Chapter subject here SUSTAINABLE TRIBAL ECONOMIES A Guide to Restoring Energy and Food Sovereignty in Native America A PUBLICATION OF HONOR THE EARTH “ We are the Keepers of this Earth. Those are divinely mandated in- structions to us. We are at an incred- ible challenge at this point of our journey. We have been blessed by being Indigenous. What a blessing, and what a responsibility.” — Dr. Henrietta Mann at the Native Peoples Native Homelands Climate Change Workshop, November 2009 HONOR THE EARTH’s Mission Our mission is to create awareness and support for Native environmental issues and to develop needed financial and politi- cal resources for the survival of sustainable Native communities. Honor the Earth develops these resources by using music, the arts, the media, and Indigenous wisdom to ask people to recognize our joint dependency on the Earth and be a voice for those not heard. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: Cover Art: Jonathan Thunder Researched and written by Honor the Earth staff and volunteers: Winona LaDuke, Faye Brown, Nellis Kennedy, Tom Reed, Luke Warner and Andrea Keller. Design: Kevin Brown, Smart Set, Inc. Special thanks to the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community, Surdna Foundation, Nathan Cummings Foundation, Sol- idago Foundation, Turner Foundation, Carolyn Foundation and the Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program at Shelter Rock for funding Honor the Earth’s Energy Justice Initiative and this booklet. Thanks to Reed Aubin, PennElys Goodshield, Bob Gough, Chase Iron Eyes, Kim Knutson, Christopher Reed, and Lisa Ringer for their contributions to this booklet. Thank you to our Advisory Board, representing the Indigenous Environmental Network and Indigenous Women’s Network, for years of collaboration, commitment and leadership: Charon Asetoyer, Faith Gemmill, Tom Goldtooth, Heather Milton- Lightening and Anne White Hat. Sustainable Tribal Economies A GUIDE TO RESTORING ENERGY AND FOOD SOVEREIGNTY IN NATIVE AMERICA A PUBLICATION OF HONOR THE EARTH 2104 Stevens Avenue South Minneapolis, MN 55404 (612) 879-7529 [email protected] www.honorearth.org Sustainable Tribal Economies: A Guide to Restoring Energy and Food Sovereignty in Native America Why This Booklet? The process of determining our des- and less of our own food and instead tiny is at the core of our survival as rely upon foods imported from facto- Indigenous peoples. As tribal com- ry farms and monocropped fields far munities grow and we deepen our away. This is not a sustainable way to strategies and infrastructure for our live. This booklet is about the process Nations, it is essential for us to look of recovering control of these two at the world’s economic and environ- economies as a way to ensure the sta- mental realities in order to make crit- bility of our tribal communities, our ical decisions about our future. That environments and our cultures. means we must address issues such as climate change, peak oil and food This booklet explores food and en- insecurity. Food and energy consume ergy issues in tribal communities, huge portions of our tribal economies recognizes their linkages, provides and must be considered in relation to examples of tribal innovation and tribal sovereignty and self-determi- outlines options for tribal communi- nation. ties to create sustainable energy and food economies for this millennium This new millennium is a time when and for the generations yet to come. we are facing the joint challenges of In all cases, we are looking at the cre- an industrial food system and a cen- ation of local economies, using the re- tralized energy system, both based sources available to each Indigenous on fossil fuels, and both of which are community. We are hopeful that some damaging the health of our peoples of these strategies will not only be vi- and the Earth at an alarming rate. In able for tribal self-determination, but the US— the largest and most ineffi- also, when appropriate, be a possible cient energy economy in the world— source of export revenues for tribal tribal communities have long sup- communities. plied the raw materials for nuclear and coal plants, huge dam projects, Recovering and restoring local food and oil and gas development. These and energy production requires a resources have been exploited to conscious transformation and set of power far-off cities and towns, while technological and economic leaps we remain in the toxic shadow of for our communities. We must decide their lethal pollution and without whether we want to determine our our own sources of heat or electricity. own future or lease it out for royalties. Our communities have also laid the In the end, developing food and en- groundwork for agriculture on this ergy sovereignty is a means to deter- Art by Camille LaCapa; Border by Star continent. Yet today, we produce less mine our own destiny. Wallowing Bull Table of Contents Sustainable Tribal Economies A GUIDE TO RESTORING ENERGY AND FOOD SOVEREIGNTY IN NATIVE AMERICA Part One THE BASICS OF A SUSTAINABLE ECONOMY .................................................. 3 Part Two CHALLENGES FACING INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES: THE URGENT NEED TO BUILD ENERGY AND FOOD SOVEREIGNTY ..................................... 7 Challenge One: Climate Change ......................................................................................7 Challenge Two: Peak Oil ..................................................................................................13 Challenge Three: Fuel Poverty ........................................................................................17 Challenge Four: Food Insecurity ....................................................................................19 False Solutions, “Clean” Coal, Carbon Capture and Sequestration, Nuclear Power, Unsustainable Biofuels .........................................................................23 Part Three OPPORTUNITIES FOR TRIBAL ACTION ..........................................................25 Part Four SOLUTIONS FOR BUILDING SUSTAINABLE TRIBAL ECONOMIES Solution One: Energy Efficiency and Conservation......................................................29 Solution Two: Renewable Energy ...................................................................................31 Solar Energy ............................................................................................................34 Wind Energy............................................................................................................39 Micro Hydropower..................................................................................................44 Sustainable Biomass and Biofuels.........................................................................46 Solution Three: Restoring Traditional Foods.................................................................51 GLOSSARY OF TERMS ................................................................................... 60 SOURCES ....................................................................................................... 63 Sustainable Tribal Economies: A Guide to Restoring Energy and Food Sovereignty in Native America Notes: | 2 | The Basics of a Sustainable Economy Part One: THE BASICS OF A SUSTAINABLE ECONOMY BREAKING THE CYCLE OF have become accustomed to a cycle definition of wealth. We believe that DEPENDENCY where outside sources of cash come restoring a local economy rooted in into the reservation and our cash is our own knowledge as Indigenous An economy is the creation and dis- spent off-reservation. peoples is essential to revitalizing the tribution of wealth in a community. health and sustainability of our com- Wealth could be in the form of wam- The structure of a dependent econo- munities. pum, corn, energy, or other items, my puts Indigenous communities at such as cash. The industrial economy A CASE FOR RE-LOCALIZING risk of constant destabilization and is not the only economy. In fact, the ENERGY AND FOOD often at the mercy of outside forces, cash reliance of an industrial econ- whether those forces are large min- Honor the Earth collaborated with omy is a relatively new addition to ing companies or renewable energy the White Earth Land Recovery Proj- Indigenous economic and trade sys- developers seeking to profit from the ect to perform a study on the White tems. Indeed, the fur traders, agency resources of a tribal community, or Earth Reservation analyzing the offices, annuity payments, trading whether they are unpredictable fed- tribal energy economy while also rec- posts and other cash-based institu- eral allocations. As the US economy ommending an innovative program tions that became so significant in becomes increasingly destabilized of energy efficiency and renewable our post-contact history were ma- as a result of the recession, wartime energy. A separate study was under- jor elements in the unhealthy trans- expenditures, peak oil, and climate taken on the food economy. These formation of our economies from change, our tribal economies will studies revealed that approximately wealthy and self-reliant to poor and face even greater destabilization and 50% of the tribal economy’s money is dependent. more risk. being spent outside the reservation on food and energy. This expenditure To put it plainly, cash is not essential To become self-sustaining, we need represents a substantial and discon- to an economy. Yet, we have become to break the cycle of dependency. Our certing portion of our tribal income. increasingly cash-dependent in In- people suffer from a history of depen- In fact, it