Environmental Justice in Native America

This special issue features a collection of articles focused on the constraints and possibilities for environmental justice (EJ) in terms of governance and activism on tribal lands. Though terms like “Native America” and “Indian country” carry a legal tone for many people, the contributions enrich and extend beyond discussions of U.S. Federal Indian law. The authors include tribal members, humanities scholars, tribal employees, legal scholars, social scientists, and cooperative extension specialists. Each author is deeply concerned with how his or her professional training and specialties can promote EJ critically within tribal governance and indigenous activism that are inevitably tied to U.S. Federal institutions, treaties, statutes, and policies. The authors have many concerns about EJ in Native America, from the expression of traditions to the international links of tribes in the U.S. to the ethics of risk assessment and to political independence. The first goal of this special issue is to present recent and provocative research in this area that is accessible to both insiders and general EJ audiences.

The second goal of this special issue is to present a collection of articles that can be put in dialogue with one other and that fit in an overall narrative meant to be accessible to all readers. The issue is organized to offer important information to readers interested in EJ in relation to tribes including, among many others, environmental professionals, academics in environmental studies and sciences, community organizers, and students in tribal colleges or 1862 land grant universities. The seven articles are arranged to move readers from introductory definitions of legal doctrines (e.g., trust doctrine, treatment as state status) and issues of concern for tribes (e.g., meaningful participation) to discussions of ethical, political, and cultural issues of EJ movements to examples of promoting EJ in environmental governance in Native America. The special issue could be a much-needed introduction to an area that I have heard many people describe as too specialized and even esoteric for those outside of it to enter.

The issue begins with James M. Grijalva's “Self-Determining Environmental Justice for Native America,” which surveys the current state of affairs in U.S. modern environmental policy and the history of EJ in Indian country, explaining issues from the trust doctrine to regulatory gaps. The article discusses how many EJ issues in Indian country are really concerns about the structural relations of tribal governments, policies, and U.S. federal institutions. Grijalva concludes by arguing that tribes can now exercise self-determination through amended environmental laws and the eligibility for tribes to take on roles traditionally assigned to states. This may be one way in which tribes can express their land-based ethics through enforceable regulations.

Barbara Harper and Stuart Harris follow with “Tribal Environmental Justice: Vulnerability, Trusteeship, and Equity under NEPA” which takes issue with the criterion that EJ applies when 20% of a community's population is of a single ethnic group or below a certain income level because it excludes many tribal communities who face EJ issues. Risk assessments under the National Environmental Policy Act should be transformed to better account for specific ways in which disproportionate exposures occur and the nature of vulnerability in tribal communities. Harper and Harris provide a set of questions that can better guide the identification of impacts to tribally significant natural resources and service flows.

Kyle Powys Whyte argues in “The Recognition Dimensions of Environmental Justice in Indian Country” that tribal environmental governance requires rethinking the meaning of the ethics of environmental policy in Indian country beyond distributive, participative, and corrective paradigms of justice. A theory of environmental justice must include tribes' particular concerns and situations. He introduces a recognition-based conception of justice as a possible starting point for continuing this conversation in Indian country and concludes by posing three challenges that any theory of justice will have to address in tribal contexts: the sheer particularities of each tribal community, the tendency for non-Indians to dispute the legitimacy of tribal traditions, and the need for a theory of tribal accountability to non-tribal members when tribal decisions are judged to be bad.

Sarah Krakoff's “Radical Adaptation, Justice, and American Indian Nations” shifts the discussion to tribal environmental governance in the face of climate change, from which some tribes are currently suffering negative impacts. She sees much at stake in how we ask questions about tribes and climate change. Whereas many tend to ask how indigenous communities will adjust to changing climate, she argues that it is better to ask what are the essential conditions for indigenous communities themselves to determine the extent, scope, and terms of any and all necessary adjustments to climate change. Climate justice will only be supportive of tribes if it furnishes tribes the political independence to adjust according to their own processes and self-narratives. Krakoff explores the concept and importance of political independence in relation to the history of how tribes who were removed from their homelands were able to adapt, persist, and perhaps even flourish in their new situations.

Joni Adamson argues in “Medicine Food: Critical Environmental Justice Studies, Native North American Literature and the Movement for Food Sovereignty” argues for the integration of humanities and cultural approaches into social science and science based approaches to EJ. She argues that literary texts illustrate that environmental justice is not only a political movement but a cultural movement interested in issues of ideology and representation. She illustrates the innovative ways that Native North American creative writers interested in agro-ecological farming and food sovereignty introduce these issues to a general audience and explains why literature should be seen as an important tool in Indian country, where the cultural importance of food systems and agricultural are often overlooked by policymakers. This discussion also provides the links between U.S. tribes working for food sovereignty and the global indigenous-led movement for “rights to food.” Adamson addresses struggles for food sovereignty or food justice by examining how writer-activists like Winona LaDuke and Leslie Marmon Silko introduce the significance of the concept of “medicine foods” for EJ.

In “Environmental Justice, American Indians and the Cultural Dilemma: Developing Environmental Management for Tribal Health and Well-Being,” Darren Ranco, Catherine O'Neill, Jamie Donatuto, and Barbara Harper frame the need for solutions to EJ problems in terms of a cultural dilemma that tribes tend to face: either tribes fully express their values and systems of environmental management at the expense of being misunderstood and resisted by non-Indian institutions; or they work within non-Indian institutions in ways that integrate tribal methods of environmental management that can be understand and supported by non-Indians. They refer to many examples of tribes that are pursuing programs in this spirit, including the Akwesasne Task Force and the Swinomish Tribe. The authors are careful to suggest that while there are available examples of successes, we should remain critical of the non-tribal institutions and agencies with which tribes must collaborate.

Finally, Stuart Harris and Barbara Harper show in “A Method for Tribal Environmental Justice Analysis” one particular possibility for how quantifiable measures could be developed for evaluating disruptions to service flows on tribal lands and tribal traditional lifeways over many generations. Drawing from their experiences working in the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, they offer a table of impact analysis that includes criteria such as ethnohabitat, landscapes and viewshed, soil, minerals, gravel, fill, sediments, water, biologic resources, social, education, linguistic, economic impacts, and homeland security. The table can be used for establishing difficult cumulative assessments. They acknowledge that every tribe is different, and that the table should be used as a conversation starter for other tribes with similar interests.

Together, each of the contributions to “Environmental Justice in Native America” opens discussion of EJ issues in Indian Country to larger discussions of EJ in relation to indigenous peoples and nations around the world. The journal Environmental Justice, from my perspective, is providing much-needed opportunities to continue this discussion as it supports new opportunities for community-relevant research.