Page 4 - GIC Manifesto.m

For many years there has been discussion among our First Nations that we, as stewards of the
land and the First People of the Earth, need to unite in common cause, heart and spirit, and
create an advocacy organization that brings us together from the Four Directions. For too
long, associations originally formed to represent us have sacrificed that responsibility for
political favor.

Due to the critical nature of these perilous times, by a resolution passed in January 2018, the
Great Plains Tribal Chairman’s Association (GPTCA) supported the founding of the Global
Indigenous Council (GIC).

GIC is an international body for all First Nations. This can be the spark to light the fire to
rekindle the universal knowledge shared by so many tribal nations around the world. It could
also be the last best hope for the planet, given the environmental catastrophes the changing
climate portends, and the rapacious greed for dollars and authority that motivates some in high
office. Here, what there was of “a shining city on a hill” is being dismantled. We must become
not only the change but also the leaders we seek.
Among our initial GIC priorities will be:
- Initiatives to counter the endemic devastation being wrought on our communities by murders
and assaults on Native women, children, and two-spirit people, categorized on this continent
as “MMIW” – Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women.
- Climate Policy. GIC supports the Paris Climate Accord, and our positions on the climate
crisis are diametrically opposed to those of the Trump Administration that has simply abdicated
all responsibility and credibility on this issue. We also perceive climate issues in the context of
our economic imperatives. Several tribal nations are already pursuing renewable and green
energy projects, and GIC has authored a draft for a separate, innovative climate change initiative
that is ready for implementation.
- Continue to defend the sacred against the march of multinational extractive industry, be that
in the form of pipelines, fracking, tar sands, uranium or gold mining, leach pit processes, drilling
(in cultural sensitive and environmentally fragile areas), and the new “off-shore” drilling rush.
- Provide standing and legal protection for tribal nations in the Peruvian and Brazilian Amazon
that are presently being decimated by extractive industry. Numerous uncontacted tribes are on
the brink and are facing what our ancestors did some two centuries before.