Artwork stating 'Education Destroys Barriers', 'We Demand Treatment', and 'I Need A Chance'

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  • In the forests of New Zealand, indigenous Maori and Western scientists work through past injustices to save a threatened species together

    A native tree species known as the kauri is being threatened by a deadly pathogen in New Zealand, so Western scientists, the government, and the Māori people are working together to stop it. Early tests suggest that chemical signals from other plants might be able to distract the pathogen and slow down the spread of it. However, collaboration between scientists and indigenous people was not easy, but they were able to build trust between each other.

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  • How a coastal Louisiana tribe is using generations of resilience to handle the pandemic

    The Grand Caillou/Dulac Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw has long had a culture of cyclicality which is now coming in handy during the Coronavirus pandemic. Because they assume that hardship will come after periods of abundance, tribal members prepare for times of scarcity by making do with less, strategizing new ways to produce food, and regularly checking in with elders to ensure their needs are met. The tribe also lives on the coast of Louisiana, so climate change and environmental degradation remain an issue that they include in their future-planning.

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  • In Contrast To Wyoming, Wind River Tribes Counter COVID-19 With Aggressive Measures

    Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes share land, and despite previous disagreements, they collaborated to create one of the state's most effective coronavirus testing clinics. 3,000 people from both tribes have been tested, about 30% of all tests done in Wyoming. The two nations have also helped residents, impacted by casino closures and sharp drops in oil and gas revenues, with special hunting seasons, food supply distributions, and providing quarantine housing. More testing has meant higher cases identified, which has led some to create a narrative blaming Native people for the spread of the virus.

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  • Not just another statistic

    The number of missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada is high, so a group of Indigenous women formed an organization called Power Our Women (POW) to teach other Indigenous women across the country self-defense skills. Participants talk about their cultures, learn physical self-defense, build confidence, and learn situational awareness. Participants describe the program as healing but difficult. POW has now reached more than 5,000 women across Canada, including remote areas in northern Manitoba.

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  • The fire we need

    The Indigenous Peoples Burning Network works with a group of other similar networks with the shared goal of promoting prescribed fire in a positive and safe manner that will help local ecosystems and minimize the risk of unintentional wildfires. Since controlled burning has been part of Indigenous communities for much of their long history, there is an opportunity for Indigenous leaders and local fire experts to learn from each other.

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  • How Native Americans Are Fighting a Food Crisis

    Indigenous people across the United States—like the Oglala Sioux on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation—are relying on survival tactics that their ancestors used to get through the COVID-19 pandemic, like seed saving, canning, and dehydrating food. Social distancing isn't as much of an issue as food shortages are in reservations. To pitch in individuals are doing things to help others, like growing crops, preparing seedlings of different crops for people to plant in their yards or donating from their own food reserves to others who might need it. This article highlights responses in reservations across the US.

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  • The Ute Mountain Ute tribe has turned its casino into a food distribution hub

    The Ute Mountain Ute people have enacted a number of COVID-19 preventative measures for the tribe. These include implementing a curfew, transforming their casino into a food distribution hub and lodging for first responders, and regularly visiting elders to ensure needs are being met. After transforming the casino, 650 of the tribe’s 2,100 enrolled members signed up to receive assistance.

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  • Save the Words

    Efforts are underway on the Menominee Reservation in northeastern Wisconsin to preserve the at-risk language of Menominee. That looks like conducting school entirely in Menominee, printing Menominee-language books, updating the language with twenty-first-century terms, and poring over old texts and audio transcripts to transfer vocabulary into a database. There are many challenges facing this initiative and many of the workers are volunteers or poorly-compensated, but those doing the work feel a great sense of responsibility and duty to carry on.

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  • App connects users with native-owned businesses

    In the Navajo Nation, more than 70 percent of local income leaves the tribal area, but one effort is helping native-owned businesses expand their reach. Change Labs, a business incubator, helped birth Rez Rising, an app that helps people find and shop with native-owned businesses, which often find obstacles to entrepreneurship like listing a physical address or operating a website.

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  • The fight to save CHamoru, a language the US military tried to destroy

    CHamoru, the indigenous language of the Mariana Islands, is endangered. In an urgent move to save the language, Chief Hurao Academy was founded, a nonprofit that offers a CHamoru summer immersion program, an after-school immersion program, and a CHamoru-language preschool. There are barriers to its success, particularly funding, but the response has been overwhelming and already the children can chat casually in CHamoru.

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