Pledge your support for the Earth and Indiginous peoples at the Skills for Solidarity web site.

Source: The Guardian

…contrary to the myth that Indigenous peoples leech off the state, resources taken from their lands have in fact been subsidizing the Canadian economy. In their haste to get at that wealth, the government has been flouting their own laws, ignoring Supreme Court decisions calling for the respect of Indigenous and treaty rights over large territories. Canada has become very rich, and Indigenous peoples very poor.

In other words, Canada owes big. Some have even begun calculating how much. According to economist Fred Lazar, First Nations in northern Ontario alone are owed $32 billion for the last century of unfulfilled treaty promises to share revenue from resources. Manuel’s argument is that this unpaid debt – a massive liability of trillions of dollars carried by the Canadian state, which it has deliberately failed to report – should be recognized as a risk to the country’s credit rating…

The stakes could not be greater. The movement confronts a Conservative Canadian government aggressively pursuing $600 billion of resource development on or near Indigenous lands. That means the unbridled exploitation of huge hydrocarbon reserves, including the three-fold expansion of one of the world’s most carbon-intensive projects, the Alberta tar sands. Living closest to these lands, Indigenous peoples are the best and last defence against this fossil fuel scramble…

Implementing Indigenous rights on the ground, starting with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, could tilt the balance of stewardship over a vast geography: giving Indigenous peoples much more control, and corporations much less. Which means that finally honouring Indigenous rights is not simply about paying off Canada’s enormous legal debt to First Nations: it is also our best chance to save entire territories from endless extraction and destruction. In no small way, the actions of Indigenous peoples – and the decision of Canadians to stand alongside them – will determine the fate of the planet.This new understanding is dawning on more Canadians. Thousands are signing onto educational campaigns to become allies to First Nations. Direct action trainings for young people are in full swing.

There is a lot of great information and inspiring quotes in the Indigene Community web site. Their premise is that there is no need to re-invent the wheel in terms of re-learning how to live sustainably.

They argue that Indigenous Knowledge (IK) provides many blueprints for a post-post sustainable world. This organization was inspired by Stewart Brand’s Long Now project.

Source: Challenge Your World

Built in 1955 by the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation, LASALLE-GARDENS was inspired by Frederick Law Olmstead’s ‘garden-city’ concept. It currently has 2000 people living in 700 apartments & 50 town-houses on a 33 acre property. Peripheral roads require 1/3rd the number of streets in similar population density as in the rest of Montreal. Park-lands surround most buildings where residents are commonly seen playing, walking and interacting. Some members planted over one hundred maples and pines over 45 years ago which currently reach 50 foot heights providing natural beauty, shade and clean air.

Source: Indigene Community

Blueprints for sustainable development and humaine society are still held by indigenous societies and indeed our own indigenous heritages worldwide.   ‘Indigenous’ is not a function of race but of openess, involvement and inclusion for everyone.  Around the world ethno-historical (indigenous worldview) efforts are being made to compile Indigenous Knowledge IK from thousands of First Nation societies and fragments held by all of us in order to reintegrate this into inclusive living-ecology-economy, abundance and connected cultures today for everyone….

Human culture has perverted its original kind and sustainable operating system due to a pervasive colonial (empire) ‘virus’ by which, we are destroying the planet’s ecological capacities and productivity.  Analogy:  When a computer has a ‘virus’, we reboot it back at a time when the Operating System was integrated, whole and vibrant.  Indigene Community website compiles and attempts to describe the indigenous period, principles and practices, which cover hundreds of thousands and millions of years of human life on earth.  Humanity can find abundance and guidance from indigenous roots.  We won’t reinvent our way out of problems using the same understandings which create them.