Summer Solstice Edition, 2008

Linda Hogan, Chickasaw Writer-in-Residence, Addresses the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues

Linda Hogan, the new Writer-in-Residence for the Chickasaw Nation and a beloved Tapestry board member, recently spoke at the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues at the United Nations in New York. She was one of two Native writers invited to speak. The other was Zapotec writer Natalya Toledo from Oaxaca.

Both writers talked about the role of writing in Native worlds and the way writers preserve and pass on knowledge and traditions for Native peoples through the written and spoken word.

Hogan said that most non Indian Americans prefer to read books about Indians than by Indians, and both talked about the significance of the written word for Native peoples. They also talked about freedom of expression, and how “bearing witness” is a factor in addressing and maintaining human rights. Native language was also a topic for the two writers because Native languages contain embedded knowledge of cultural and biological diversity central to a region.

The focus of this year’s forum was global warming and its effects on indigenous people throughout the world. Climate change has created difficulties for people dependent on, and in close relationship with the land and its resources. It has created loss of land, human rights violations, unemployment and other problems. The Sami representative spoke about the effects of the weather upon the health of the reindeer herds. Droughts in the western Amazon rainforest have resulted in fires, affecting the livelihoods of people in the region. In the Arctic, there are fewer food sources. In Africa’s Kalahari, rising temperatures, increased wind speed, dune expansion, and loss of vegetation, have created situations where people live around government drilled bores in order to have enough water to survive.

Some groups are focusing on new ways of addressing the problem. In North America, indigenous communities are using wind and solar power. In Central and South America, people are shifting their agricultural locations and homes. In Bangladesh, villagers are creating floating vegetable gardens in the face of increased flooding. Vietnamese tribal communities are planting dense mangroves along the coast to break tropical storm waves.

Hogan said that, even with a difficult focus, it was an exciting event to meet and see so many tribal people together making change. Linda Hogan is a Pulitzer finalist, a novelist, poet, environmental writer, and teacher. Because of her interest in the environment she was especially interested in this 7th Permanent Indigenous People’s Forum topic. Thousands of people from around the globe attended to address the Secretariat General.

President Letter

Linda Hogan Addresses the United Nations

Summer's Fruitfulness

Summer Photographs by Carol

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