Indigenous leaders bring climate discussion back to Houston

The day after global leaders wrapped up major climate talks at COP27 in Egypt, a handful of Indigenous community leaders in Houston shared what climate action could look like if those most impacted by global warming were leading the response. “Everything's connected,” said Monica Villarreal, who helped organize the Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change, which took place Saturday at the Houston Botanic Garden. “Figuring out ways to cultivate our land, creating a better habitat or environment for ourselves, is really important -- and knowing our own faults, our own responsibility, to be stewards of these lands, because that's what we're here for: to protect Mother Earth.”

Villarreal is a Houston artist who helps lead the Xochipilli Collective, a group focused on connecting Indigenous peoples with culture, art and each other. The collective organized the climate forum, which included storytelling and discussions centering Native communities, who are among the most threatened by global warming despite contributing the least to greenhouse emissions, according to the United Nations. More so, the U.N. asserts practices and knowledge from tribal communities are crucial in the global response to climate change. “In fact, indigenous peoples are vital to, and active in, the many ecosystems that inhabit their lands and territories and may therefore help enhance the resilience of these ecosystems,” the U.N.’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs wrote in a brief on Indigenous communities and climate change. “In addition, indigenous peoples interpret and react to the impacts of climate change in creative ways, drawing on traditional knowledge and other technologies to find solutions which may help society at large to cope with impending changes.”