Indigenous-led Permaculture Brings Resilience And Food Sovereignty to Pine Ridge Reservation

There are very inspiring and exciting

things happening at the Pine Ridge

Reservation, which is home to the Oglala

Sioux in South Dakota. This video is going

to introduce you to what they are doing

to restore resilience, economic

independence, self-sufficiency and

cultural revival among the Lakota people.

Being in alliance is about being in

service to each other, and when you are in

service, it's about, attitude, being an

ally also means that because I am

committed I am going to explore further,

dig deeper, and see where the growth

opportunities are for me, and if I can

actually add value.

Everybody loves the cultural native,

everybody loves the ceremonies we share.

But when it comes to talking about the

hardships and injustices and the reality

of what native people deal with on a day

to day basis, that native is not so

popular. So being willing to stand next

to that outspoken native who is not always

talking about the most popular topics, I

think that is what makes a good ally.

I think showing up as an ally star starts

with contextual understanding of not only

what has happened, but also what is

happening. I think it is important to

remember that this is not past tense, and

these injustices are happening everday,

and we are actually seeing them unfold for

people. We are seeing this healing

happen for people within a camp, to this

very day.

People don't have clean water, they don't

have running water, they don't have good

food, they don't have housing, so they are

just in this mode where they can't think

about intergenerational trauma and

epigenetics, and it is really hard to

heal something when you get a wound

and it scabs up and someone keeps coming,

ripping it off. It is ongoing, It has not

stopped yet, it has been going on for like

500 years. Since then we have been in

survival mode, trying to just survive, and

it is hard to really focus on anything

else, like building happy communities and

having healthy relationships with your

children.

It's just the willingness to help,

the willingness to ask questions when it

is appropriate, showing respect for the

culture, for the land, for the

spirituality, for the people. If you treat

the earth in a good way, the earth will

treat you in a good way. It is just a

mutual respect, is what it is, really.

[Flute playing]

Right now, we have got the second annual

IWPS Convergence. We had one last year.

The convergence is really our event to

bring together folks who are working on

these different projects, who have these

skills in natural building, gardening, and

to just come together in community to

really show the power of community and

what the interrelationships can create.

We have people from all over the world.

All nations converge on Pine Ridge, and

then we have community-based projects

that they help to implement on Pine Ridge.

I would say that this year, we are really

deepening our relationships, and we are

also spreading to support these food

distribution networks across the

reservations, so this is not just one site

anymore. This has now become the toolhub

for the reservation, and we also have other

places where they are creating gardens to

heal emotional trauma.

There are a lot of residents who come over,

folks from other residences, and we make it

very accessible. We will cover fuel costs,

whatever it takes, it is free for all

native folk, to really showcase what is

happening, to use this energy to activate

and mobilize our projects moving forward

as well.

We work on low cost, alternative, replicable

models that any family can implement

with a little bit of help across

reservations. We build with tyres, and

a lot of industrial cast off. Junk,

basically. People will approach us and

say, "We have a piece of land and we want

to do this for a family", and then we go

and take a look and if it is within our

ability to help them to do their project,

then we partner up on it and figure out a

way to get the funds necessary to get

things together. This is our experiential

farm or place to build experiments and see

if they are replicable, if they are

economic enough to be used here on

Pine Ridge, and we are all food producers.

The hope being that we can put a dent in

our food desert here.

When I heard the term "permaculture",

and that was many years ago, I said,

"What the hell, it is nothing but white

people, and they are going around the

world and they are taking the best

practices of all the indigenous nations,

and they are putting it in packages and

say, "Oh, look what we have invented,

permaculture, look at this". But as my

brothers here mentioned, it is something

that the indigenous people have been doing

for thousands of years!

All this permaculture knowledge that we

have, we are just trying to reiterate all

of it, because like most of you know our

ancestors have been doing it for thousands

of years.

My family, we used to cultivate, and we

used to plant, and it was communal. It was

huge! Practically the whole community came

to plant these enormous fields. We

practiced crop rotating, everything.

We had more than four corn fields, and

we would plant these fields in three days.

Then of course during harvest that was

distributed to everyone. When we plant

corn, we plant seven seeds. One is for us,

one is for family, one is for the animals,

one is for the birds, one is for everyone,

one is for the earth. That is how we plant.

As we move from this egocentric,

colonialist ideology back towards this

indigenous ancestral knowledge that is

ecocentric, as we move through that

transition, we all recognize and forgive

our part in the equation and then we

actively work towards embracing our

humanity, reaching out to each other and

recognizing that we are all part of the

same tribe humankind.

I did not want anything to do with it

until I came here and I saw how lovingly

this permaculture crew touches the ground.

But you know, the important thing among

our people is to show up, and to show that

you mean what you are saying, and that you

are going to walk your talk.

(Native American music playing)

I am so thoroughly impressed and inspired

by the incredible work of everyone at the

Pine Ridge reservation, and I hope you are

as well. I would love to see you support

them in their mission. There are links in

the description to learn more, to get

involved and support them, so make sure

that you do that. If you want people to

see this and be inspired by it, make sure

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if you have not already, make sure to

subscribe to this channel, where there

will be many more videos to come.

I love you all very much, and I hope that

you will go out there and make positive

change and be a part of this movement

for a better world.