Reconciling the Past May Be the Only Way to a Sustainable Future (nonprofitquarterly.org)

Social movements focusing on environmental and climate justice need to evolve to center histories of Indigenous injustices and the ongoing consequences for Indigenous peoples. Whereas mainstream discussions of environmental racism typically focus on contemporaneous acts of land use and resource exploitation, Indigenous environmental issues are deeply rooted in cyclical acts of displacement and alienation.

This article provides a brief summary of this past and its linkages to communities of people, both in the United States overall and Hawai’i specifically, who have been routinely attacked, pilfered, and excluded from the prosperity and opportunities that should be available to all. Within this history, contemporary acts of environmental racism in Hawai’i are considered and serve as an important lesson when considering how climate issues should be addressed in the Pacific more broadly. Finally, intersectional environmentalism is examined as one potential area in which a more holistic approach to environmental justice and just futures can be considered.

The environmental histories and traumas of Indigenous peoples remain largely absent from the environmental justice discussion, and this must be remedied if we are to develop pathways to a just, sustainable future.

Ecocolonization, “the process by which Western forces simultaneously colonize indigenous natural resources and the First People who inhabit that environment,” is a useful lens through which to focus on these early environmental histories. It centers environmental injustice questions around colonization and imperialism—historical patterns that have done their utmost to marginalize and alienate Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLC) over the course of centuries.²⁰

Ecocolonization has proved to be physically, psychologically, and spiritually devastating for many Native communities, not only Native Hawaiians. For instance, regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, UN News reported that, on the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres noted, “Throughout history, indigenous peoples have been decimated by diseases brought from elsewhere, to which they had no immunity.”²¹ The report continues, “While indigenous peoples already faced deep-rooted inequalities, stigmatization and discrimination prior to the current pandemic, inadequate access to healthcare, clean water and sanitation increases their vulnerability, [Guterres] added.”²²  It must be recognized first and foremost that many environmental challenges today originate in foreign settlement that saw the environment and natural resources like forest products²³ and water²⁴ as commodities.

To read more of Trisha Kehaulani Watson-Sproat's article, please click here.