Social Justice, Racism and the Environmental Movement

Robert Frost once wrote, “The land was ours before we were the land’s.” Indigenous peoples of North America might take exception to that. They were on the land millennia before European settlers arrived. The ensuing conquest and devastation drenched the hemisphere in blood. But native peoples survive and endure. Much can be learned from them. They have a singular view of living in harmony with the environment. The environmental movement largely pays lip service to native perspectives and concerns. Anti-fur proponents, for example, do not appreciate that trapping is the sole source of livelihood for peoples in the northern latitudes.