Protecting our planet an Indigenous vision for intergenerational health

WASHINGTON—In acknowledgement and celebration of Native American Heritage Month, Johns Hopkins University (JHU) hosted an inaugural symposium on Tuesday, Nov. 28, highlighting research of Indigenous medical professionals throughout the U.S. and Canada. The one day symposium was hosted at John Hopkins’ Washington, D.C. campus, and featured keynote speakers who addressed more than 300 professionals committed to improving health research, policy, and service to Indigenous communities.

This year’s theme was “Protecting our Planet, Protecting our Children: An Indigenous Vision for Intergenerational Health Symposium” and was organized collaboratively by Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health and Planetary Health Alliance.

“It is exciting to expand the conversation from planetary health to Indigenous planetary health,” said Johns Hopkins University Center for Indigenous Health Co-Director Dr. Donald Warne to Native Sun News Today. “Indigenous peoples and cultures have solutions that need to be integrated into the broader movement.”

The symposium featured presentations and interactive sessions that encouraged dialogue around interconnectivity—how the health of the planet affects the health of human populations. Speakers presented research on climate change, colonization, and how they affect determinants of health. U.S. Assistant Secretary of Interior—Indian Affairs Bryan Newland delivered the keynote presentation, where he shared updates on the federal boarding school initiative launched by U.S. Secretary of Interior Deb Haaland in June 2021.

“As Indian people—and American people—live with the legacy of Indian boarding schools, the health impacts of colonization are still affecting each of us,” said Assistant Secretary of Interior Bryan Newland at Tuesday’s symposium. “There isn’t an Indian person in this country that isn’t affected directly by the impact of boarding schools.”

“You take people’s wealth, family, self-identity—that is going to have a lasting impact on a person’s physical and mental well-being, even if they never went to boarding school,” Newland said of the federal Indian boarding school report, which he co-authored.

Other presentations included a land acknowledgement by Dr. Donald Warne, an enrolled citizen of the Oglala Sioux Tribe of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and Co-Director of JHU’s Center for Indigenous Health; Nicole Redvers, of the Deninu K’ue First Nation in the Northwest Territories presented on Indigenous planetary health; and Melissa Wells, PhD, of the Couchiching First Nation and Bois Forte Band of Ojibwe presented strengths working with Indigenous families and children. Dr. Warne facilitated an Indigenous plantery health panel including Dr. Allison Kelliher of Koyukon Athabascan and Senior Research Associate at Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, Ann Marie Chischilly, Diné and Vice President for Northern Arizona University’s Office of Native American Initiatives, and Jill Sherman-Warne, a council member from the Hoopa Tribe in northern California. Other speakers included Crystal Austin (Diné), Emily Haroz, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins, Joshuaa Alison-Burbank, PhD (Diné and Aroma Pueblo), Victoria O’Keefe (Cherokee Nation and Seminole Nation), Mary Cwik, PhD, Teresa Brockie, PhD (Aaniiih Nation, Fort Belknap), and Lance Fisher (Northern Cheyenne Nation) with Giovanna Gross (Oglala Lakota Nation) sang a closing song.

The symposium’s theme was place Indigenous practitioners and communities to the table when discussing how to address the changes in a fast changing world, including deliverance of health. “When I heard evidence based practices, I immediately think of who’s evidence is it?” said Dr. Warne during his closing remarks. “Something that worked effectively in Washington, D.C., doesn’t mean something will work effectively in Pine Ridge, South Dakota. It might, but it might not and we need that local context.”

“We have to be able to look at things that are promising practices and evidence based and then adapt them for local culture, language and norms,” said Dr. Warne.

Johns Hopkins University is a leading private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins was the first university in the United States based on the European research institution model. The university was named for its first benefactor, the American entrepreneur and Quaker philanthropist Johns Hopkins. Thirty-nine Johns Hopkins faculty and alumni have been recognized with a Nobel prize.

The symposium also featured a live ledger artist, Robert “Running Fisher” Upham. Enrolled at the Lake Traverse Indian Reservation, Upham grew up on the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in Montana and identifies himself with a lineage of ledger artists who recognized their work as prison art, witness art, and a form of political activism. He credits his artistic inspiration to the first generation of ledger artists who were prisoners at Fort Marion, Florida and to the first children who attended the Carlisle Indian School.

“It was Richard Henry Pratt, originator of the Boarding School era, who gave these prisoners of war their first ledger books and colored pencils,” Upham said to Native Sun News Today via email.

Upham’s ledger piece was reflective of the colonization of the Western Hemisphere, including references to prison, land theft, extraction, and boarding schools. He gifted it to Asst. Secretary of Interior Newland after his presentation, where he also read a poem, reflective of the piece and he also thanked Newland for the efforts of Indian Affairs to address the legacy of boarding schools.

Jill Sherman-Warne, a Hoopa Tribal Council Member, said she enjoyed the conference and hopes it will expand next year. During her panel discussion, she shared her tribe’s history, and how they became federally recognized by way of an executive order. Since, her community has been repatriating their land, and are celebrating the return of the salmon after the removal of the Klamath Dams.

The speakers all had a common theme: climate change continues to cause negative effects on critical aspects of Indigenous Peoples’ well-being. Chischilly, Diné and former Executive Director of NAU’s Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals, highlighted this by expressing that tribal communities are responding to this by developing energy sovereignty. Challenges in federal program funding often put Indigenous communities in bureaucratic challenges, of finding resources to champion causes that can improve the lives of Indigenous people and the livelihoods of Indigenous communities.

(Contact Darren Thompson at darrenjthompson@hotmail.com)

The post Protecting our planet an Indigenous vision for intergenerational health first appeared on Native Sun News Today.

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