An Array of Utopian Flowers
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Wixárika/Huichol People: Protecting Sacred Lands of Mexico
Posted on December 10, 2019 | 1 Comment -
Samuel Beckett, Confessions and the Human Condition
Posted on December 5, 2019 | 1 Comment -
“Bleeding Kansas” and Stories of the Underground Railroad
Posted on December 3, 2019 | 1 Comment -
Jesse Marquez: Public Preparedness for Threats from Refineries, Ports, and Freeways
Posted on November 27, 2019 | 1 Comment -
Urban Oil Drilling and the Intersection Between Faith and Environmentalism
Posted on November 20, 2019 | 1 Comment
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WilderUtopia in 102 Languages
‘Medicine Walk’ Featured in SBLitJo
Santa Barbara Literary Journal releases ‘Bellatrix: Volume 3’ this June, which among adventurous fiction, poetry, essays, and lyrics, features an excerpt of Jack Eidt’s psychic-animism fiction, Medicine Walk. Buy the book!
indigenous peoples Archive
Wixárika/Huichol People: Protecting Sacred Lands of Mexico
Posted on December 10, 2019 | 1 CommentIn this EcoJustice Radio episode, we discuss the struggle to protect the sacred lands and culture of the Wixárika people, also known popularly as the Huichol, an indigenous group inhabiting the remote reaches of the Sierra Madre Occidental of Mexico. Our guests are Andrea Perez, Indigenous Environmental Justice Advocate, and Susana Valadez Director of the Huichol Center for Cultural Survival and Traditional Arts. Jessica Aldridge did the interview.
Sustaining the Legacy of the Tongva: Before and After “Los Angeles”
Posted on September 5, 2019 | No CommentsGrandmother Gloria Arellanes speaks on the heritage of the Tongva people, who inhabited and stewarded the area referred to as the "Los Angeles Basin" as well as the Southern Channel Islands. Grandmother Gloria offers her insights about the state of our world, youth, elderhood and the intergenerational cycle of learning, as well as how we might honor proper protocols, First Nations and all that is Sacred, amidst the backdrop of increasing urbanity, and the numerous perils now facing our environment.
Wild Sonoma’s ‘Valley of the Moon’ – Living with the Land
Posted on May 15, 2019 | No CommentsThe Sonoma Valley in Northern California is known for it's world-class wine, gentle hills, and year-round temperate climate, where novelist-gentleman-farmer Jack London set up his ode to wild sustainability one hundred years before it became a thing. Flying over in a hot air balloon, hiking the protected hillsides to find a precious Pinot Noir at one of the 425 wineries, sailing off the coast, there are many ways to get lost in them hills.
Apache Stronghold: The Spiritual Movement to Save Oak Flat – EcoJustice Radio
Posted on February 4, 2019 | No CommentsJoin Stephanie Mushrush and Carrie "Cc" Curley Strong as they share about the Apache Stronghold spiritual movement to Save Oak Flat (Chi'chil Bildagoteel). Apache Stronghold, led by Wendsler Nosie, Sr. for the last decade, is a spiritual movement to protect the Apache Way of life: their sacred sites and cultural and spiritual heritage. The movement is committed to preventing Resolution Copper, a foreign mining corporation & subsidiary of BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto, from desecrating the San Carlos Apache Nation's ancestral lands.
Protecting Mauna Kea, Hawai’i’s Tallest Sacred Mountain – Part I
Posted on December 12, 2018 | 3 CommentsKumu Mikilani Young discusses with Carry Kim from EcoJustice Radio about the proposed, highly controversial 30-meter TMT telescope which would be built atop "ceded" conservation lands on Mauna Kea, considered the most sacred mountain for native Hawaiians or Kanaka Ma'oli. The TMT telescope would be the largest telescope in the Northern Hemisphere and is being spearheaded by the University of California, the California Institute of Technology as well as: Japan, China, India and Canada.
KXL Blocked – How Indigenous People Will End Tar Sands Pipelines
Posted on November 12, 2018 | 2 CommentsA federal judge blocked the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline in November 2018, saying the Trump administration’s justification for approving it last year was "incomplete," meaning it vacated for political effect the requirements of environmental law in the US. Idle No More and AIM leader Lydia Ponce reflects on her visits to the camps challenging tar sands pipelines to protect Mother Earth and Indigenous sovereignty.EcoJustice Radio – How Indigenous People Will End Tar Sands Pipelines – Episode 23
Posted on November 12, 2018 | No CommentsCarry Kim from EcoJustice Radio talks with Lydia Ponce, a Mayo-Quechua Indigenous activist, member of AIM (American Indian Movement), and Co-Director of Idle No More SoCal. She also works as SoCal 350 Engagement Director
Waste Colonization, Plastic Pollution and the Pacific Gyre
Posted on August 27, 2018 | 2 CommentsHow do we confront the swirling gyres of plastic pollution dumped into our oceans? EcoJustice Radio on KPFK-Los Angeles examines the social and environmental implications of wasted resources, and follow two interrelated approaches to solving the problem from an indigenous woman doing exemplary work in New Zealand and an LA-based plastics pollution fighter who built a raft made of plastic junk and crossed the Pacific.
Dancing Devils of Venezuela Challenge US Consumer Culture
Posted on November 8, 2017 | No CommentsAn exhibition by artist Cristóbal Valecillos in Los Angeles invoked the Dancing Devils of Yare, a 400-year old Venezuelan tradition celebrating life, the triumph of good over evil, and renewal. His provocative interpretation of the diablo masks, hand-sculpted from repurposed waste materials, takes aim at culture and consumption in the US, a plea for overcoming.
Mikilani Young on Mauna Kea Telescope – EcoJustice Radio
Posted on August 10, 2017 | No CommentsMahalo to Mikilani Young of Defenders of Mauna Kea and LA's Mauna Kea movement to stop the desecration of the mountain most sacred to native Hawaiians and their culture. The movement aims to protect sacred, conservation lands, wildlife and plant habitat, and the water table beneath Mauna Kea, all of which will be gravely impacted if the TMT (Thirty-Meter Telescope) project moves forward.
Forest Spirits ‘Induce Confusion’ in Native Vancouver Island
Posted on April 12, 2017 | 1 CommentFacing cultural genocide at the turn of the 1900s, the Kwakwaka'wakw (Kwakiutl) people's way of life in northern Vancouver Island were protected and preserved by the work of anthropologist Franz Boas and photographer Edward S. Curtis.
2017 Rose Parade: Up With the People, Down with the Pipeline
Posted on January 6, 2017 | No CommentsSouthern California Standing Rock is Everywhere Water Protectors crashed the 2017 Rose Parade in Pasadena, and set the tone for a year of unity and peaceful confrontation for the sacred waters of Mother Earth, in the age of The Orange One.
Leonard Peltier Survives in the Spirit of Crazy Horse
Posted on September 16, 2016 | No CommentsLeonard Peltier has been a political prisoner for 41 years. Amnesty International believes that the U.S. authorities should order his release from prison on humanitarian grounds and in the interests of justice. A recent letter from Leonard himself, and multiple documentaries tell the story.
Water is Life: Native Nations Stopping Dakota Access Pipeline
Posted on August 25, 2016 | 3 CommentsThe Lakota phrase, Mni Wiconi, Water is Life, has inspired a Native Nations protest against the recent approval and ongoing construction of the Dakota Access Fracked Oil Pipeline, that threatens all communities and ecosystems downstream. After military-style assaults on Native Water Protectors, construction has almost reached the Missouri River.
Traditional Healing Among the Highland Maya
Posted on August 2, 2016 | 1 CommentTraditional Mayan healers, bone-setters, herbal curanderos, and spiritual guides or shamans, provide good physical and mental health options for poor indigenous Guatemalans.
Ecuadorean Amazon Under Oil Assault to Service Chinese Debt
Posted on July 5, 2016 | No CommentsEcuadorean state capitalism has sacrificed significant tracts of one of the planet's most important biosphere reserves, Yasuni National Park in the Amazonian region, to a massive new oil drilling project. It threatens multiple indigenous territories and the area's biodiversity and ecosystem integrity.
Preserve Newport Banning Ranch as Sacred Archaeological Site Genga
Posted on May 12, 2016 | 4 CommentsNewport Beach's Banning Ranch, the site of a proposed mega commercial and residential development, is an extraordinary archaeological site. Once the site where an ancient Native American coastal village called Genga, a ritual and trading hub for both the Tongva and Acjachemen Native American Nations, existed for over a thousand years.
Rama People Fear End of Culture from Nicaraguan Interoceanic Canal
Posted on April 16, 2016 | No CommentsThe indigenous Rama people of Nicaragua’s Atlantic Coast speak out in a new documentary against an inter-oceanic canal which threatens their ancestral land, language, and traditional culture.
“Embrace of the Serpent” Film: Journey of Healing and Ethnobotany
Posted on April 11, 2016 | 2 CommentsEthnobotanist Richard Evans Schultes, one of the most important plant explorers of the 20th century, served as a key inspiration in a recent film called "Embrace of the Serpent." In December 1941, Schultes entered the Amazon to study how indigenous peoples used plants for medicinal, ritual, and practical purposes. After nearly a decade of fieldwork, he made significant discoveries about the sacred hallucinogen ayahuasca. In total, Schultes would collect more than 24,000 species of plants including some 300 species new to Western science.
Berta Cáceres: Rebel Guardian of the Rivers, ¡Presente!
Posted on March 12, 2016 | 1 CommentBerta Cáceres was assassinated by Honduran government-backed death squads on March 3. She fought for indigenous peoples’ power and for control over their own territories. She was not destined to die of old age. She spoke too much truth to power.
Postcommodity’s ‘Repellent Fence’ Land Art Spans the U.S. Border
Posted on February 20, 2016 | 4 CommentsPostcommodity is a collective of American Indian artists from different backgrounds and mediums, combining to create giant musical instrument installations, video, sound and sculpture. Their Repellent Fence installation floated Scare-Eye Bird Repellent balloons over the border between Arizona and Sonora.
Kogi People’s Lesson From the Heart of the Mountain
Posted on January 22, 2016 | 1 CommentThe Kogi People of Colombia, through two separate documentaries, delivered a message of a sustainable interconnection with nature and community as a way to avert climate and ecological destruction.
Colombia: Stunning Indigenous Rock Art from Amazonia
Posted on September 2, 2015 | 1 CommentPrehistoric paintings on vertical rock faces in an Amazonian wilderness in Colombia were recently photographed and filmed for western eyes. The pretense of this British filmmaker as the "discoverer" of the paintings is of course ludicrous. The once populous Karijona Tribe most likely painted these masterpieces, and continue to live uncontacted in the vast rainforest, and anthropologists and explorers have studied the region for hundreds of years.
Jack Eidt on the Nicaraguan Canal and Trans-Amazonian Railway
Posted on June 9, 2015 | 1 CommentJack Eidt of WilderUtopia spoke on the dangerous race for global control by the Chinese through mega-development projects such as the Gran Canal of Nicaragua and the Trans-Amazonian Railway, both with major human rights, ecological, and indigenous sovereignty consequences.
Silencing the Thunder: Bison Management in Yellowstone
Posted on March 18, 2015 | 2 CommentsThe amazing bison, revered by native societies, survives despite its continued sacrifice at the demand of the cattle industry. While slaughter continues at the borders of Yellowstone National Park, bison managers consider alternative management policies. Also watch the documentary, "Silencing the Thunder."
