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DENISA KRASNA plants, animals, and elements that give us Life, the sun, moon, wind, fire, soil.”* Respect for the environment and all its elements that are protected as relatives is thus an intrinsic behavior for many Indigenous people. Glen Coulthard, a Yellowknives Dene scholar, calls this attitude a “place-based ethics of reciprocity” and explains that the word “land” in his language (Yellowknives Dene dialect of Dogrib) includes all that is in relation to “land” (in its Western meaning), i.e. animals, plants, lakes, rocks, people, etc.*” Land is therefore not treated as a material estate to be exploited but as an elemental part of other life forms, including humans who are obliged to treat it with respect. Nowadays, Indigenous people in North America form coalitions to protect the land from an ever-growing capitalist expansion that comes primarily in the form of extraction industries. The imposed US-Canadian border acts asa literal and administrative barrier to many of these endeavors. The following paragraphs provide some examples of cross-border Indigenous-led initiatives that showcase the determination and resourcefulness of Indigenous tribes in overcoming the challenges created by the imposed border. In the far north region of North America Indigenous people have become increasingly active in addressing problems of environmental nature that affect their everyday lives and pose a threat to their cultures. Along the AlaskaCanadian border, the Gwich’in tribe and the White River First Nation guide environmental action and organize events that unite members separated by the boundary. The Yukon River Inter-Tribal Watershed Council is an outstanding example of powerful cross-border Indigenous organizing. The Council was formed by Alaska Native villages and First Nations living within the Yukon River watershed with the aim of protecting the river that had always been their source of drinking water. In recent decades, however, the river has been polluted as a result of “mining operations, military installations, inadequate sewer systems in riverine settlements, diesel and chemical runoff from the Alaska-Canada Highway, recreational activity, and so forth.’ Some of the Council’s major activities include monitoring of the river’s water quality; providing support and technical assistance training to tribes lacking drinking water; facilitating education and awareness programs; evaluation of the risks of mining activities in the area; backhauling solid waste material; and encouraging and enabling redevelopment of brownfields.” The Council, which now comprises 73 First * Melissa K. Nelson, Education for the Eighth Fire, in E. Assadourian - L. Mastny (eds.), EarthEd: Rethinking Education on a Changing Planet, Washington D.C., Island, 2017, 53. 7 Glen Coulthard, Place Against Empire: Understanding Indigenous Anti-Colonialism, Affinities: A Journal of Radical Theory, Culture and Action, Vol. 4, No. 2 (2010), 80, http:// pages.ucsd.edu/~rfrank/class_web/ES-114A/Week%203/Coulthard-A fhinities%204-2.pdf (accessed 3 April 2020). 18 Starks - McCormack - Cornell, Native Nations, 82. ® Yukon Intertribal Watershed Council, One People, One River, https://www.yritwc.org (accessed 4 April 2020). * 278 +
