We call politicians who ignore the climate crisis “climate change deniers.” That’s too kind. People are suffering from climate change right now. To deny the reality of climate change is to deny their humanity. Climate change deniers are trying to deny the very existence of indigenous peoples in harm’s way.
These people and their stories are the greatest weapons against climate change. Better than research. Better than diplomacy. Better than marches.
Today, while negotiators, diplomats, and technocrats quibbled over commas in the international climate change agreement, a trio of indigenous storytellers took the stage in Paris, alongside the great American storyteller Robert Redford.
“Indigenous cultures are the closest to the land,” said Redford. “It’s time to go back and listen to the stories they have to tell us.” Here are the stories they shared.
Mundiya Kepanga was born into the Huli tribe in the highlands of Papua New Guinea. He led a traditional life, raising sweet potatoes and pigs, until a stranger wandered into his village. The French photographer Marc Dozier wanted to learn about Mundiya’s way of life. Moved by his host’s open heart and curious spirit, Dozier invited Mundiya back to France, and his journey began. Mundiya is now an international celebrity—a commentator, a curiosity, and sometimes comedian. He travels the developed world, reminding everyone of the dignity and inherent value of all indigenous people. “I am here as a bridge between your world and mine,” he told the audience in Paris. Mundiya spoke of a legend among his people. Strangers would come to his land, according to the story, but ancestors warned the Huli not to give the newcomers fire. Mundiya now thinks oil and gas are the fire his forebears prophesied. “My forest is not just mine, it is yours as well,” he said. “If we vanish, we vanish together.”
Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner is a poet from the Marshall Islands, one of the world’s most vulnerable places. “There are certain areas where you can stand in the middle of the road and feel the ocean on either side of you,” Jetnil-Kijiner told the audience. “Our island is basically at ground zero of climate change.” Jetnil-Kijiner’s poetry puts a tiny, irresistible face on climate change—the face of her small daughter Matafele Peinem. Last year, she read her tribute to the little girl to assembled world leaders at the United Nations, moving some to embrace her child. “Storytelling is so important,” she told the audience in Paris. “It brings back humanity to the discussion. That’s what poetry can do.” Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner moved the audience with another poem, relating the flooding on a Marshallese island that destroyed homes and sea walls, and forced the evacuation of a hospital. This is what climate change means for her and her community. We call politicians who ignore the climate crisis “climate change deniers.” That’s too kind. People are suffering from climate change right now. To deny the reality of climate change is to deny their humanity. Climate change deniers are trying to deny the very existence of indigenous peoples in harm’s way.
Mina Setra, a member of Indonesia’s Dayak Pompakng people, watched as her people’s forest home was clear-cut, burned, and logged to make room for palm oil plantations. At the time, Indonesia had a tangle of inconsistent and overlapping maps, allowing loggers to pick the map that best suited their plans to destroy the forest. The government told the Dayak Pompakng they had no claim to the land unless they could provide detailed, defensible maps showing the outlines of their ancestral lands. So Setra and her people became cartographers. They used technologies old and new—collecting stories from elders and employing global positioning system data—to beat loggers at their own game. Indonesia has now recognized tens of millions of hectares as protected Dayak Pompakng land. But Setra isn’t finished. She launched her own news outlet, Ruai TV, to tell the stories of the indigenous people of Indonesia. She established a massive SMS network that serves as an alert system for abuses against indigenous rights. The SMS network is used offensively as well—indigenous peoples can send thousands of text messages a day to government officials. Mina Setra broke down on the stage in Paris, as she protested the movement to excise indigenous rights from the text of the international climate change agreement. Setra’s tears served as a testimony to her people’s ongoing suffering. “When I was a child, the forest was our playground,” she said. “But now it’s gone.Indigenous people have been trying to tell our stories, trying to build our own media, trying to give our own contributions by trying to protect our territories. That is our contribution to the world. Please put back the rights of indigenous peoples in the text” of the climate change agreement.
Written by Brian Palmer, doodles by Perrin Ireland
