By Brenda Norrell
San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center
Native women from North America joined Indigenous women from around the world and spoke out against greenwashing and false solutions, including carbon credits, at the UN Climate Summit in Egypt. Pointing out that fossil fuel man camps have become clusters of abusers, they sent their voices out to the world: “No More Stolen Sisters,” and “No More Stolen Relatives.”
“Our Pueblo people have fought against colonialism,” said Julia Fay Bernal, Sandia Pueblo, at COP27 in Egypt.
Julia said New Mexico has been used as a sacrifice zone for energy production — oil and gas, uranium, hard rock mining, logging — and now the fossil fuel industries are pushing fossil fuels as false green solutions.
Fossil fuels are being disguised as green solutions in a just transition.
Julia is speaking out for solutions that come from the grassroots up. Most energy initiatives come from the top down, she said, and don’t take into account natural and cultural landscapes and the values of Indigenous People.
“Our people have lived in the landscape since time immemorial.”
“We have had enough violence on our bodies, our lands, and our water. We are saying no to false solutions. We are saying no to fossil fuels. My struggle must be your struggle and your struggle must be mine,” Julia said in Egypt on Fight Fossils Energy Day.
“Land Back isn’t about building a pan-Indigenous empire. It isn’t about owning or reclaiming property. Don’t misinterpret the Indigenous perspective with capitalist values; our worldview surpasses the concept of capitalism and colonialism.”
Julia said the United States is the occupying settler regime in the Southwest United States, following the regimes of the Spanish Inquisition and Mexican government on Native lands.
Julia Bernal of Pueblo Alliance is an enrolled tribal member at Sandia Pueblo and is also from Taos Pueblo and the Yuchi-Creek Nations of Oklahoma.
Twitter video at https://twitter.com/i/status/1592157627240390659