Livestream Series with Chief Rueben George
We co-created a Livestream Series hosted by Rueben George, Sundance Chief and member of the Tsleil-Waututh First Nation of Canada. The series is called “Truth, Family, Culture, Health,” which is the foundation of Coast Salish Law. He interviewed several world-renowned indigenous elders, cultural leaders, and environmentalist activists, live on Sacred Ecology’s Facebook & YouTube.
Rueben George is the Sacred Trust Manager of Tsleil Waututh First Nation, an environmental activist, spiritual leader, Sundance Chief, and grandson of Chief Dan George. He has spent the last decade educating his neighbors in Coast Salish Territory about environmental issues and leading the fight against the Trans Mountain pipeline in Canada. He and his community of activists have held rallies, town halls, site tours, and science symposiums. During the pandemic, we took his message online with a weekly livestream discussion featuring special guests from North American indigenous communities and from the frontlines of environmental conservation.
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Episode 1: Clayton Thomas-Müller
Clayton Thomas-Müller is a member of the Treaty #6 based Mathias Colomb Cree Nation also known as Pukatawagan located in Northern Manitoba, Canada. Based in Winnipeg, Clayton is a senior campaign specialist with 350.org and is involved in many initiatives to support the building of an inclusive global movement for energy and climate justice. He also serves on the board of the Bioneers and the Wildfire Project.
Clayton has been recognized by Yes Magazine as a Climate Hero and is featured as one of ten international human rights defenders in the National Canadian Museum for Human Rights. He has campaigned across Canada, Alaska and the lower 48 states organizing in hundreds of First Nations, Alaska Native and Native American communities to support Indigenous Peoples to defend their territories against the encroachment of the fossil fuel industry with a special focus on stopping the expansion of the Canadian tar sands and its associated pipelines. Clayton is also a campaigner, film director, media producer, organizer, facilitator, public speaker and author on Indigenous rights and environmental & economic justice. Check out his short documentary film and book here: http://lifeinthecityofdirtywater.com
Episode 2: Chief Phil Lane Jr.
Hereditary Chief Phil Lane Jr. is a member of the Yankton Dakota & Chickasaw First Nations, and is a citizen of both Canada and the USA. With master's degrees in education and public administration, Chief Phil Lane Jr. is an indigenous leader in human and community development. The founder of the Four World's International Institute, an organization dedicated to "unifying the human family through the Fourth Way", Chief Phil Lane Jr. is the recipient of many awards, and is a frequent speaker on behalf of indigenous rights and wisdom.
A film and video producer, community leader, writer, speaker, educator, consultant and editor, Lane is the co-author with Jon Ramer of "Deep Social Networks and the Digital Fourth Way" a document that outlines sixteen principles as a road map for creating holistic change using internet technologies as a basis by which to share with indigenous peoples globally. Lane has spent the greater part of his life building alliances, especially with native peoples, in both of the Americas in fulfillment of native prophecies concerning the reunification of the "Eagle and The Condor". Most recently, Lane was featured in the film "The Shift of the Ages” which is about the Mayan 2012 calendar prophecies.
Episode 3: Rex Weyler
Rex Weyler is a writer and ecologist. His books include Blood of the Land, a history of indigenous nations resistance to colonization, nominated for a Pulitzer Prize; Greenpeace: The Inside Story, a finalist for the Shaughnessy-Cohen Award for Political Writing; and other books and articles. Weyler is a cofounder of Greenpeace International, and he posts the “Deep Green” column at the Greenpeace International website. For the last five years, Weyler has been working with the indigenous and campesino victims of Chevron oil pollution in Ecuador, helping them collect the court judgement which Chevron so far refuses to pay. Check out his website here: https://www.rexweyler.ca
Episode 4: Pam Palmater
Dr. Pamela Palmater is a Mi’kmaw lawyer, professor, author, and social justice activist from Eel River Bar First Nation in New Brunswick. She has four university degrees, including a BA from St. Thomas in Native Studies; an LLB from University of New Brunswick, and her Masters and Doctorate in Law from Dalhousie University specializing in Indigenous law. She currently holds the position of full Professor and Chair in Indigenous Governance at Ryerson University.
A practicing lawyer for 22 years, Pam has been volunteering and working in First Nation issues for over 30 years on a wide range of issues like socio-economic conditions, Aboriginal and treaty rights, and legislation impacting First Nations. Her books, Warrior Life: Indigenous Resistance and Resurgence, Indigenous Nationhood: Empowering Grassroots Citizens and Beyond Blood: Rethinking Indigenous Identity, together with her other publications focus on Indigenous law, politics, and governance and the importance of native sovereignty and nation-building.
Pam was one of the spokespeople and public educators for the Idle No More movement and advocates alongside other movements focusing on social justice and human rights. She is frequently called as a legal expert before Parliamentary, Senate and United Nations committees dealing with laws and policies impacting Indigenous peoples. Her current research focuses on racism, abuse and sexualized violence against Indigenous women and girls and its contribution to the crisis of murdered, missing, traded, and exploited Indigenous women and girls. Check out her website: https://pampalmater.com
Episode 5: Tzeporah Berman
Tzeporah has been designing environmental advocacy campaigns and environmental policy for 30 years. She is an Adjunct Professor of Environmental Studies at York University, the International Program Director at Stand.Earth, the Chair of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, the co-founder of the Global Oil and Gas Network and the former co-director of Greenpeace International’s Climate and Energy Program. She has held appointed positions advising the British Columbia government on climate policy and was appointed by the Alberta Government to Co-Chair the Oil Sands Advisory Working Group tasked with making recommendations to implement climate change and cumulative impact policies in the oilsands. Tzeporah has been listed as one of the 35 Most Influential Women in British Columbia by BC Business Magazine and awarded the YWCA Women of Distinction Award in British Columbia. In 2019 Tzeporah received the Climate Breakthrough Project Award and in 2013 she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of British Columbia. She is the author of This Crazy Time: Living Our Environmental Challenge. Check our her website: www.tzeporahberman.com
Episode 6: Guujaaw
Guujaaw holds the name and title of ‘Gidansda’, Hereditary Chief of the Skedans. He is a singer, carver, and hunter/gatherer and has been in the inner circles of Haida culture and politics throughout his adult life, acting as a negotiator and as President of the Haida Nation. Guujaaw serves as a Strategic Advisor to the Coastal First Nations and continues to advance his culture and the well-being of the earth.
Episode 7: Russell Diabo
Russell Diabo is a member of the Mohawk Nation at Kahnawake and has worked for Indigenous rights for more than 40 years. He has served at the AFN (Assembly of First Nations) as an advisor to two National Chiefs. As a writer and editor of the First Nations Strategic Bulletin he has been covering the development of Indigenous policy in Canada for the past 20 years and is recognized as one of the foremost Indigenous policy analysts in the country, while at the same time he has continued to work with the bands at the community level and with Indigenous activists in Defenders of the Land.
Episode 8: Dr. Lee Brown
Dr. Lee Brown is the Director of the UBC Institute of Aboriginal Health and is the former Coordinator of the Indigenous Doctoral Program in the Department of Educational Studies at The University of British Columbia where he wrote his Doctoral thesis entitled: Making the Classroom a Healthy Place: The Develop of Affective Competency in Aboriginal Pedagogy. He is the co-author of The Sacred Tree, an educational curriculum based on Aboriginal values and epistemology. Lee has also contributed to the Round Lake Native Healing Centre in Vernon, BC during the last twenty-nine years in a number of capacities including clinical supervisor and currently as a cultural resource to the centre.
Episode 9: Derek Nepinak
Niibin Makwa (Nepinak), served as AMC Grand Chief from 2011-2017, former Chief of the Pine Creek First Nation (2008-2012), and former Chairman of the West Region Tribal Council (2009-2011). Nepinak has built a reputation as a strong leader, negotiator, with an educational background in law, policy, history, and art. His advocacy approach is built on understandings of inherent treaty rights as the foundation for relationship building and reconciliation with Canada.
Episode 10: Tamara Starblanket
Tamara Starblanket is a Nehiyaw Iskwew (Cree woman) from Ahtahkakoop Cree Nation in Treaty Six. She holds an LLM from the University of Saskatchewan, an LLB from the University of British Columbia, and she is the Dean of Academics at the Native Education College. She won the 2020 Nora and Ted Sterling Prize in Support of Controversy for her book “Suffer the Little Children: Genocide, Indigenous Nations and the Canadian State.” She is a grateful guest in the lands and waterways of the of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.
Episode 11: Eugene Kung
Eugene Kung (he/him/his) is a staff lawyer with West Coast, working on Tar Sands, Pipelines and Tankers, as well as with RELAW. He is committed to human rights, social justice and environmental justice and has been working to stop the Kinder Morgan TransMountain expansion project. Prior to joining West Coast, Eugene was a staff lawyer with BCPIAC where he had a social justice law practice in the areas of Constitutional, Human Rights, Administrative, Anti-Poverty and Regulatory law.
Upcoming Guests:
Winona LaDuke, Faith Spotted Eagle, Grand Chief Serge Simon, Bill McKibben, Lee Maracle, Tantoo Cardinal, Grand Chief Stewart & Joan Phillip, Chief Judy Wilson, Jewell James, Kanahus Manuel, Eriel Deranger, Doug White, Deborah Parker, Bryan Parras, Emilee Guevara, Harsha Walia, and more!