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Standing Rock Youth Council Delivers Right to Self-determination in the Context UNDRIP at the 23rd Session of UNPFII [1]
['Pauly Denetclaw']
Date: 2024-04-19 02:30:45+00:00
This story is published as part of the Global Indigenous Affairs Desk, an Indigenous-led collaboration between Grist, High Country News, ICT, Mongabay, Native News Online, and APTN.
More than 20 years ago, the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, or UNPFII, held its annual meeting with a focus on youth, and educating and nurturing them. This year, the forum’s 24th gathering, the emphasis was again on youth — but this time on listening to them.
Click here to meet the other six young leaders who spoke at this year’s forum.
Name: Morgan Brings Plenty
Age: 29
Peoples: Cheyenne River Sioux
Home: Eagle Butte, South Dakota
What they want peolpe to know: Brings Plenty is two-spirit, an umbrella term that encompasses an array of Indigenous gender identities. An activist since they were 12, they are critical of the push for electric cars as a way to stop using fossil fuels, since few people think about the burden that puts on tribal lands through mining.
“People say ‘go green,’ but there are a lot of false solutions,” they said. “Like there’s electric cars, but you have to mine lithium.”
As an example, they point to the potential for lithium mines in the Black Hills of South Dakota, a sacred space for the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, Omaha, and many other tribes. Brings Plenty worries about the gold and uranium mines as well.
“[It] goes into the water and gets into Indigenous communities,” they said. “There are health concerns there,” they said.
More: Brings Plenty wanted to make sure their colleagues also got credit for their work at the U.N. — Annalee Yellowhammer, 20, and Maya Runnels, 22, from the Standing Rock Sioux tribe.
“We are a team. We are a group effort,” they said.
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[1] Url:
https://www.ienearth.org/standing-rock-youth-council-delivers-right-to-self-determination-in-the-context-undrip-at-the-23rd-session-of-unpfii/
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