Honor the Earth

Overview

Honor the Earth is a grassroots movement that focuses on addressing Native environmental issues. Its creators felt that it was time to remove themselves from isolation and fight for the pressing envorionmental issues that Native communities have faced for years. These key environmental battles in North America can only be fought with sufficient financing and support. Honor the Earth has successfully used music, art, fashion, literature, and other tactics to raise awareness and promote change.

Mission Statement

"Our mission is to create awareness and support for Native environmental issues and to develop needed financial and political resources for the survival of sustainable Native communities. Honor the Earth develops these resources by using music, the arts, the media, and Indigenous wisdom to ask people to recognize our joint dependency on the Earth and be a voice for those not heard."

Honor the Earth: Initiatives

Energy Justice

Problems: Native American lands and natural resources (primarily uranium and coal) are exploited daily in the United States. For example, every proposed nuclear waste dump is designed to be located in Native lands, and the world's largest coal strip mine is located on a Native reservation. Solutions: Honor the Earth urges tribal governments to take on a renewable energy agenda. They point out that wind power on Native lands could produce about half of our country's enery. Also the sunlight that shines on our country in a given year contains more energy than the fossil fuels used by the entire world. Plans In-Action: Honor the Earth has helped to bring wind power to reservations in the Northwest and plans to continue to do so. A 660-kilowatt turbine in Fort Peck, MT will hopefully save the Assiniboine and Sioux tribes $134,000 annually. The savings will go towards community programs such as a senior citizen's kitchen to feed poor elders.