CKUT Community News Collective, Music credits to Blackfire.
"We're the experts on climate change since we're hit first and we're hit hardest" - Faith Gemmill
"When our communities say 'No' to coal, when they say 'No' to oil, because they are facing the human rights abuses of these companies and the impacts of pollution, when we are saying NO and these are the reasons why we are being impacted locally by these industries we are at the fore-front of this whole curbing of global warming." - Wahleah Johns
Listen to two interviews that give an indigenous prespective about climate change.
Faith Gemmill is a grassroots environmental justice activist from the Gwitch'in nation in Arctic Village, Alaska, who was in Montreal for the United Nations Climate Change Conference. Wahleah Johns of the Navajo Reservation in Northern Arizona, is a member of the Black Mesa Water Coalition, which is resisting the human rights abuses and environmental destruction made by a coal company in her community. They describe the effects of the coal and oil industries in their communities, how indigenous people are amongst the most directly affected by climate change, and they talk about the fight for climate justice.