Culturally Based Environmental Protection Process

The Haudenosaunee have lived in peace and harmony with the natural world for hundreds and thousands of years. We share a deep spiritual relationship with our surrounding environment rooted in a respect for all life. We recognize our long-term health is based on living in a healthy environment. Our lifestyles, knowledge systems, philosophies and culture allowed us to be sustainable communities.

In today’s world, we face new environmental problems that our ancestors never had to consider. There were no polluting factories, gasoline stations, and human-made chemicals like PCBs to harm the environment. There was no need for formalized environmental regulations. The challenge before us is finding ways to continue protecting the natural world while preserving our unique relationship with it.

Over the past twenty years, the United States federal government has increasingly recognized the inherent sovereignty of Indian nations and their right to self-determination in the field of environmental law. Part of the inherent sovereignty of Indian nations is the power to create, regulate, and assume primacy over environmental issues. The federal government recognizes this right by treating Indian tribes as states under numerous provisions of federal environmental laws.

Many Indian nations have created environmental codes in the last few decades in an effort to build environmental protection capacity as they identify, plan, develop, and implement environmental programs. However, the majority of tribal environmental codes, for the most part, are absent traditional laws and knowledge. Instead, they represent a restatement of federal and state environmental law adapted to the local level.

While tribes should be commended for creating environmental codes and for assuming environmental regulatory responsibilities, tribal governments should not become complacent, for they need to fully assert their sovereignty by creating culturally-based environmental protection processes. In reality, tribal environmental codes which are absent traditional law and knowledge, further promote assimilation by replacing traditional teachings and principles with federal and state environmental laws.

Federal and state environmental laws are based on western society perspectives, lifestyles, laws, policies, and world views that are very different from the cultural and spiritual based traditional laws and knowledge of the Haudenosaunee. Western society based environmental laws are driven primarily by an economic development agenda, whereas, Haudenosaunee society is driven by the need to live in peace and harmony with the natural world.

The Haudenosaunee Environmental Task Force is proceeding with a project to develop an environmental protection process based on our indigenous world view and relationship with the natural world. Such an environmental protection process will enable the individual nations and communities of the Haudenosaunee to protect and restore the natural world, while helping to preserve our unique relationship with it, as a sustainable society. We contend this to be the best way to promote our sovereignty in a way most consistent with our culture.

The HETF is proposing to use the traditional teachings of the Haudenosaunee as a guide in creating this process. Two symbols of the Haudenosaunee will provide the framework for this project to proceed, the Kaswentha or Two Row Wampum Treaty and the Silver Covenant Chain of Friendship Treaty. Haudenosaunee treaty making is not based on individual issues or events, but rather on relationships between nations. The Kaswentha and Silver Covenant epitomize what the Haudenosaunee strive for in our relationships with others, peace, friendship and respect.

The Kaswentha is a treaty belt created in the 16^th century to record an agreement between the Dutch and the Haudenosaunee. The belt consists of two rows of purple wampum separated by three white rows. The two purple rows symbolize two vessels traveling a river together, side-by-side. One vessel, a ship, is for the Dutch. The other vessel, a canoe, is for the Haudenosaunee. Inside each vessel is what defines it as a society - its customs, laws, and way of life. The three white rows between the two vessels symbolize skennen (peace), kariwiio (a good mind) and kasastensera (strength) and they help to keep the vessels connected.

The Two Row Wampum Treaty Belt represents a mutual recognition by the treaty signatories that their two societies are distinct as represented by the ship and canoe. These vessels are meant to travel the river together, side-by-side. The purpose of the Kaswentha is that the two vessels are to help each other from time-to-time, because this is what people are meant to do. The Two Row calls for cooperation to serve a common interest, there is only one river and it must be protected by both vessels.

The Silver Covenant Chain of Friendship was one of the first treaties made between the Haudenosaunee and Europeans. Beginning with the Dutch in the early 1600's, Covenant Chain treaties were made with the French, English, other tribes, and eventually with the Twelve United Colonies of the Americas. The Covenant Chain became a symbol of the relationship between the Haudenosaunee and other nations. It served to connect us or bond us together in friendship, as brother to brother.

According to the book "The Life of Captain Brant," the Commissioners appointed by the Twelve United Colonies to make a treaty with the Six Nations at the City of Albany on Friday, the 25^th day of August, 1775 made this statement:

By this Belt, we, the Twelve United Colonies renew the old Covenant Chain by which our forefathers in their great wisdom thought proper to bind us and you, our brothers, of the Six Nations together when they first landed at this place and if any of the links of this great chain should have received any rust we now brighten it and make it shine like silver. As God has put it into our hearts to love the Six Nations and their allies we now make the chain of Friendship so strong, we hope through the favour and mercy of the good Spirit that it will remain strong and bright while the sun shines and waters run.

It is with this intent that the Haudenosaunee Environmental Task Force undertakes this project to create a culturally based environmental protection process, with the spirit of the Kaswentha and the Silver Covenant Chain. We propose to create this environmental protection process from within the canoe, from within who we are as Haudenosaunee. At the same time, we propose to bring out the Silver Covenant Chain and polish it so that this project is done cooperatively within the context of the complexities of contemporary society.

In other words, we recognize the need for our environmental protection process to incorporate our traditional knowledge and laws to maintain our sovereignty and protect our culture. At the same time, if we ever need the ship (in the guise of the federal government) to help us protect the river, we must demonstrate that our process meets or exceeds the requirements of federal environmental laws.

The HETF has hired an environmental law researcher and a cultural researcher to work on this project. Initially, the HETF project will conduct workshops to better understand the federal environmental laws and the traditional teachings of the Haudenosaunee. The knowledge gained from the workshops will enable the HETF to have a better understanding of what and how to best prepare a culturally based environmental protection process. A process that will help the individual nations and communities of the Haudenosaunee to protect and restore the natural world. A process that will strengthen our unique relationship with all living things.