All Our Relations (2023)

1. All Our Relations

In her 1999 book All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life, economist and environmentalist Winona LaDuke writes:

"The last 150 years have seen a great holocaust. There have been more species lost in the past 150 years than since the Ice Age. During the same time, Indigenous peoples have been disappearing from the face of the earth. Over 2,000 nations of Indigenous peoples have gone extinct in the western hemisphere, and one nation disappears from the Amazon Rainforest every year. There is a direct relationship between the loss of cultural diversity and the loss of biodiversity. Wherever Indigenous peoples still remain, there is also a corresponding enclave of biodiversity. Trickles of rivers still running in the Northwest are home to the salmon being sung back by Native people. The last few Florida panthers remain in the presence of traditional Seminoles, hidden away in the great cypress swamps of the Everglades. Some of the largest patches of remaining prairie grasses sway on reservation lands. One half of all reservation lands in the United States is still forested, much of it old-growth. Remnant pristine forest ecosystems, from the northern boreal forests to the Everglades, largely overlap with native territories."

I knew that I wanted to reference All Our Relations for the construction of this essay, but I didn't remember that LaDuke opens her book by framing the loss of species and thousands of nations of people as "holocausts". I appreciate finding this mirror in this time, living during yet another holocaust…