Tribal fishing site at Sherars Falls on the Deschutes River, Oregon. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.
For Indigenous peoples, environmentalism isn’t a hobby or simply protecting lands, livelihoods, creatures, and water. It’s inseparable from ancestral, community, and traditional practices springing from and belonging to the natural world. The community includes animal, vegetable, and mineral components of the environment and this is reflected in language. There’s a close-knit correlation between linguistic diversity and biodiversity.