yesmagazine.org<\/a><\/div>\r\n<\/p>\r\n\u201cWhenever you talk about race relations here in so-called \u2018America,\u2019 Indigenous communities [are] always the last ones on the rung,\u201d says Wanbli Wiyan Ka\u2019win (Eagle Feather Woman), also known as Joye Braun, a front-line community organizer with the Indigenous Environmental Network who fought against the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines. \r\n
<\/p>\r\nIn defending the land so deeply beloved and cherished by her people, the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, Braun recounts how actively her community is excluded from environmental work and how she and her colleagues are blatantly silenced, even when working alongside allies. \u201cWe\u2019ve had to really fight \u2026 to even have a seat at the table,\u201d she says.
<\/p>\r\n\r\nThe exclusion of Indigenous people and other non-White communities in environmental and conservation work is, unfortunately, nothing new. For centuries, conservation has been driven by Eurocentric, Judeo-Christian belief structures that emphasize a distinct separation of \u201cMan\u201d and \u201cNature\u201d\u2014an ideology that does not mesh well with many belief structures, including those belonging to Indigenous communities.
<\/p>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\u201cChristianity has been largely built up around the idea of colonization,\u201d Braun says. Not only do these belief structures hold disproportionate power in environmental legislation, but they hold historical pains for those outside of Western religions. \u201cChristianity was forced down our throats,\u201d Braun says. \u201cOur reservations were divided up: \u2018OK this community \u2026 you can be Catholic. This community \u2026 you\u2019re Lutheran. This community \u2026 you\u2019re whatever.\u2019\u201d
<\/p>\r\n\r\nBefore the onset of such religion through colonialist conquests, the overwhelming consensus throughout the world was that human beings were just a small part of this natural world. Neither detached, nor superior. Of course, this \u201cconsensus\u201d was not necessarily expressed in such a way that all groups adhered to the same belief structures. Yet, the underlying environmental ideology remains: Human beings are, to some extent, connected to all other living things on Earth, even the Earth itself. As European imperialism\u2014and along with it, cultural genocide\u2014began to take hold worldwide, so began the spread of the \u201cMan versus Nature\u201d dogma.
<\/p>\r\n\r\nToday Braun\u2019s life is just one example of the ideological exclusion of non-European thought as it relates to wildlife and the natural world. Nonsubscribers are barred from participation in the protection of the world and nonhuman lives they hold so dear, which inhibits their environmental stewardship. But around the world, and especially in the United States, we are witnessing a historical push toward the dismantling of imperialism, the decentralization of power, and the welcoming of non-White, non-European values into conservation.
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