travel. He is the host of Epic Trails, a TV and digital series designed to showcase the people, places, and adventures that surround the world’s top backpacking trails. Epic Trails airs on Outside TV, Fox Sports networks, WPBS, National Geographic, and Amazon Prime.
Eric is also the host of the popular Backpacking TV YouTube Channel where he shares his adventures on the trail as well as his knowledge and passion for all things hiking and backpacking. Eric has traveled to more than 80 countries.
The Real Reason Trump Is Firing Park Rangers
Want the best way to plan your trips and navigate in the backcountry?
Thanks to OnX Backcountry for sponsoring this video: https://www.onxmaps.com/backcountry/r…
Here are some resources if you want to be more involved in your public lands:
https://www.outdooralliance.org/take-… (very easy way to contact your reps!)
https://conservationalliance.com/
https://www.bearsearscoalition.org/
Want to call your representatives?
Phone: (202) 224-3121 Tell them your zip code to connect to your representative
Trump’s Firings of 1,000 National Park Workers
Trump’s firing of 1,000 national park workers raises concerns about maintenance and operating hours
The Trump administration has fired about 1,000 newly hired National Park Service employees who maintain and clean parks, educate visitors, and perform other functions as part of its broad-based effort to downsize government.
The firings, which weren’t publicly announced but were confirmed by Democratic senators and House members, come amid what has been a chaotic rollout of an aggressive program to eliminate thousands of federal jobs. The plan is led by billionaire Elon Musk and the new Department of Government Efficiency, a Trump administration effort to slash federal spending. Adding to the confusion, the park service now says it is reinstating about 5,000 seasonal jobs that were initially rescinded last month as part of a spending freeze ordered by President Donald Trump.
Seasonal workers are routinely added during the warm-weather months to serve more than 325 million visitors who descend on the nation’s 428 parks, historic sites and other attractions each year.
Park advocates say the permanent staff cuts will leave hundreds of national parks — including some of the most well-known and most heavily visited sites — understaffed and facing tough decisions about operating hours, public safety, and resource protection.
“Fewer staff means shorter visitor center hours, delayed openings and closed campgrounds,″ said Kristen Brengel, senior vice president of government affairs at the National Parks Conservation Association, an advocacy group. Trash will pile up, restrooms won’t be cleaned, and maintenance problems will grow, she predicted. Guided tours will be cut back or canceled and, in the worst cases, public safety could be at risk.
The Trump administration’s actions “are pushing an already overwhelmed Park Service to its breaking point,” Brengel said. “And the consequences will be felt in our parks for years.” A spokesperson for the Interior Department, which oversees the park service, declined to comment Monday. A separate email to the park service received no answer.
Democrats on the House and Senate Appropriations Committees confirmed the firings as part of a larger list of terminations ordered by the Trump administration. “There is nothing ‘efficient’ about indiscriminately firing thousands upon thousands of workers in red and blue states whose work is badly needed,’’ said Sen. Patty Murray. D-Wash., vice chair of the Appropriations panel, who blamed both Trump and Musk. “Two billionaires who have zero concept of what the federal workforce does are breaking the American government — decimating essential services and leaving all of us worse off,” Murray said.
Among other cuts, 16 of 17 supervisory positions at Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park were eliminated, Brengel said, leaving just one person to hire, train and supervise dozens of seasonal employees expected this summer at the popular park where thousands of visitors marvel at grizzly bears and bison.
At Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park, meanwhile, fee collectors and trail maintenance employees were laid off, potentially making trails at the popular park near Washington, D.C., unpassable after heavy rains. “They’re basically knee-capping the very people who need to train seasonal” employees who work as park rangers, maintenance staff and trail managers, Brengel said in an interview. “It puts the park in an untenable position. You’re going to hurt tourism.″
The firings may force small parks to close visitor centers and other facilities, while larger parks will have to function without cultural resources workers who help visitors interpret the park, fee collectors and even wastewater treatment operators, she said.
Stacy Ramsey, a ranger at the Buffalo National River in Arkansas, wrote on Facebook that she was fired on Friday. She had been a probationary employee in the first year of a four-year position funded by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, the climate law signed by former President Joe Biden. “Did those who made the decision know or care that the main objective of my position is to provide preventive search and rescue education, to keep park visitors safe?” she asked in a widely shared Facebook post.
Brian Gibbs, who had been an environmental educator at the Effigy Mounds National Monument in Iowa, was heartbroken after losing what he called his “dream job” on Friday. “I am the defender of your public lands and waters,’’ Gibbs wrote on Facebook in another widely shared post. “I am the motivation to make it up the hill…the Band-Aid for a skinned knee” and “the lesson that showed your children that we live in a world of gifts — not commodities. That gratitude and reciprocity are the doorway to true abundance, not power, money or fear.”
A freeze on spending under a five-year-old law signed by Trump also jeopardizes national parks, Brengel and other advocates said. The Great American Outdoors Act, passed with bipartisan support in 2020 and signed by Trump, authorizes $6.5 billion over five years to maintain and improve national parks.
The program is crucial to whittling down a massive maintenance backlog at the parks and is frequently hailed as a success story by lawmakers from both parties. The freeze could slow road and bridge improvements at Yellowstone National Park, which is in the midst of a $216 million project to improve safety, access and experience on park roads. The project is mostly funded by the Great American Outdoors Act.
Democratic senators denounced the job cuts, saying in a letter before the mass firings were imposed that if a significant number of National Park Service workers take an early retirement package offered by Trump or are terminated from their positions, “park staffing will be in chaos. Not only does this threaten the full suite of visitor services, but could close entire parks altogether,” the senators wrote.
The letter was led by Sens. Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Angus King of Maine and signed by 20 other senators. Gutting staff at national park units “will devastate local ‘gateway’ communities where parks generate significant economic activity – from hotels to restaurants to stores to outfitters,” the senators wrote. Park visitors supported an estimated 415,000 jobs and $55.6 billion in total economic activity in 2023, they said.
Ramsey wrote on Facebook that she assisted with at least 20 search-and-rescues on the Buffalo National River in Arkansas over the past five years. She said she worked as a river ranger, upper district fee collector, interpreter and even helped with concessions and maintenance during her time at the park.
The Buffalo, established as the first national river in the U.S. by Congress in 1972, flows freely through the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas for 135 miles of quiet pools, majestic bluffs and churning rapids. It is one of the few remaining undammed rivers in the lower 48 states. Ramsey stayed in the river ranger job despite opportunities for more permanent positions, she said, “because I loved looking out for the safety of people on the river.” “I truly loved my job,” she wrote. “The river is home to me.”
The Gift Economy
Eric mentions the 2024 book below by Robin Wall Kimmerer.
Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She is the author of the New York Times bestselling collection of essays Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants as well as Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses. Kimmerer is a 2022 MacArthur Fellow.
She lives in Syracuse, New York, where she is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology, and the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment.
The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World 2024
Amazon Description
An Instant New York Times Bestseller. From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Braiding Sweetgrass, a bold and inspiring vision for how to orient our lives around gratitude, reciprocity, and community, based on the lessons of the natural world. As Indigenous scientist and author of Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy.
How, she asks, can we learn from Indigenous wisdom and the plant world to reimagine what we value most? Our economy is rooted in scarcity, competition, and the hoarding of resources, and we have surrendered our values to a system that actively harms what we love.
Meanwhile, the serviceberry’s relationship with the natural world is an embodiment of reciprocity, interconnectedness, and gratitude. The tree distributes its wealth—its abundance of sweet, juicy berries—to meet the needs of its natural community. And this distribution ensures its own survival. As Kimmerer explains, “Serviceberries show us another model, one based upon reciprocity, where wealth comes from the quality of your relationships, not from the illusion of self-sufficiency.”
As Elizabeth Gilbert writes, Robin Wall Kimmerer is “a great teacher, and her words are a hymn of love to the world.” The Serviceberry is an antidote to the broken relationships and misguided goals of our times, and a reminder that “hoarding won’t save us, all flourishing is mutual.” Robin Wall Kimmerer is donating her advance payments from this book as a reciprocal gift, back to the land, for land protection, restoration, and justice.
Plants As Teachers
Robin Wall Kimmerer is a professor at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry. She is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation ”People of the Place of the Fire” and speaks a little of the Potawatomi language which is a member of the Algonquin family. The Citizen Potawatomi Nation is the federally-recognized government and represents over 37,000 members. It acts under a Constitution that includes executive, legislative, and judicial branches. The Potawatomi are located in the western Great Lakes region, upper Mississippi River, and Great Plains.
Professor Kimmerer is the author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants. Wikipedia says: “Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants received the 2014 Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award. By 2021, over 500,000 copies had been sold worldwide…. In 2022 Dr. Kimmerer was awarded the Macarthur “genius” award.” The beautifully-written book has been a word-of-mouth sensation and hit the New York Times Best Seller List.
Professor Kimmerer at Yale: The Teaching of Plants
The Teachings of Plants: Finding Common Ground Between Traditional and Scientific Knowledge
‘Dr. Robin W. Kimmerer, Distinguished Teaching Professor and Director, Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, SUNY-ESF In traditional ecological knowledge, plants are regarded not only as persons, but as among our oldest teachers. If plants are our teachers, what are they teaching us, and how can we be better students?
In a rich braid of ecological science, indigenous philosophy, and literary reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, Dr. Kimmerer will explore the material and cultural gifts of plants and our responsibilities for reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world.”
Seven Ways To Define “Land”
Professor Kimmerer lives in Syracuse, NY on an old farm tending cultivated and wild gardens. She is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology and is the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment. She holds a BS in Botany from SUNY ESF, an MS and PhD in Botany from the University of Wisconsin, and is the author of numerous scientific papers on plant ecology, traditional knowledge, and restoration ecology. Prof. Kimmerer is interested in restoration of ecological communities and our relationships to land.
In Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants, Professor Kimmerer discusses seven ways to define “land”.
- LAND AS “CAPITAL”: Land is a means to make money. What’s done to it doesn’t matter.
- LAND AS “PROPERYTY”: Land is a collection of “resources” to be exploited and left desolate. For example, trees are defined in terms of “board feet of lumber” and their priceless irreplaceable ecological gifts are ignored. Whole rainforests like the Amazon are destroyed without thought.
- LAND AS “MACHINE:” Peopled with engineers and foresters whose goal is to reestablish structure and function for a very specific purpose.
- LAND AS “TEACHER AND HEALER”: This is the indigenous view. Professor Kimmerer explains that her Haudenosaunee neighbors say, “Human beings are the younger brothers and sisters of Creation. We haven’t been here nearly as long as the plants. So, that notion of humility — understanding the rest of the world as our teachers — is a profound change. Thinking of yourselves as the Younger Brothers of Creation instead of Masters of the Universe is a kind of cultural transformation that we need to have.”
President Evo Morales of Bolivia presented The Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth to the United Nations in 2009. However, while the US grants personhood and rights to corporations, it does not to plants, animals, rivers, or the Earth. So, the West is living in an inanimate, dead world and is killing off one species after another — and now humanity is at risk. Professor Kimmerer explains that the Western worldview creates a crisis of loneliness. This is the existential loneliness that Belgian Professor Mattias Desmet, author of The Psychology of Totalitarianism, says leads to the “Mass Formation” (psychosis) that fuels the kind of totalitarianism we saw during COVID.
- LAND AS “RESPONSIBILITY”: Professor Kimmerer explains that this raises the bar for what restoration means because it includes making habitat for our non-human relatives.
- LAND AS “SACRED”/LAND AS “COMMUNITY”: Professor Kimmerer says: “Restoring land without restoring relationship is an empty exercise. It is relationship that will endure and relationship that will sustain the restored land. Therefore, reconnecting people and the landscape is as essential as reestablishing proper hydrology or cleaning up contamination. It is medicine for the earth.”
- LAND AS “HOME”: Professor Kimmerer describes how restored land will look.
Professor Kimmerer asks “What if we could fashion a restoration plan that grew from understanding multiple meanings of land? Land as sustainer. Land as identity. And as grocery store and pharmacy. Land as connection to our ancestors. Land as moral obligation. Land as sacred. Land as self.”
Each of us has a vital choice to make now in whether we will assume more responsibility for maintaining the Earth on which our lives depend or whether we will further the Sixth Mass Extinction. Fortunately, the world’s indigenous peoples continue to serve as role models. They have track records of tens of thousands of years of being “keystone species” who accept responsibility for life for the next seven generations. If we want to survive, we just need to be wise enough to follow their examples now.
The Original Instructions The West Forgot
The profound connection to the land Native American cultures have is our best guide to avoid the Sixth Mass Extinction. We have just six inches of top soil left now — enough to grow food for just 60 years!
Actor Floyd Red Crow Westerman said In the 2008 video Indigenous Native American Prophecy that Native Americans were told they would see America come and go. He said, “In a sense, America is dying from within because they forgot the instructions on how to live on Earth”. He warned that people who do not know how to live spiritually on Earth likely will not make it. He explained that when Columbus came, that started the true First World War. By WWII, the indigenous population of the Americas had dropped from 60 million to 800,000! The Native American population in the US is currently 8.75 million.
Original Instructions: Indigenous Teachings for a Sustainable Future
Rights vs Responsibilities
John Trudell, the Santee Sioux leader of the American Indian Movement, said “We are all Indians now”.
In Take Back The Earth, Trudell explained why people feel powerless and how to regain our power. He believed the West lost its humanity not when the Enlightenment objectified science, but during the 600 years (1198-1808) of the brutal Inquisition in France, Spain, and Italy.
Americans proudly refer to this country as “The land of the free”. However, when Europeans fled to the Americas to escape pollical, religious, and economic persecution, they knew nothing about freedom. They learned about freedom from the peoples of this hemisphere, the only peoples on Earth who have that concept. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin admired the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) the world’s oldest living democracy which is still in upstate New York. In 1989, Congress formally acknowledged that the Haudenosaunee system of government was the inspiration for the US Constitution.
When Europeans first came here, they were identified by their country of origin as English, Dutch, French, or Spanish and called the peoples of this hemisphere “Indians”. However, when the US Founding Fathers formed the United States, they adopted the name “American” for the people of the new nation. Thus, we are all Indians!
Professor Kimmerer explains that when the US Founding Fathers studied with the Haudenosaunee, they came up with the Bill of Rights. However, she explains, that from the Native American perspective, it would make more sense to draft a Bill of Responsibilities. Trudell also pointed out that Americans talk often about their rights, but seem unconscious of their responsibilities – especially to the Earth on which our survival depend. Yet, Native American nations recognize their responsibilities for the next seven generations!
Professor Kimmerer explains that her Haudenosaunee neighbors say, “Human beings are the younger brothers and sisters of Creation. We haven’t been here nearly as long as the plants. So, that notion of humility — understanding the rest of the world as our teachers — is a profound change. Thinking of yourselves as the Younger Brothers of Creation instead of Masters of the Universe is a kind of cultural transformation that we need to have.”
Professor Kimmerer points out that in 2009, President Evo Morales of Bolivia presented The Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth to the United Nations. However, while the US grants personhood and rights to corporations, it does not to plants, animals, rivers, or the Earth.
In that sense, the West is living in an inanimate, dead world. It is no wonder then that it is killing off one species after another — and now humanity itself is at risk in the Sixth Extinction. She explains that it’s only since the Colonial Era and Industrial Revolution that the world has gotten out of balance.
The Western economic system expects growth each quarter. However, endless growth is not possible in a finite system. When Europeans first arrived, they could drink from any stream. The top soil was thick. Now, there is only enough left to grow food for about another 60 years. Our own survival now demands that we re-think our value system. Can we wake up from the American Dream of endless consumption? The World’s Biggest Problem: Soil Degradation.
Who Are “We The People”?
Western corporations expect endless quarterly growth on a finite planet – an impossibility that depends on extraction. The West has largely ignored the responsibility to preserve, protect, and give back to the Earth. That has led to the destruction of rivers, oceans, forests, soil. fish, birds, bees – and to the Sixth Great Extinction. Professor Kimmerer explains that Native American cultures understand the importance of gratitude and the responsibility for giving back. That’s why their cultures have lasted tens of tens of thousands of years.
UO Today With Robin Wall Kimmerer
Robin Wall Kimmerer, Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, New York. She is also the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment. Kimmerer discusses how indigenous wisdom has enlightened her science. She also shares the Anishinaabe creation story of Skywoman and the lessons the story teaches us about our relationship with the Earth.
Robin Wall Kimmerer: “We the People”: Expanding the Circle of Citizenship 3/14/18
Current debates on the future of public lands call for a focus on who is included in the ‘public.’ Who is inside the circle and who is not? Whose voices are heard, and whose are silenced? Indigenous people have largely been excluded from decision-making involving public lands—as has their sophisticated environmental philosophy and practice, derived from traditional ecological knowledge.
How might the indigenous concepts of the personhood of non-human beings expand our notion of the public good? This talk explores facets of how respectful engagement with indigenous knowledge might re-draw the boundaries of “We, the People” as we consider our relationship to ancestral ‘public’ lands.
We Need A Major Shift In Mindset
Robin Wall Kimmerer emphasizes the importance of reciprocity, advocating for a shift from a “take-only” relationship with the natural world to one of mutual respect and care, where all humans acknowledge our interconnectedness with all life and dependence on the natural world
Kimmerer’s key themes and concepts:
- Diversity as a Source of Resilience: Kimmerer highlights the importance of cultural and biological diversity as essential for resilience and adaptation, emphasizing that a diverse world is a more adaptable world.
- “Braiding Sweetgrass” as a Call to Action: Her book, “Braiding Sweetgrass,” serves as a powerful call to action, urging readers to embrace a more ethical and sustainable relationship with the natural world by weaving together Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the teachings of plants.
- The Gift Economy: Kimmerer explores the concept of the gift economy which contrasts with capitalist economic models, emphasizing principles of reciprocity, gratitude, and abundance.
- Indigenous Wisdom and Western Science: She highlights the value of blending Indigenous knowledge with Western scientific approaches to address environmental challenges, recognizing that both offer valuable insights for understanding and caring for the planet.
- The Importance of Gratitude and Humility: Kimmerer encourages a shift in mindset towards gratitude for the Earth’s bounty and humility in recognizing our place within the natural world, moving away from a consumerist mindset that prioritizes endless taking.
- Reciprocity as a Foundation: Kimmerer argues that humans have a responsibility to give back to the Earth for the gifts it provides, emphasizing that we are not separate from nature but rather part of a vast network of interconnectedness.
- Examples of Reciprocal Actions: Kimmerer suggests practical ways to give back, including raising families, tending gardens, and raising a ruckus to advocate for environmental justice.
- Restoration and Healing: She sees restoration as a way to heal the land and, in turn, heal ourselves, emphasizing the interconnectedness of human and environmental well-being.
- Accountability to History and Future Generations: Kimmerer emphasizes the importance of honoring our ancestors and their knowledge while also being accountable to future generations, recognizing the interconnectedness of past, present, and future.
How To Protect The Next Generations
The greatest gift we can give the next generations is a healthy Earth! We must learn now how to change our culture to stop the Sixth Great Extinction. The coming generations need enough top soil on which to grow food. They need bees to pollinate their foods.
Only 60 Years of Farming Left If Soil Degradation Continues
Protecting Bees, Building Habitat, and Strengthening Communities Together shows that 30% of our foods are pollinated by bees. However, 25% of bees are at risk of extinction now.
The Indigenous Roots of Regenerative Agriculture Farm like the world depends on it shows that organic regenerative farming can make a difference. The site points out: “Regenerative agriculture practices draw from Indigenous wisdom and practices.” It adds “with the power of regenerative organic agriculture, can completely change the direction of our future.”
The World’s Best Forest Guardians: Indigenous Peoples: Even with their often-limited access to financial resources or legal support, Indigenous peoples have proven themselves to be the best guardians of the world’s forests and the valuable ecosystem services that these landscapes provide, such as clean water. Over time, these communities have repeatedly produced conservation results that are on par with—or even exceed—those of government-managed protected zones.
Giving Back Helps Ensure Survival
Americans are taught almost nothing about 500 Native Nations that have lived in multiple high cultures in the Americas for tens of thousands of years. The corporate media – and even most of the alternative media – ignore them unless there Is a protest somewhere to protect the land.
So, most Americans ignore the 500 Native Nations like a Big Pink Elephant in the living room. Yet, many of our states, cities, rivers, etc. carry Native American names. Even the name “American” was originally used by the colonists to refer to the indigenous peoples of this hemisphere. So, we are all Indians!
Americans may hesitate to learn about Native Americans for three reasons. First, they have been told they are primitive cultures that have nothing to teach an “advanced” culture like ours. Second, no one wants to feel guilty about the near annihilation of Native Americans. Third, no one wants to give the land back! However, Native Americans are not guilty-tripping anyone and are not asking for a return of the land. They are offering their ancient wisdom because they understand they are the only ones who have the wisdom to rescue the planet. They understand the urgency of sharing that wisdom now.
The great lesson Native Americans teach is the importance of giving back. Many Westerners make repeated expensive trips to the Amazon to drink ayahuasca with shamans. However, few if any help protect those nations from destruction by oil, mining, and farming companies. Drug companies make billions of dollars from the wisdom of the Amazonian shamans – but do little or nothing to support their cultures or protect the Amazon.
Just taking without giving back is leading to the Sixth Mass Extinction. We must learn to give now.
500 Native Nations
Many of our states, cities, and rivers carry Native American names. There are 500 Native Nations from whom we still have so much to learn that can help us survive in multiple ways. Yet, schools teach almost nothing about Native America. The corporate media mentions them only if there is controversy over land rights. Even most of the alt media usually ignores Native peoples. Yet, there are SUCH fascinating and empowering cultures that enrich everyone who learns about them!
The 500 Native Nations are the Big Pink elephant in the living room Americans are taught to ignore – but at our own peril! Americans are taught that that this hemisphere was “uninhabited” or had only “primitive tribes” when the Europeans arrived. Yet many of the cultures were far more advanced than those of Europe.
The True History of The Conquest of New Spain shows that when the Spanish invaded the Aztec Empire, they were astounded by the beauty of the capital city, Tenochtitlan. While European were bathing just once a year, the Aztecs bathed once or twice a day. The Aztecs were performing 90% successful brain surgery 300 years before Europeans.
The Maya had the world’s advanced calendar until the 20th century. How the Maya Created Their Extraordinarily Accurate Calendar Thousands of Years Ago. The Inca were performing 90% successful brain surgery 300 years before Europeans. Inca Skull Surgeons Had Better Success Rates Than American Civil War Doctors. When the British Navy was being decimated with scurvy, Sordid Medicine Shows Exploited Indigenous Cures shows that Native Americans used pine to heal British Navy dying of scurvy. Scurvy and Canadian Exploration.
From the Jungle to the Operating Room explains that curare created by Amazonian hunters is the basis for anesthesia used in surgery. Curious About Curare: How did a substance found in plants in the Amazon revolutionize the way we look at anaesthesia?
Americans refer to this country as “The land of the free”. However, Europeans fled to the Americas to escape pollical, religious, and economic persecution. Europeans learned about freedom from the peoples of this hemisphere, the only peoples on Earth who have that concept. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin admired the Haudenosaunee and studied with them. In 1989, Congress formally acknowledged that the Haudenosaunee system of government was the inspiration for the US Constitution.
When Europeans first came here, they were identified by their country of origin as English, Dutch, French, or Spanish and called the peoples of this hemisphere “Indians”. However, when the US Founding Fathers formed the United States, they adopted the name “American” for the people of the new nation. Thus, we are all Indians! Smart Americans are educating themselves now abut Native America because they understand these cultures can help humanity survive now! In ‘We Survived the End of the World,’ Native American author Steven Charleston urges readers to become prophets of hope.
Drug companies make billions of dollars each year from the vast herbal knowledge of the peoples of the Amazon, but do little to compensate them. Many Westerners are rushing to the Amazon to drink ayahuasca with shamans for physical, mental, emotional healing and enlightenment.
For More Information
Imagine Italy without the tomato, Ireland without the potato, or America without corn. The gifts from Native America are too many and varied to count. They transformed the world – and can again!
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History
100 Questions, 500 Nations: A Guide to Native America
Indian Givers: How The Indians of the Americans Transformed The World
We Survived the End of the World: Lessons from Native America on Apocalypse and Hope
Read the full article here
