Forum calls for action on climate / LJWorld.com

Lawrence and Douglas county

August 15, 2008

It's never too late to make a change, according to tribal leaders who participated in a three-day environmental forum at Haskell Indian Nations University this week.

Leaders left participants with a positive message and ideas for change Thursday at a closing ceremony of the seventh annual Tribal College Forum, "Climate Crises and Water Nations are Calling for Awakening." The forum is a joint conference between NativeView Inc. and the American Indian and Alaska Native Climate Change Working Group.

Conference participants "in the last three days have sent a message of awakening" to pass on to present and future generations, said Henrietta Mann, a tribal leader from Cheyenne.

"It is time to awake," she said. "It is never past time to wake up."

During the conference, students, professors, faculty across the country, world-renowned scientists and tribal leaders identified problems in their communities. A major goal was to develop a framework of ideas and possible solutions for them to share with tribes and others, said James Rattling Leaf, adviser for science and technology at Sinte Gleska University in Mission, South Dakota and leader of NativeView Inc.

In a closing panel, Mann encouraged dissemination of their ideas through a Web site and public service announcements.

Oscar Kawagley, Yupiaq leader in Alaska, discussed how pollution has affected his villages. He suggested forging relationships with corporations to reduce the waste from products and a recycling program for used electronics that are releasing chemicals when discarded, he said.

Nasbah Ben, a Kansas University graduate student who works with the KU Center for Global Indigenous Nation Studies and the working group, said the tribal leaders' involvement impressed her.

"Elders we have the most to learn from because they have been around so long, and they know those traditions that are starting to die out now," she said. "So having them here and hearing what they had to say was just awesome."