Letter: A new way

Dear Editor:
We are at a tipping point in the progression of human history and are now making the final decisions that will lead to the slow suicide of our species or its salvation. For too long we have walked heavily on this earth and our massive footprint can now be seen from space.

We have accomplished wonders and committed atrocities. We have built monuments to our greatness and we have dug mass graves.

The digging of the final mass grave is now well under way. What can we do? Who do we turn to? The answer is simple; we must look to those whose knowledge has been gleaned from centuries of living in harmony with nature—the people of the First Nations.

First Nations communities are, after all, the embodiment of our environment. Like nature, they have now been confined to small, unsustainable, broken pieces of land and small pockets throughout our cities.

Colonization and the subjugation of First Nations people and nature in a vain attempt at control have resulted in unforgivable acts of genocide and the wiping out of entire species and cultures. We have created an imbalance.

The ecosystems that we have forced nature into are barely livable. Habitat loss is the number one cause of the loss of so many species and is affecting First Nation communities in the same manner. One only has to read the papers these days to see situations like Attawapiskat and hundreds of other struggling communities.

So before you choose to blame the victim and before you opt for the beliefs that the impoverished First Nations individuals are simply lazy or abusing the system, consider this. Our colonial culture and our affluence has polluted their beauty and nobility just as we have done with the landscape.

In doing this, we have also poisoned ourselves. These stewards of the land are only impoverished because their land is impoverished.

We must begin to develop systems of co-management in regards to the conservation of the resources that sustain us. We must also look to reconcile the damage that has been done to these First Nations people through years of slavery, genocide, and segregation. If we are to survive as a species, we must act collaboratively and in a way that uses the strengths of every culture.

And who could better help humanity with remedying the current environmental catastrophe that we have created than those who have maintained an inherent kinship with this earth? This shift from our colonial and capitalist perspectives will commence a new way of thinking that involves sustainability and stewardship of the Earth.

Strive together with hope towards the sustainability of our species and come to terms with our mother earth. Realize that we have never left her womb. We are still surrounded by her and attached to her and anything that we do in detriment to her, we do also to ourselves. United as one, we will survive. We will achieve a new way of knowing.

Jordan Bruce Brydges