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PAGE 37 I. CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES the dogs cool, since the days are too warm, we have to mush mostly by night now. And, we also mush more on land and less on the frozen rivers because of thawing. There is so much as stake. I implore you to take meaningful action to address climate change now and to help assure that the traditions of Alaska Native villages and Indian tribes, which have withstood the test of time, continue for generations into the future. SHARING ONE SKIN Jeannette Armstrong Jeannette Armstrong (Okanagan Syilx) is executive director of the En’owkin Centre, Penticton, British Columbia, and assistant professor in Indigenous Studies at the University of British Columbia–Okanagan. She has an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Environmental Ethics and Syilx Indigenous Literatures from the University of Griefswald, Germany. Editors’ note: This article was adapted from Paradigm Wars: Indigenous Peoples’ Resistance to Economic Globalization , edited by Jerry Mander and Victoria TauliCorpuz and published by the International Forum on Globalization in 2006. I am from the Okanagan, a part of British Columbia that is very dry and hot. Around my birthplace are two rocky mountain ranges: the Cascades on one side and the Selkirks on the other. The main river that flows through our lands is the Columbia. My mother is a river Indian. The Kettle River people are in charge of the fisheries in the northern parts of the Columbia River system in our territories. My father’s people are mountain people. They occupied the northern part of British Columbia, known as the Okanagan Valley. My father’s people were hunters. My name is passed on from my father’s side of the family and is my great-grandmother’s name. I am associated with my father’s side, but I have a right and a responsibility to the river through my mother’s birth and my family education. So that is who I am. When I introduce myself to my own people in my own language, I describe these things because it tells them what my responsibilities are and what my goal is, what I need to carry with me, what I project, what I teach and what I think about, what I must do and what I can’t do. The way we talk about ourselves as Okanagan people is difficult to replicate in English. When we say crucial relocations and to fund other adaptation needs. In all instances, it is important that our traditional knowledge be incorporated and respected, that we be consulted, and that our values and needs be honored. Alaska Native villages and Indian tribes as a whole have borne the disproportionate and negative impacts of climate change. I would implore you to consider the circumstances unique to our villages by mandating in climate change legislation that federal agencies develop, fund, and implement a strategic plan that addresses the climate change impacts on Alaska Native villages. This plan would need to be developed in consultation with Alaska Native villages with their free, prior, and informed consent and include the prioritization and coordination of assistance to Alaska Native villages; the permanent relocation of qualified Alaska Native villages in a manner that obtains their free, prior, and informed consent in the planning and implementation of such relocations (and the removal of barriers for accessing federal funds for such efforts), and also include the mitigation of climate change impacts upon the traditional and subsistence practices of Alaska Natives. In addition, Alaska Native villages should be provided with a one-percent apportionment of the allowances made available under the bill for domestic adaptation purposes, preferably in the form of monies, to help these villages prepare to adapt to the impacts of climate change facing them on a daily basis. Monies are important in that few if any Alaska Native villages have the capacity and/or expertise to manage the conversion of allowances to monies. Conclusion Much of Indian Country and Alaska’s 229 Native villages are being seriously threatened by climate change and its impacts. It is therefore imperative that Congress take action to protect the nation’s many tribal communities against such impacts and help protect and preserve our planet for the current generation and those to come. In closing, I’d like to share my own personal experience with climate change and its impact to one of my great loves. Alaska Natives have used dogs for transportation for thousands of years. Since 1992, I have had the good fortune of participating...

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