2021 Kaneb Lecture Series: Leslie Jonas, Vice Chair, Native Land Conservancy, Mashpee Wampanoag

I'm really thrilled to be able to welcome you to the first of our Indigenous Perspectives on Climate Change lecture series and an occasional series going on throughout this summer. This is a really exciting event series for us. Our work, as you just saw in that video, takes us to many corners of the globe and from the Arctic to the Amazon and the Congo, indigenous and traditional communities in those areas. And we obviously, as a research organization, are deeply steeped in the traditions of STEM science, technology, engineering and mathematics. And this speaker, Siri.

I have had the pleasure of knowing our speaker, Ms. Jonas, for about a year and a half now, since I started it with Woodwell Climate, and we've just became fast friends, and she's an amazing person doing amazing things. So without further ado, here's Ms. Leslie Jonas, who is the Vice Chair of Native Land Conservancy.

Thank you, Darcy, and it's great to see you. I want to thank Heather Goldstone as well, and everybody at the Woodwell Research Center. This is really an important topic. I'm thrilled to be kicking off the series. I'd like to start this afternoon in Wampanoag prayer. If everybody will just sit tight and we'll get into the presentation in a minute. I'm going to recite in Wampanoag our language. Manat ka Nikona Kahik Katapatanamu Wachi Wami Kyakha Sanich Katapatanamu Wachi Kisak Wachi Anakwasak Wachi aki Wachi Sipuash Katahanash Wachi Wami Awasak Wachiwami Natong Kwasak Ananimiyan Naminat Wanikak Ananami nan Usinat Weepi Sopwak creator and ancestors. I thank you for all things. I thank you for the sky, the stars, for the land, the rivers, for the oceans, for all creatures. I thank you for all of my relations. Help us to see what is good. Help us to do only what is right. Katapatanamu. Thank you. We are living during some very tough times while we witness an imbalance on multiple fronts, all representative of a world in crisis. But we must stand strong and remain in the light, for these are the times where the most prolific change can happen. For this presentation, I speak from the Indigenous perspective. I don't profess to be a scientist, an environmental engineer, nor a biologist. I'm a Mashpee Wampanoag environmental activist working on the front lines of land conservation and water protection, with a focus on preservation of traditional Indigenous culture and life ways on this land and water. For the past 10 years, I've helped to build the Native Land Conservancy, also known as the nlc. I work closely with the organization's founder and chairwoman, Ramona Peters, Mashpee Wampanoag elder and member of the Bear Clan. We are the first Indigenous Land trust east of the Mississippi. Our mission is to preserve and protect natural and cultural resources, habitats, ecosystems and sites of cultural significance generally located in the Wampanoag homelands of Massachusetts, all of Cape Cod and the islands north to the Merrimack, west to the Blackstone and down into eastern Rhode Island. We have currently rescued land in four Massachusetts counties, Barnstable, Bristol, Dukes and Plymouth. Our approach to land management is rooted in traditional principles of sustainability while promoting a cross cultural understanding. I say this because we are one indigenous land conservation trust on Cape Cod amongst over 20 plus other non native land conservation trusts. And while we share core values in land conservation, we are uniquely different. Our Board of Directors is made up of Native people only from Aquinnah, Herring Pond, Manamint and Mashpee Wampanoag and the Nipmuc Tribe. And while our leadership is solely Native led, our membership and committees are open to everyone. It's important for the NLC to be Indigenous led only because it's vital that we as Natives guide the process of our land conservation decision making efforts. Efforts that are always, always rooted in our land based practices. Practices that have taken place for thousands of years. The NLC draws upon our Native knowledge in terms of our experience in the woodlands and the wetlands and our understanding of the natural world. But we also acknowledge the power and shared value, relationships and partnerships in our conservation practices. We work with numerous non Native organizations with the same goals to conserve land and protect restore its natural systems. We recognize the critically important value of partnerships. Partnerships that help to achieve some of our common goals of conservation and preservation of the natural world. We also recognize that Western colonial systems have posed serious challenges to the value of Native science or tech. Traditional ecological knowledge and IT tech playing an equal role in how we address the threats of climate. You see, we have struggled with the notion that many look to us for answers now based in our oneness with the natural world, but not our ancestors. Nor did we create the harms of climate change. Some want solutions and answers. However, in reality, many of the colonial systems stem theory and practice exclude this ancient wisdom. Indigenous land conservation has become more and more popular over the past 20 years. But Indigenous people have been land stewards and water warriors for thousands of years. This is not new for us, it has and always will be innate. Because of this, we recognize the need for continued education of our work as coastal and Woodlands people. We live on this land, we breathe this air and we eat our local foods, the fresh fish caught in our oceans, the fresh produce grown and harvested from our land and our many local farms. And very importantly, we practice indigenous life ways that our ancestors practiced. Very connected to this land. We are all connected. It was Vine Deloria, Standing Rock sue who said if we are connected to all things, then whenever we harm anything, it causes harm to ourselves. If we destroy the air, then we will be affected by what we breathe. If we poison the earth, we poison ourselves. Let me see the beauty in all things. In his book God is Red, Deloria argued that American Indian spiritual traditions were in fact more aligned with the needs of the modern world than Christianity, which he said fostered imperialism and disregard for the planet's ecology. We fast forward to today 2021. It's simply impossible not to witness the grave effects of climate in our lives today. I know many of us personally try to live greener lives by being open, aware and educating ourselves on renewable and sustainable practices in the hopes of reducing our own carbon footprints. Daily we hear and read about the growing effects of climate and without question understand it to be one of the most depressing, pressing issues. There are hundreds of examples of the ways in which we humans live on the earth that impact her negatively and contribute to climate. But I will only share on a couple of these issues that are directly impacting we northeastern coastal, both native and non native people. This is about who we are and I speak from the perspective of the northeastern coastal native person. The Cape Cod land and seascape are in our DNA. The power of this place is our identity as indigenous people. It's our connection to our history, our life ways and our ancestors to one another and to all life on this land. Climate change is all around us. Warmer and warmer days with more violent hurricanes, heavy monsoon rainfall and explosive storm surges with extreme flooding. Coastline erosion, Midwest, southwest and west coast, heat waves and wildfires that take out hundreds and hundreds of miles of wildlife, forests and homes. These are just some of the in plain sight obvious signs. Our warming oceans threaten all sea life and algae. Blue green algae blooms are a constant toxic threat. But with these warming patterns, the environment doesn't get a chance to rest. It doesn't take slumber. What we've witnessed as a result of the earth not resting is it doesn't go dormant. This is becoming more and more dangerous to both Nature and our existence. Invasive species flourish and spread disease. Insects that can hurt us don't die off like diseased mosquitoes and ticks that are now making it through the warming winters. New beetles are here and they're killing our trees. Wildlife comes closer and closer to domestic areas due to threatened food sources in the woods, like the desperate coyotes we all see now lurking through the day and night in neighborhoods in hopes to find food. Another really important example, and I speak of this often, is the white tailed deer, which have been multiplying exponentially and changing our eastern forests. My home abuts BB woods on Cape Cod, which is about 400 acres of conservation land in the Woods Hole area where populations of white tailed deer roam at alarming rates. The deer come right into my backyard. They come into my front yard and they look at me without fear. And while this may appear fascinating, beautiful, even majestic, as a great natural resource and part of our ecosystem, the growing deer population has definitely become a growing conservation concern for we. Indigenous deer or venison is a primary food source. But according to Cool Grain Science, which is a Smarter by Nature publication, no native vertebrae species in the eastern United States has a more direct effect on habitat integrity than the white tailed deer. In fact, in many states, deer populations continue to rise well beyond historical norms. According to data produced over the year by Massachusetts wildlife biologists, there are now more than 100,000 white tailed deer in Massachusetts. Densities include more than 80 deer per square mile in various parts of Eastern Mass. That are closed to hunting. The 2020 deer harvest data cites that the deer population is roughly 12 to 18 deer per square mile in Western and Central Mass and here upwards of 20 on the Vineyard and Nantucket. There are 50 plus deer per square mile in many areas of the country. Deer have changed the composition and structure of forests by preferentially feening on select plant series species. Select plant species One study found forest songbirds that preferred nesting in the shrub and middle canopy layer declined in abundance and species richness as deer density increased. The damage is both slow and cumulative and often the harm is overlooked, dismissed, or worse, accepted as somehow natural. So there are serious ramifications that may appear natural on the surface but have far longer term damaging effects that are completely unnatural. Many will argue that this increase in the deer population isn't connected to climate. However, we natives know that it is connected to climate change. Given the longer growing seasons which provides more food and the decrease or disappearance of their predators like mountain lions, wolves, bobcats and bears, many indigenous people are feeling the effects of Food shortages and physical displacement as a result of rising seas that is attributed to climate change. What this means for coastal people is the threat of dislocation from our ancestral homelands. Undoubtedly, sea rise will impact everyone living on or very near the water. Indigenous cultures are directly tied to our ancestral homelands, reflecting our Indigenous perspectives, perspectives that include the power of traditional knowledge or wisdom in this Native place, thousands of years of ancestral wisdom or oral tradition, and life ways in this place. As climate change increasingly threatens tribal nations across the globe, for coastal people, it can change our cultural identities and practices. Essentially, it means that ancient life ways could disappear or change, and our cultural practices tied to the land become threatened. There's a fair amount of data on climate change effects in regions like Alaska, where tribes have faced loss of land, ancestral homes, and hunting grounds. We see this also in the Pacific Northwest and Southwest, the Great Lakes, and even Florida, where larger tribes reside. But what does it mean for we smaller tribes? What does it mean for we smaller coastal tribes and others who live here with the growing threat of warming and rising seas? Warming and rising seas threaten our traditional and ceremonial places near and on the water. It threatens Indigenous communities access to these vital resources, traditional foods such as fish, game, wild and cultivated crops which have provided sustenance, as well as cultural and economic, medicinal, spiritual, and community health for Indigenous peoples for generations. Some Native coastal communities are being forced to move inland, relocating to higher ground after experiencing more extreme storm surges, flooding, and sea level rise, which can impact and does impact cultural integrity. In Alaska, Maine, the Pacific Northwest, and other coastal locations, erosion and inundation related to climate change are so severe that some communities are already relocated from historical homelands to which their traditions and cultural identities are tied. Some of the Cape's conservation departments are looking at climate change vulnerability assessment and adaptation planning for coastal resiliency through work done by the Woods Hole Group, an international research organization that specializes in climate change strategies. One of the Woods Hole Group's coastal scientists, Elise Leduc, has made some informative presentations with data proving to be quite compelling. And while I won't get into the scientific minutia, the vulnerability assessment confirms a daunting future for our coasts. Ms. Leduc has done multiple shoreline change analyses in support of coastal erosion assessments, and she has been an integral part of the ecological risk assessment teams working on environmental risk and evaluating FEMA flood hazard zones and potential climate change and sea level rise impacts on coastal flooding throughout coastal Massachusetts. Essentially, she stated that sea level rise is the fastest it's been in more than 2000 years. And will result in more frequent flooding on the coastline. For us here on the Cape. The current projections, state projections, show anywhere from an estimated 5 to 8 foot sea rise by the end of the century. I've heard everything from 5 to 10ft by the end of this century, but quite frankly if the sea is rising faster and faster each year, then we can assume upwards of 8ft plus by the centuries end. The staunch reality is that many of us will have to push back to higher ground and while you and I may not have to in our lifetimes, many of our children and grandchildren will. For surely I've been following Indian law expert Rebecca Sosi, a Yaqui Indian law scholar who teaches and has written quite extensively on remedial or mitigation plan concepts and what that means for we Natives. She talks a lot about adaptation strategies being potentially genocidal for many groups of Indigenous people and instead argues for recognition of an Indigenous right to environmental self determination. This would allow Indigenous peoples to maintain our cultural and political status upon our traditional lands in the context of climate change policy. Such a right would impose affirmative requirements on nation states to engage in mitigation strategies in order to avoid such climate related catastrophic harm to the Indigenous people of these areas. Environmental self determination for Indigenous people is another branch to this discussion. So I won't go into any more detail now, only to say that there's a lot that can and should be done in terms of mitigation and environmental justice for Indigenous people, but in an intercultural cross cultural framework and one that recognizes rights to cultural survival. Essentially reality may dictate that it's impossible to turn the clock back when the seas have have been rising for thousands and thousands of years. However, in building climate resilience, sovereign tribal nations often work with a variety of partners in innovative ways to integrate traditional ecological knowledge or tech. We integrate with technology, tools and diverse research methods to effectively address climate change and related impacts and a culturally appropriate community context. This is critically important because Indigenous people have typically been or stayed in our original place for thousands of years. We acknowledge and have always acknowledged our responsibilities to our Earth Mother so that nature and all of its species continue. There exists a reciprocal relationship with the land as keepers of tradition, as the original land stewards. A few years ago I began reading about the sacred land of the Ile de Jean Charles in coastal Louisiana, where a small community of Biloxi, Chirimacha, Choctaw Indians has called home. For a couple of centuries it has been basically swallowed up by the rising sea, leaving residents with little dry ground and a fear they'll lose their heritage. For the Biloxi Chitimacha Choctaw, that means moving their whole community north to higher ground. The slice of land that has supported the tribe through trapping, fishing, oystering and agriculture for 170 years is drowning into the Gulf of Mexico. Basically, since the 1950s, the tribe has lost 98% of its land to rising sea levels, coastal erosion and flooding. The island, about 50 miles south of New Orleans and once covered 15,000 acres, has eroded to a tiny strip measuring a quarter mile wide by a half mile long. Once the home of 400 people, the island now has fewer and fewer, many having left. Common fears in Indian displacement is as the people leave, so does the culture. Very importantly, the relocation of the Biloxi Chittimancha Choctaw people helps to drive the discussion of Native people into the climate change conversation. We simply have to be at that table. We Indigenous are among some of the most vulnerable to losing our homes to the onslaught of climate change. Along with the Biloxi Chittimacha Choctaw of Louisiana, a number of other indigenous communities face the prospect of becoming climate refugees. For decades, many Inuit communities have faced a harsh reality of climate change while their villages flooded and traditional hunting grounds disappeared because of glacial melts. While this daunting climate change phenomenon proves to be threatening and culturally challenging for we coastal tribes, it also provides an opportunity to strengthen not simply adaptive strategies, but mitigation strategies in preserving our Native cultures. This can only take place by forward thinking and proactive work in vulnerability assessments, coastal resiliency and adaptation mitigation planning efforts with local, state and federal partners. Securing these partnerships to work together in identifying trends and dangerous growing patterns of destruction to our environment will prove to be promising. We have to work together with a variety of partners in an intercultural collaborative style that includes innovative ways to integrate tech with the science by utilizing the technology tools and diverse research methods to effectively address climate and its related impacts in a culturally appropriate community context. I'll take us back to my original thought that we are in the light and true. We've had some dark clouds pass over us, but we will remain in the light because we are strong. And remaining in the light means that we get this much needed work done together. For tribal people, it's important that our communities stay together. Keeping us together means keeping the fiber of our community strong. And in doing so, we're able to protect and preserve our culture for the next seven generations. We have to be mindful as we move forward, because everything we do in our intentions, our actions, our thoughts, and the energy we present affects the next generations. Thank you.

Thank you, Leslie. Thank you so much for that, Leslie. Really compelling. You touched on so much that, I mean, I personally have experienced and being in this line of work, being indigenous, have seen happen. Maybe one thing that I can ask is just like, what you've seen in your lifetime, maybe, like, because things are changing so fast, at least up here in Alaska, and maybe just elaborate a little bit more on what you've seen just in your lifetime.

It's a good question. And what I've witnessed is. It's actually quite scary. Loss of habitat, loss of the coastline. The rising sea is so clear here. I live along a waterway in Falmouth, where the sea has been rising just so quickly in the last 20 years. I've noticed a huge difference, and it's frightening. So the endangered animals that are now have disappeared and other animals that have taken over. So coyote and deer, we never had the numbers that we're seeing now, and they are impacting the systems. It's an imbalance. The increase in the ticks and the mosquitoes and the. The disease that comes with that. When I was growing up, we had the American dog tick. I never heard of lime, and I didn't know what a Texas Lone Star was. And they're here now, and they present a lot of danger, not only to habitat and animals, but to humans as well. So I've seen a lot. Darcy.

Yeah, I can imagine it's everywhere. I mean, same as up here. Thank you so much. That's, yeah, really sobering. There are a few questions that are rolling in. This one, I think is pretty general, but I also would like to know, so what kinds of ways do you feel policymakers can more equitably address climate change in regard to indigenous people?

I close with that. The notion that we have to be at the table, there has to be a shift in the thinking in that Western science is above traditional ecological knowledge. So. And that's going to take work, that's going to take a lot of relationship building and trust. And right now it's challenged. So changing the view, the worldview of the impact and the value that native science can offer up and bring to the solutions, which is inclusive. And that's. I think, part of the discussion here is the inclusion aspect is including the first people's voices. What we've seen, witnessed, and what was passed down through oral tradition over hundreds and hundreds of years can help pave a way, an avenue in combination with stem, the Research and the science coming together and the wisdom of the ancient knowledge bringing about a much more robust solution that serves everybody and not just a few.

Right.

Yeah.

Agree 100%. There's a train. You're so sorry about that. Thank you for the answer. Here's another one that I think is also really interesting. How do we prepare here on Cape Cod to adjust to increasing numbers of extreme weather events like hurricanes and tornadoes in a fashion that allows seniors and the less affluent residents to continue to.

Live in Cape Cod? So some of that work is being done now and it's assessing one's vulnerability. What are the signs and what's the timing of that and then what are the strategies, the mitigation strategies? So folks need to look at where they live and what their vulnerability levels are. Some of these assessments are being done by professionals and scientists and some. Some have included some tech as well. I know that Dr. Casey Thornbrough works. He's a Mashpee Wampanoag scientist. He is a climate liaison for USET for the United Southeastern Tribal Nations. He works very closely with tribes in assessing and coming up with adaptive strategies and plans in what folks are going to do. One of the things that I talk a lot about is that we need to start changing our own behaviors in our own homes and backyards. If we do that all together, then we can slow things down that are impacting us as radically as they are with the pace of the sea rise and air pollution and these invasive, out of control invasives is we have to start looking at our own behaviors. So if you're using phosphates in your laundry detergent, in your dish detergent, stop it. Buy phosphate. Freeze cleaning agents. Don't put toxic stuff down your toilet or down the sink. You know, and it takes work and it takes responsibility and accountability. But we have to live Grace Greener lives in order to start to turn this around. I don't put anything poisonous down my sink or in the toilet. And that's my water warrior attitude about it. Because once the oceans and the rivers and the ponds go, we're done, it's over. So when elder people ask me what they can do, I think it's educate and speak to younger generations about the importance of our lifestyles and how we've been impacting and thrashing around and poisoning our world. And if we can start to teach people on how to be responsible and want to be responsible and want to care more by not doing some of the things that have been done that people just don't even think about, the ways that humans pollute and they don't think about it is what's frightening. How do we start to shift that kind of thinking? Because we can put all the scientists and all the tech together in the world and come up with the solutions, but unless humans start to change the behavior, then we won't see any of these changes.

Right? Yeah. It takes a collective effort as opposed to a singular effort, which is also useful but much more effective. And I think it also goes back to your previous answer too.

Right.

Like just speaking with indigenous people. And you'll gain so much knowledge by doing that. I used to live in Cape Cod and had to reach out to you. Right. Because not a lot of people were doing that. It seems kind of out of sight, out of mind. And while it impacts, you know, some people's coastal homes and vacation homes, it impacts the traditional lands of. Of a culture that's been there since time immemorial. So it's a lot bigger than just one house or one person. There's a lot of people that climate change is impacting. And thank you so much for your thorough answer. This is one that I think also is pretty important and that I also like to know the answer to. So, on Cape Cod, are you automatically included in climate change groups in. And if not, how do you get involved? Are there ways to volunteer to express what certain people have to offer?

Well, there's the 5C's Capcard Climate Change Collaborative, who've been doing a lot of work. And in fact, I presented a similar presentation at their Net Zero conference that they held. So there is work being done. We do get left out of the picture sometimes on occasion. And the State of Massachusetts Environmental Affairs Office, we had learned about some work that they were doing in land resiliency and sort of looking at land conservation in a more thorough and sort of comprehensive fashion. And, and one of my friends from NACOB here in Boston reached out to me and said, you may want to have a voice in some of this resiliency planning, this initiative that they're establishing. So sometimes we do have to kind of reach across the bridge, so to speak. But the Cape is. Woods Hole has some powerful work, Woods Wells doing powerful work. Who is doing powerful work. So, you know, we, we're not as small as. As one might think. And there is, there is some climate work being done here on the Cape. What I want to do is, you know, help to educate more. And so because it's a destination resort area, a lot of folks come here and they, they. My Expression that I use is they live hard on the land and then they leave. So they vacation hard on the land, use it and abuse it, and then leave. And we're left with the residual effects of that trammeled, you know, abused, impacted. And it's just this constant re. Re. Impacting of the same pristine, you know, place. And it's. It's. I. We can all see the wear and tear. I was born and raised here. I come from the dirt here and the water here. And we see the wear and tear over the last 50 years. I mean, it's. It's phenomenal. And when I witness the unaccountability and the irresponsibility of some folks who want to continue to build and. And add and develop and, you know, they continuously go in front of our town halls and ask for variances to tap into septic systems that have already taxed. I don't understand. You know, I think we need to build a committee in town here on. And maybe the town will allow this, but I know that there are committees that assess whether or not things can happen and move forward, but we need to get a little more stringent and we need to get a little tougher on these variances that tap into systems that are adding and increasing, you know, to. To the nitrogen loading and to the toxicity and the poisoning of our waterways. So, yeah, yeah, sometimes I feel like I could go on and on and on about that, but I do. I have a really tough time with folks that want to continue to build up. And it's painful. It's painful to watch because you see how it breaks all of our natural systems here down more and more.

Right. As someone born and raised in Alaska, I can relate pretty heavily with that. Seeing all the development is tough. Yeah. So I guess something that or a question that I think is related to that has to do with value systems. Right. We got one from somebody here at Woodwell, actually. He's asking, what values from indigenous societies would you consider to be key to our collective future?

Well, that's the accountability, responsibility factor coming in that, you know, tribes are made up of families and families that create communities of people who do things, always knowing that whatever they do will impact a neighbor, a family member, a child, an elder. So it's a collective value system that we all need to get on board with. And so if you know somebody in your family or you have friends. And I always try to take things into reality because we can talk about theory and ideals and value systems, but if you don't bring it down to how people actually start to make it real, make it happen. Then sometimes it's just discussion and it doesn't really go anywhere. But I say to elders, talk to your grandchildren about how it is to be responsible with the environment, how it is to love the land, how do we connect with the land, how do we teach our children to, to be up, to go outside, to go into the water, but to treat it well. The value systems from indigenous people are place based. We respected the land. It was a reciprocal relationship and we didn't overtake, we didn't overstep, we didn't poison because we needed each other and it was reciprocal. And when you're connected to that, then it makes a difference. So I say to elders and parents, make sure your kids go outside and connect, because connection means they'll begin to care and that's how the values begin to flourish and it will matter. And when you teach children how beautiful it is to be outside and to love the land and to be close to the land and to be connected to the land and all of what the land offers us, the ecosystems and the animals and the species and everything that we get to witness and enjoy, then maybe they'll care differently about the next time they see someone throw a cigarette butt down or throw a can of something somewhere or plastic. You know, we need to start looking at plastic and what the plastics are doing here. So it is this educational kind of relationship in building those values and that's how we do it together. And I know a lot of non native people who share in these values and I work with them. I'm doing it now.

So am I. Yeah, it's awesome. Yeah, it's looking pretty bright, I think, for the future and how at least these conversations are being had now. Right. It's a good first start. This one is one that I think a lot of people who are attending would like answered. What advice would you have for scientists that would like to connect and start forming meaningful working relationships with local tribes?

I'm seeing a little bit of it happening. I think the concept of diversity, equity and inclusion. Open that door up and sort of, you know, took a flashlight and just put the light right on to the topic of what things have been like without inclusion of first nations or First Peoples and ancient wisdom and traditional ecological knowledge and what, what kind of true balance it could bring to how we move forward. The value in that alone, because of the relationship building that would be involved, is so critical to the future of humankind on this planet is we understand some of the benefits of bringing the two sciences together, but what it does and says about people is so hugely important. The value of different people coming together to solve a very similar problem that's impacting us all some a little differently. For me, it's a life and death scenario. If there's loss of land here, I'm not. I'll move. We migrated around because we didn't want to overtake. And if we moved up really close to other tribes, we didn't want to take what they might need. And so we kind of shared space and we migrated around. When it was summertime, we were coastal people, we moved very close to the water when the winter, we pulled back. But I'm talking about a different kind of relocation for, you know, climate because of climate. So I think really the beauty in it will be what. What humans are capable of doing. And I just don't think we're there yet. I don't think that we've kind of hit that we haven't plateaued and we need to plateau with climate. So indigenous and people of color and non Native. Non people of color need to come together and do the work and some serious work. And I know that there are predisposed kinds of thinking that need to be broken down. There are some hidden biases and racism that's come up. We've dealt with it. It's eye opening, and it's the work that needs to happen. If we want to change anything for the next 2015, in the next 25 years and for our children, so our children aren't dealing with the same level of awkwardness around it, then we need to be awkward and get through it.

Exactly. Yep. You're absolutely right. Thank you so much for. Yeah, the very thorough answer. Like, it's bigger than just reaching out to somebody, checking off a box and then going about your day. It's. It's a lot bigger than that. So I think this will be the last question that we have time for, and I think it's a pretty good one. Do you think that spreading the word of indigenous people's importance could help us to change the current situation?

Absolutely. And that's what we do. Right. And it's a powerful question. And as an answer, that's pretty straightforward, which is. Absolutely. We have to spread the word across the globe. There are indigenous cultures all around the world who are not in even the position that we're in now. Working with you and Woodwill and Hui and other groups that are doing woods. Whole group.

We.

We have to bump around and figure out our way and get the work done. And we don't always like it. I don't always like it. And it's almost don't like what people might say to me. And I think, wow, that's kind of uninformed, you know, and basically, Excuse me. It's all, it's all in the learning. We all learn from each other, how to respect each other. You know, what, what's. What's cultural insensitivity? What's. What works and what doesn't work? And why does that hurt? Why are you. Why, why do people assume certain things are. Oh, it's. It's okay. It. You know, you're taking it the wrong way. So we have to start looking at that. And, and that's a kind of evolution in human behavior and understanding. And I think it's being around one another and actually doing those things that we were talking about. And I call it sometimes working across the aisle or working across the table. And I don't want to say that for a lot longer, because I want us to be on the same side of the table.

Yes. Amen. Well, thank you so much for everything, for the presentation, for such thorough answers in the Q and A, for your time. Thank you, everybody else, for your time. I'm going to pass it back over to Heather and thanks, everybody, for coming. Masi, Chow, thank you so much.

Darcy and Leslie, thank you again for a really just very powerful presentation. And thank you to both you and Darcy for that fabulous Q and A and, you know, the kind of conversation that I think we need to be having more of. And so I'm really thankful to both of you. Thank you to everyone who did join us today. I know there were a ton of questions that we did not get to, and we appreciate all of your interest and enthusiasm. We hope that you will join us for more of the events in this series, for more perspectives from different areas where Woodwell works, from Alaska, from the Amazon, and. And hopefully more perspectives from right back.

Here in the Northeast where our headquarters are based.

Thank you again, Leslie, for kicking this off. And everyone have a wonderful day.

Thank you so.

Much.