Blue Chip Foundation: Ethics in Action and Indigenous Peoples

Casina Pio IV, Vatican City—Blue Chip Foundation, represented by founder Jennifer Gross, participated in the June 2018 Ethics in Action meeting to address the Sustainable Development Goals and call for solidarity with indigenous peoples across the world.

“The economic exclusion of indigenous peoples has to end if we are going to achieve the sustainable development goals,” says Gross. “There are approximately 370 million indigenous peoples worldwide, in over 90 countries. Indigenous peoples occupy 25 percent of the world’s surface area, and within that quarter lies 80 percent of the world’s remaining biodiversity. They are the custodians and ultimately responsible for the success of SDG 15. They hold vital ancestral knowledge and expertise on how to adapt, mitigate, and reduce climate and disaster risks. We need to listen to them and empower them to act on not only the land’s behalf, but on behalf of future generations.”

Indigenous peoples are on the forefront of the battle for sustainable development, but they’re facing opposition from all directions. Colonialism is encroaching on indigenous lands, forcing displacement and burning through natural resources at an alarming rate. The Sioux Standing Rock Tribe, for example, were overwhelmed by the power of the U.S. government and private industry in pursuit of the Dakota Access Pipeline – despite battles in federal court and clear violations of the Fort Laramie Treaty which guarantees the tribe ‘undisturbed use and occupation’ of its land. In the Amazon, Africa, Chile, Canada and countless other places, indigenous peoples’ rights are being abused and their lands are being stolen.

The Ethics in Action committee, joined by Pope Francis, several global organizations and the United Nations, recognize the rights, special needs and vulnerabilities of indigenous people. With the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the UN also recognized indigenous peoples’ unique global roles and rights, including rights of autonomy and sovereignty. Ethics in Action is calling for a “new framework of global sharing with indigenous peoples,” as well as a new moral vision that recognizes their contributions to the fulfillment of the SDGs.

Algonquin Hereditary Chief and Medicine Man Grandfather Dominque Rankin, who founded the Kina8at Organization, addressed the panel to explain the importance of women in the Algonquin culture. Born northwest of Quebec, Grandfather Dominique (written as T8aminik in Algonquin) was designated to take over his father’s role as hereditary chief at the age of seven.

“My ancestors are talking,” Grandfather Dominique said. “I didn’t go to school for a long time, but I went to the school of the forest where I was born. All of what we have said here today has touched my heart, and I will bring back to my peoples those words that I heard.”

After asking the women in the group to stand, Grandfather Dominique explained, “This is one of the first things we need to learn when we talk about Mother Earth. All the women standing up, they are called the Earth. They [are] linked to the earth; they are water carriers. They are medicine women for life because they gave birth. We always start with mother. My mother taught me a lot about the earth. She showed me the roots of the trees. Here are the roots standing up. They are our roots. It’s never too late to learn those things. Today we will open our hearts. Thank you to all the women here.”

Connecting with indigenous peoples requires practical action – and that means supporting indigenous communities through development financing, supporting the leadership and safety of indigenous women, and supporting programs that allow indigenous peoples to reconnect with their own cultures, languages and identities. 

Part of that involves working toward genuine peace – a common thread throughout the convention.

“My approach is peace, of course. Peace will set us free,” said Ali’I Nui Aleka Gonsalves Aipoalani of the Polynesian Kingdom of Atooi, which is part of the Hawaiian Kingdom. “We must continue explaining ourselves to these governments what rights we have as indigenous people and how we can work together to make this a better world for all of us. I think that’s an approach that a lot of our indigenous people are not doing right now because we are too busy being angry and mad at what is happening. But things cannot get done that way. We all know we have to negotiate and speak with one another to make peace happen. We have been deprived too long and many genocidal things have happened to us in the past in the Pacific.”

Aiopalani also addressed the Pacific Garbage Patch and the impact it has on island peoples.

“A lot of clean-up has to be done because no clean-up has ever happened. We have, in our oceans, a lot of plastic,” he said, adding that the Garbage Patch “is the size of Texas, and that’s crazy because it’s an island of plastic … we need to help get rid of it and utilize it with something we can be more productive with.”

Pope Francis has repeatedly called for more balance regarding international and intranational relations. In Laudato Si’, he writes, “Inequity affects not only individuals but entire countries; it compels us to consider an ethics of international relations. A true ‘ecological debt’ exists, particularly between the global north and south, connected to commercial imbalances with effects on the environment, and the disproportionate use of natural resources by certain countries over long periods of time.” 

There is a way out, according to Aiopalani and many others in attendance, and it involves giving many indigenous peoples voices that have never been heard before. 

“We forgive. We want to forgive everybody who did anything wrong, because today is a new generation of our people. We want to move forward and be alongside other nations and flourish and prosper for our people. At this time, Polynesia is like a third world country, We are occupied by four different nations. France, the British, America and the Chilean, so we have a big job to do with them. Our voices have never been heard. This is the first time that we get to speak at this level. We are honored, and we need help. We are special people and we care about the planet. And we want to create a way to make that happen,” said Aiopalani. 

Aiopalani has been consulting with Dr. Jeff Sachs, whom he met in New York, to gather information on helping more than his own people – he has much bigger ambitions. 

“We chiefs in Polynesia, we are thinking seven generations ahead of us and what we are going to leave for them for our future. We are looking at new technologies, green technology, sustainable development, of course, and helping the world with sustaining,” said Aiopalani. “We live on islands. We sustain ourselves for many years, and we can offer that experience in how we live off our lands. We are starting to get together and think about having more fish farms to provide fish for the world. Everyone needs good food. If we have good food, we have healthy people; we have healthy nations. That is what makes us wealthy.”

Jeff Sachs and Blue Chip Foundation will be meeting with the Polynesian kings and chiefs in 2019 to discuss models of sustainability and create working strategies.

But indigenous peoples are continuously subjected to neocolonial powers – and in many cases, those powers are backed by multiple outside nations. Companies forcibly lay pipelines, harvest minerals and deforest indigenous communities without consent.

“Their ancestral lands have been taken over by others who came from across the seas and who now claim the right to exclude others from entering. Whatever may have been the causes and the course of events that took place, from an ethical point of view, it was a historic crime that was nothing less than genocide,” said Cardinal John Onaiyekan of the Archdiocese of Abuja, Nigeria.

Ethics in Action, Pope Francis, Blue Chip Foundation and numerous other organizations are calling on governments to create dialogue with indigenous natives with commitment to mutual respect, responsibility and learning. Keeping indigenous communities intact and engaged is central to fulfilling the Sustainable Development Goals; they possess traditional knowledge and a special understanding of biodiversity, and in their holistic notion of buen vivir – living well with a shared well-being – lies the core truth that the common good is paramount to everything else.

“We’ve developed a partnership with the Interfaith Rainforest Initiative that helps protect and restore global forests, because they’re not only vital carbon sinks – they’re indigenous peoples’ ancestral domains, and they’re sacred. We’re also calling upon countries that are home to native peoples to legally recognize their rights and provide them with the ability to practice traditional lifestyles and cultures,” said Gross.

Historically, indigenous peoples have been marginalized all over the world. They’ve been repressed, enslaved and slaughtered in pursuit of resources and profits – and those seeking the profits typically view them as obstacles to work through, rather than work with. There have been exceptions, such as the Jesuit missions, but generally, settlers have worked to suppress the people who inhabited and lived with the land. We need to make these changes – we need to recognize the sovereignty, wisdom and cultures of what’s left of the world’s indigenous peoples because they are at the forefront of sustainable development.

Article 23 in the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples addresses and recognizes specific rights – most notably that indigenous peoples “have the right to determine and develop priorities and strategies for exercising their right to development.” Further, it emphasizes that “indigenous peoples have the right to be actively involved in developing and determining health, housing and other economic and social programmes affecting them and, as far as possible, to administer such programmes through their own institutions.”

Blue Chip Foundation, Ethics in Action, the Kina8at Organization and numerous other organizations representing the world’s indigenous peoples are fighting to make that happen – and you can help, too. Find out how here.