{"id":26267,"date":"2024-08-07T00:01:27","date_gmt":"2024-08-07T06:01:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/conservation-means-listening-to-what-the-land-already-knows\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T23:36:58","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:36:58","slug":"conservation-means-listening-to-what-the-land-already-knows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/conservation-means-listening-to-what-the-land-already-knows\/","title":{"rendered":"Conservation means listening to what the land already knows"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The
The Crow Canyon flyer from the webinar, featuring Charissa Miijessepe-Wilson (Photo Courtesy of Miijessepe-Wilson and Crow Canyon)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Collectively, we\u2019re faced with a climate crisis. People generally don\u2019t know where they come from. Some people have no access to adequate food, some lack access to quality health systems, said Miijessepe-Wilson, co-director at The Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere will be a time when people will be lost because they don\u2019t know where they come from. During this time, they will look to (Indigenous people) to lead them,\u201d Miijessepe-Wilson\u2019s grandfather, Francis \u2018Big Man\u2019 Wahwasuck, once said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has been prophesied that we are approaching this time if we\u2019re not there already,\u201d Miijessepe-Wilson said.<\/p>\n

On July 11, she spoke to share knowledge of Indigenous ideas for conservation and leadership in a webinar with Crow Canyon Archaeological Center.<\/p>\n

\"The
The Valley of the Gods within the Bears Ears National Monument. (Tim Peterson LightHawk\/For the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cSo we cannot only share it, but try to create this world back to a place we already know it can be: A good place, a place that provides for everybody, a place that we\u2019re in relationship with,\u201d she said in the webinar.<\/p>\n

She recalled a childhood memory of picking a bouquet of dandelions for her father.<\/p>\n

\u201cI almost immediately got reprimanded,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Her dad walked her through the ways she could have been in relationship with the dandelion instead. He asked, \u201cDid you make an offering?\u201d And explained, \u201cJust because that\u2019s a dandelion doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s any less than you.\u201d<\/p>\n

At a young age, Miijessepe-Wilson learned that all living things have spirit, deserve respect and have value. She learned that all things are connected and that we ought to care for things the way they care for us.<\/p>\n

\u201cHumans are not the tell-all, be-all. In fact, we\u2019re only one piece of the puzzle that makes all of this go round,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Miijessepe-Wilson spoke about the way Indigenous people view other living things in a circular, more reciprocal way.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we relate to things in a nonhierarchal manner, we start to know that those things have their own knowledge because the world meant for it to be that way,\u201d Miijessepe-Wilson said.<\/p>\n

As people living in any place, our role is to listen and observe and to try to keep everything in motion. The land has taken care of itself for a long time: It already knows what it needs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I think about conservation, we\u2019re actually just trying to listen to what that place already knows,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Miijessepe-Wilson pointed out that she was initially uncertain about joining Bears Ears Intertribal Coalition because she\u2019s Potawatomi. She felt like an outsider, since technically the coalition is Navajo, Ute Indian, Ute Mountain Ute, Zuni and Hopi.<\/p>\n

She realized, however, that she didn\u2019t have to be from those tribes to be in service to them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope that invites non-native people into this space,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

For people wanting to get involved and learn more about Indigenous teachings, since they\u2019ve been caring for these places for a long time, Miijessepe-Wilson said to check out the Coalition\u2019s Tribal Land Management Plan<\/a> or to read the book Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer.<\/p>\n

People should also learn about where they came from and where they live now, since those places may not be the same. And they should also learn to look at nonhuman, living things as equally deserving of life and respect them.<\/p>\n

\u201cNone of us can be successful unless we are operating in a collective,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earth\u2019s degradation becomes increasingly unignorable, Charissa Miijessepe-Wilson spoke about how Indigenous teachings can help restore it<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26268,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[529,2225,28,1097,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-26267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-conservation","tag-crow-canyon-archeological-center","tag-headlines","tag-indigenous-people","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26267"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79292,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26267\/revisions\/79292"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26267"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=26267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}