Tokata Iron Eyes on why the climate movement needs to listen to Indigenous voices — Assembly

The student activist discusses the importance of Indigenous knowledge in the fight for our planet.

For Indigenous student activist Tokatawin Iron Eyes, the solution to the climate crisis is a simple one: listen to Indigenous voices.

“80% of the world's remaining biodiversity is in Indigenous hands,” Tokata explains. “And that's because we've not allowed our lands and our sacred homelands to be desecrated or exploited in the name of economic progress.” That’s why she believes any solution to the climate emergency needs to involve Indigenous voices and knowledge.

Tokata doesn’t remember the exact moment she learned about the climate crisis, she just knows that from an early age it made sense to her. “It was very clear that the same industries that were wreaking havoc in my communities and in Indigenous communities across the globe were also at fault for the catastrophic events that would ensue in a climate catastrophe,” Tokata shares. So she started speaking out to protect her people’s land and way of life.

At 9 years old, Tokata testified against a uranium mine in the sacred Black Hills. At 12, she helped lead a Standing Rock Youth campaign opposing the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline through the Missouri and Cannonball Rivers and raising awareness about the impact of the pipeline on their water and land. Last year, she invited Greta Thunberg to her school where they spoke about the proposed Keystone XL pipeline and together later led a climate rally and march in Rapid City, South Dakota.

Tokata Iron Eyes with fellow climate activist Greta Thunberg. (Courtesy of Tokata Iron Eyes)

“Everyone is sitting around waiting for somebody else to do something. And the thing about it is that it will never happen unless you start,” Tokata says. “And it doesn't matter who you are, where you come from, what your age is. But you have to feel secure enough in what you believe in that even if you have doubts about your own capabilities, you do it anyway.”

Tokata, who is currently a student at Bard College at Simon’s Rock, also travels around the world as a public speaker. Through her talks, she works to raise awareness about the effects of the climate emergency and inspire other Indigenous youth to take action. Tokata shares with Assembly readers how the U.S. public school system failed her, the questions she wants to see people asking themselves and what’s next in her fight for climate justice.

Tess Thomas (TT): Which of your (many) achievements are you most proud of and why?

Tokatawin Iron Eyes (TIE): I don't think anything's been achieved, pretty frankly. In a lot of ways, we're fighting for the same things that we knew about and that we knew were completely preventable 200 years ago. Like reckless killing of Black and Brown bodies, that's still happening. Displacement of peoples from their homelands, still happening. The climate crisis, not living in a way that is in tune with the Earth's natural systems and ways of being, these are all things that we 100% knew about and knew that they were bad, knew that they were catastrophically violent and still did. So for me, it's really like I haven't achieved anything until those things aren't happening anymore.

[My successes] make me feel good. I understand and I can recognize those things as entirely beautiful and great. And at the same time, for me, in a lot of ways, it feels like it's only gotten worse. Statistically, when we're looking at CO2 levels, when we're looking at land desecration, when we're looking at police brutality, when we're looking at all of these issues, these things have only accelerated in our times. We've gotten louder about them and we've gotten a lot of people to pay attention to it — and still it's happening. So it's a really rough thing and it's a hard thing.

TT: Why do you think it’s so important for young people — and particularly Indigenous young people — to be leading the climate justice movement?

TIE: I believe that because Indigenous young people specifically have had a lived experience, which allows them to exist beyond colonial influence. They are equipped with knowledges, which contradict all of the violent systems. And from the way that I see it, it's the perfect solution. And Indigenous communities are already at the front line of the climate catastrophe. So it's like if we are actually going to address the problem, if we're actually going to address the real visceral consequences of the climate crisis, Indigenous communities are where we're supposed to be looking.

“If we’re actually going to address the real visceral consequences of the climate crisis, Indigenous communities are where we’re supposed to be looking.”

— Tokata Iron Eyes

TT: In what ways has your education informed your climate advocacy?

TIE: School is terrible. As an Indigenous person, the education system is only a symbol of colonial violence. Because education is the foundation of our societies. And so what we're teaching [children] and what we are feeding ideologically, legitimately shapes our reality, because they grow up and they become the next political leaders and they become the next super heroes and villains of the world.

Where I was going to school, for the most part, there was never any actual information within the curriculum about the climate crisis. And the fossil fuel industry was 100% something that was looked at as good. It was economically smart to want those things and to admire those things and view them as solutions for convenience. But then outside of school, I was also like, oh, they're desecrating my land and digging up people's bones to build pipelines. So it was definitely always a contradiction from my experience outside of school versus being told like very concretely what was wrong and what was right by institutions who were actively participating in my oppression.

TT: As a public speaker, you give talks around the world. What do you hope that people in the audience do or learn after hearing you speak?

TIE: I want people to start asking questions. I think that it's really like a crazy phenomena to me that the majority of human beings have just accepted that this is the way that things are. For me, it's 100% not like that. It's like 200 hundred years ago, there were entire nations of people who were living in a way that was completely sustainable and that were living in a way that was completely intelligent and civilized beyond our comprehension. It's the fact that there was already an answer for these problems that we've created and that, no, it's not just like this. People took actions that made it this way, which means that right now, in this moment, we can make choices and we can do things which change what our realities look like. I just want everyone to start asking, “How did things get this way? Who was hurt in the process so that things could be made like this? What things had to change? How do we make it better? Who are the people in power? Who is responsible?” I want people to start exploring.

TT: Public speaking is something that terrifies a lot of young people. What techniques have helped you to become a confident and successful public speaker?

TIE: I get scared every time. I get scared every time before I speak, but I think that there's really a lot of power in being scared and doing something anyway. For me personally, we only get every moment once. I personally want to make the decision for myself that I use my time wisely. And if I have something that I need to say that's not being said then why not me? Why not my voice?

TT: Tell us about what it was like to be featured in Marvel’s Hero Project. What do you hope other Indigenous students take away from watching your episode?

TIE: It was really cool. It gives me a lot of strength and happiness to recognize that another young Indigenous woman or another young Indigenous kid can now look at me and as sort of a personified version of themselves doing really incredible things. And it does make me entirely happy to know that that's something that's physically portrayed in a comic book that people can feel and that people can look at and know that it's real. Because it is.

TT: Is there anything you’re currently working on that you’d like to share?

TIE: For me the next thing and the current thing is land back. And that's what it's going to be because for me, land back is a platform and is a lens that we should be looking through to view everything else. Because if we recognize the inception of where these patterns of violent behavior came from, we recognize the genocide of Indigenous people. And we recognize the genocide of the land and the desecration of the land as an autonomous being. And so for me, land back is the reclamation of Indigenous identity and of Indigenous ideology as a solution for the climate crisis and for other modern-day societal issues.

“I just want everyone to start asking, ‘How did things get this way? Who was hurt in the process so that things could be made like this? What things had to change? How do we make it better? Who are the people in power? Who is responsible?’”

— Tokata Iron Eyes

TT: If you could spend a Saturday doing anything you wanted, what would you want to do?

TIE: Ceremony, probably. I think for me, being around other Indigenous women, specifically other young Indigenous women, really gives me a lot of strength and energy. And there's such a resonance of communal struggle that it really offers the kind of support that can't be given anywhere else. And especially when we can make those spaces that we create together something that is prayerful, it's the strongest place in the world.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. Thank you to Teena Pugliese for facilitating this conversation.