Indigenous Peoples Recruit for the New Frontier.

The ship called Earth on which we stand is sinking. The time to make better choices and insist on life rafts for all was yesterday. In the wake of Hollywood's Titanic, where we cried en masse over injustice in the face of impending doom, can we put to rest the harmful priorities and prejudices of today and join land-based people in the fight for Earth's survival?

At the United Nations Earth Summit in 1992, world leaders met to discuss the environmental crisis but only one indigenous leader--Marcos Terena of the Terena Tribe in Brazil--was allowed to speak. He was allotted five minutes to represent the viewpoints of five thousand indigenous nations, all of which have never had a problem living sustainably with the planet.

Said Terena, "You cannot just squander millions and millions of dollars [on environmental conferences] if you don't want to listen to what the Earth has to tell you." Continued denial will prove fatal. Remember the Titanic. (But this ship can't sink!) Humanity's headlong pursuit of development at any cost has come at a price: we have built lives (for some) that are faster and fancier than any that have come before, at the cost of a planet that is growing less and less capable of sustaining any life at all. Ariel Araujo of the Mocovi Tribe in Argentina noted, "Indigenous peoples have the power to maintain the equilibrium that the planet needs to continue advancing. That is our technology, which is more advanced than the technology that money gives birth to."

Spurred into action by the lack of indigenous representation at the U.N. summit, Terena simultaneously organized the first ever World Gathering of Indigenous and Tribal Leaders. The Brazilian government donated land located within the compound of a psychiatric hospital, complete with patients. Ignoring the ironic (some might say racist) fact that, until 1978, indigenous people had the same human rights as the criminally insane, seven Amazon tribes built a village within the asylum to host the historical gathering.

Earth pioneers from the Americas, Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe, and the Pacific Rim passed through the guarded checkpoints to reach the inaugural gathering, where the 109-point Kari-Oca Earth Charter was unanimously drafted and signed. This charter provides environmentally sound guidelines for human rights, biodiversity, conservation, development strategies, land and territory, culture, science, and intellectual property. Said Helen Corbett of the Yamitji Tribe in Australia, "We come to reaffirm the practices that we have adopted since time immemorial to preserve Mother Nature .... We want to share that knowledge and understanding, educating the non-indigenous peoples throughout the world."

The indigenous Earth charter was made available to the United Nations and is available to anyone via the Internet at www.yakoana.com. So why, in this age of information superhighways, is it unfamiliar? Terena offers this explanation:

   This life code that no scientist has ever managed to unveil rests with the
   Indians .... You don't have to look any further or research any further or
   spend millions of dollars on new research. We the Indians would like to
   offer you our time, our wisdom, for your civilization. And once again, we
   have to ask you, are you prepared for that? Is the contemporary world
   prepared to listen to what we want to convey after five hundred years of
   silence?

Loaded questions. How can we listen to one another when some of us are deafened by disdain, while others are filled with mistrust--and for historically good reason?

Where is the common ground between tribal people and the descendants of those who came bearing small pox-infested blankets and--according to accounts such as Toxic Waste and Racism in the U.S. and "Dances with Garbage" in the April 4, 1991, Newsweek--come again today bearing toxic waste? Where is the common ground between descendants of people enslaved and slave owners, between men and women with centuries of hate crimes between us, between humans and every other creature we brutally disregard? Is there common ground?

Yes. We are standing on it.

All life depends upon a healthy ecosystem. If planet Earth goes down, those of us with fast, fancy industrialized lives are no safer from extinction than those of us who have remained connected to the land. It will take all of us working together to turn around this ship. Are we willing? The fact that, worldwide, so many of us still fight for basic human rights as others of us continue to oppose equality says something about the oppressive nature that runs through our blood as a species. This critical human flaw is exactly what has allowed us to rush toward mass destruction because we do not--have not ever--valued all life enough to respect it. The time is now for a massive shift toward human kindness at any cost.

We of the industrial nations are dying from countless diseases of body and spirit, are more familiar with the insides of cars and buildings than the feel of the Earth and its elements, are more comfortable being intimate with e-mail than with a flesh-and-blood neighbor. Instead of a life well lived, Prozac and other substances provide our link to inner peace. This is our final wake-up call. We cannot continue to make such choices if we are to survive. Indigenous leaders from the world's first gathering of land-based peoples agree. Said the Dalai Lama of Tibet, "Due to modern technology, sometimes a human being feels he is owner of this planet .... This is a wrong conception." Ben Jugatan of the Ayta Tribe in the Philippines summarized simply: "Land is life."

Said Viktor Kaisepo of the Biak Tribe in West Papua, "What happened five hundred years ago in the Americas [the mass slaughtering of indigenous tribes by European colonists in order to claim and overdevelop Earth's resources], what happened two hundred years ago in Australia, is happening in my country .... If we want to protect our environment, our culture, then we will be considered by our government to be subversive."

Enter Ahn Crutcher, one U.S. subversive of European descent. With little media experience, no budget, and no time to raise one, Crutcher was told in 1992 that a serious effort to document the impending world gathering was impossible. Yet she made her way to the newly erected village of Kari-Oca with cameras and crew. "Being disconnected from the soul of nature allows us to do soulless things," Crutcher said. "I think it's the root of all our other problems. I just wanted to help."

Crutcher intended to film the gathering only as a record for its participants. One-third of the people interviewed did not speak Spanish, Portuguese, or English so her crew recorded information they could not comprehend. After translation, they discovered the indigenous speakers were, in fact, translating the lost language of nature for all of us who have forgotten it.

And so Yakoana was born--a piece of history documented rather than ignored. The film provides commentary on the future of our world from those who have always aimed to protect not its borders but its health. Yakoana's title refers to dust from the resin of a tree used by Yanomami shamans to perceive the breath of the planet. Woven together by Academy Award-winning editor Vivien Hillgrove (Henry and June, Blue Velvet, Amadeus, The Unbearable Lightness of Being), Yakoana gives voice to those who live with the Earth and calls upon us to join them. Said Crutcher:

   Indigenous people are using Yakoana in their fight to save nature. The
   documentary is getting individual classrooms of kids to think about whether
   cars and cities are bad. In my opinion, it doesn't have to be a win or lose
   situation, but our definition of winning does need to change. I would like
   to see the indigenous peoples' point of view on television, on PBS and HBO,
   in schools and libraries, distributed worldwide via Greenpeace and Amnesty
   International ... but right now it's just me with a lot of tapes on my
   kitchen table.

A few weeks after the gathering, the village of Kari-Oca was burned to the ground, most likely a result of political racism. Terena noted, however, that traditionally, when tribes moved on to allow the land to rest, villages were often burned to signify new beginnings, taking the next step.

Five years after the U.N. Earth Summit, there was Rio+5--the world's official environmental update. The prognosis: globally, things haven't improved much. Indigenous leaders are also planning another gathering for December 1998. But environmental brainstorming--whether such gatherings are separate or united--is still just a first step. Said Vincent Johnson of the U.S. Onondaga Nation, "In order for the people to help, it has to start with the individual. The individual's life-style would have to change in order to help out the environment."

Here in America, we know each vote counts, especially each consumer vote. Governments and corporations have always followed the lead of economic currency. If people insist on clean water, air, and dirt, on healthy food, harmless fuel, and human kindness, new empires will rise as others crumble. In order to demand such a global shift in priorities, however, it must first take place inside ourselves. We must make time in our busy lives to evolve.

The bleakest times are times when heroes step forward. Change starts, continues, and succeeds with regular, stressed-out, pissed-off individuals like you and me. What can we do? In the United States, our 265-million-plus population grows more diverse each day. Join together with those who support good in the world; apply peer pressure against shortsightedness, oppression, evil. Make every day Earth Day. Spend energy, money, and time correcting the mess humankind has made.

But first, go outside and smell the Earth. Touch it. Taste it. Feel its breath. You can't fight for something you don't love. Is the common ground on which we live worth saving? If so, step forward. The frontiers of human decency are waiting to be explored.

Cristina Salat is a widely published author, frequent lecturer, and urban-born black German Indian. She mentors emerging Native American writers and hosts northern California's publishing salons.