Once numbering at least 40-60 million, settler colonial men once hunted the buffalo through the train windows for sport – who had the most kills.  By 1890, however, there were less than 1,000 buffalo with only 23 surviving in Yellowstone’s Pelican Valley. Today, in Yellowstone National Park, the buffalo are trapped for slaughter and quarantine. In fact, once migrating into Montana, the buffalo are under the control of the Department of Livestock instead of Yellowstone Park National Service. When trapped, the buffalo are often tested for Brucellosis – the disease given to them by cattle.

In Gardiner, MT, a group of 28 buffalo migrating into Gardiner Basin were recently trapped by Yellowstone National Park at Stephens Creek near Gardiner, Montana. The group was the first buffalo to migrate into the basin this season. Another group of 49 buffalo migrated beyond Yellowstone National Park’s trap and the remaining buffalo retreated from the National Forest to Yellowstone National Park.

Today on American Indian Airwaves, our guest provides in-depth updates on the U.S. National Park Services failed Bison Management program and the Yellowstone National Park continued operations causing the depopulation of the last remaining original genetically pure buffalo herds (~9,000), the failed Endangered Species Act, how the climate crises is impacting the ecosystems throughout the region and the buffalo relations, as well as how the U.S. government’s divide and conquer strategy in creating buffalo policies simultaneous benefits larger Native American nations buffalo management programs from far way compared to local and smaller Native American nations near the Yellowstone Nation Park regions. Moreover, our guest highlights the cultural importance of the buffalo relations for Native American lifeways and what is threatening the cultural sustainability for future Native America nations. 

Guest:
•	James Holt Sr. (Nimiipuu Nation), Executive Director of the Buffalo Field Campaign (BFC), and the board member for International Wildlife Coexistance Network

Archived programs can be heard on Soundcloud at: https://soundcloud.com/burntswamp

U.S. Policy Mismanagement in Denying the Lives of the Buffalo Relations

In this episode, Kate interviews Osprey Orielle Lake about her rich new book, The Story is in Our Bones: How Worldviews and Climate Justice Can Remake a World in Crisis (available here: https://newsociety.com/books/s/the-story-is-in-our-bones). They discuss indigenous leadership and knowledge in climate justice, goddesses, and love letters to the trees.

If you are interested in connecting with Networking with Plants in the Anthropocene, please visit our website networkingwithplants.org or email us at networkingwithplants@gmail.com .

The music piece is kindly offered to us by artist Mileece. You can find her work at: www.mileece.is

Special thanks to steering committee member Joe Culhane for creating the podcast image.

Episode 30: Kate Brelje interviews Osprey Orielle Lake

As of September 10th, 2024 (Tuesdays), estimates are that the 2024 fires have burned 2,247,356 acres with seventy-one (71) large active fires presently active across Turtle Island (the United States) such as in the politically defined borders of California, Nevada, Oregon, Idaho, and Wyoming. In California alone, there are approximately more than twenty (20) active fires and thousands of people are currently under mandatory evacuation orders in numerous counties such as Lake County, Orange County, Riverside County, San Bernardino County, and within the foothills of the Los Angeles National Forest.     

Today on American Indian Airwaves our guest discusses the 2024 fires impact on California Indigenous peoples, nations, and their homelands; how the historical and contemporary legacies of settler colonial violence contributes to the present form of the climate crises, how Indigenous relations and cultural sustainability for future generations face insurmountable and compounded risks provided the perpetrators and collaborators of the climate crises maintain their violent behaviors and operations, and how traditional forms of Indigenous fire-management practices are not only different compared to common United States fire management practices, but also with Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), Indigenous Stewardship (IS), along with climate resilience through ecocultural stewardship, new possibilities for reindigenizing Mother Earth, centering and balancing the trajectory for cultural sustainability, and healing are tenable. In fact, many Native American nations, organizations, and communities within the state of California are already performing the hard work of Indigenous Stewardship while facing settler colonial obstacles, yet they provide direction for the future.  All this and more is covered on today’s episode of American Indian Airwaves.

Guests:
o	Don Hankins (Miwok Nation), Professor of Geography and Planning at California State University, Chico State, co-founder of the Indigenous Stewardship Network (https://www.indigenousstewardship.org), and author and contributing author of numerous publications such as “Climate Resilience through Ecocultural Stewardship” (2024), and “Realignment of Federal Environmental Policies to Recognize Fire’s Role” (2024).

Archived AIA programs are on Soundcloud at: https://soundcloud.com/burntswamp

American Indian Airwaves streams on over ten podcasting platforms such as Amazon Music, Apple Podcast, Audible, Backtracks.fm, Gaana, Google Podcast, Fyyd, iHeart Media, Mixcloud, Player.fm, Podbay.fm, Podcast Republic, SoundCloud, Spotify, Tunein, YouTube, and more

Climate Resilience through Ecocultural Stewardship: The 2024 Fires and California Indigenous Peoples

Step into the world of the Kumeyaay Nation as multiple members from the different tribes discuss their ancient wisdom, survival skills, and cultural practices that have weathered the test of time. Learn how this Indigenous community has been living in harmony with the diverse geography of San Diego and Northern Baja California, Mexico, skillfully managing the land to prevent wildfires and survive droughts. This episode not only features an Emmy-nominated documentary from KPBS San Diego (2014) but also brings the Kumeyaay tradition to life through the storytelling of Dr. Stanley Rodriguez, offering a profound lesson on resilience and environmental stewardship.

We have much to learn from the First Peoples of the Americas, and for that reason we share this documentary First People Kumeyaay, with Nick Nordquist, Director-Editor, and Michael R. Johnson and Bob Sly, Producers. Appearing in the show include: Frank J. Salazar III (Campo Kumeyaay) intro-outro poetry, Angela Elliott Santos (Manzanita Kumeyaay), Johnnie Eagle Spirit Elliott (Manzanita), Mark Becker PhD Archaeologist, Dr. Stanley Rodriguez (Santa Ysabel Kumeyaay), Brian Williams Archaeologist, Daniel Tucker (Sycuan Kumeyaay), Jamie LaBrake (Sycuan), Veronica Santos (Manzanita), Rayleen Elliott (Manzanita), Leroy Elliott (Manzanita), George Prietto (Sycuan), Norma Meza (Juntas de Neji Kumiai), Ana Gloria Rodriguez (San José de la Zorra Kumiai), Dr. Jerry Schaefer PhD Archaeologist, Dr. Susan Hector PhD Anthropologist, Silent Rain Espinoza (Viejas Kumeyaay), Angela Elliott Santos (Manzanita).



For an extended interview and other benefits, become an EcoJustice Radio patron at https://www.patreon.com/ecojusticeradio 
More Info: 
Explore San Diego: First People - Kumeyaay
KPBS San Diego https://www.pbs.org/video/kpbs-presents-first-people/ 

Kumeyaay Songs and Stories, As Told by Stan Rodriguez- Kumeyaay Diegueno Land Conservancy: https://youtu.be/BkqoUIUN438?si=FESsUC66V_vXXe7v 

Kumeyaay Sacred Mountain: https://wilderutopia.com/traditions/kuuchamaa-the-exalted-high-place-of-the-kumeyaay/ 

Kumeyaay Traditions: https://wilderutopia.com/traditions/kumeyaay-people-traditions-survive-in-baja-california/ 

Dr. Stanley Rodriguez has been President of Kumeyaay Community College since 2018. He serves as a Council Member of the Santa Ysabel Band of the Iipay Nation. Governor Gavin Newsom appointed Dr. Rodriguez to the California Native American Heritage Commission in 2021. Dr. Rodriguez is the developer of the accelerated language immersion program, serving as a Kumeyaay Language Instructor at Kumeyaay Community College since 2005. Dr. Rodriguez served as an E-5 in the U.S. Navy from 1985 to 1991. He earned a Master of Arts degree in Human Behavior from National University and a Doctor of Education degree in Educational Leadership from the University of California, San Diego.


Jack Eidt is an urban planner, environmental journalist, and climate organizer, as well as award-winning fiction writer. He is Co-Founder of SoCal 350 Climate Action and Executive Producer of EcoJustice Radio. He is also Founder and Publisher of WilderUtopia  [https://wilderutopia.com], a website dedicated to the question of Earth sustainability, finding society-level solutions to environmental, community, economic, transportation and energy needs.




Podcast Website: http://ecojusticeradio.org/ 
Podcast Blog: https://www.wilderutopia.com/category/ecojustice-radio/ 
Support the Podcast: Patreon https://www.patreon.com/ecojusticeradio
PayPal https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=LBGXTRM292TFC&source=url  

Executive Producer and Host: Jack Eidt
Engineer and Original Music: Blake Quake Beats
Episode 215


Wisdom of the Wild: The Kumeyaay's Environmental Mastery - Extended Show

The evolution of plants has been so successful that today they account for the majority of living biomass on Earth. Humans, along with all other animals, exist thanks to plants, and we can continue to exist only in relationship to them. Plants are all around us, but we tend to overlook their importance in our everyday lives. Plants are essential not only to every breath we take, but also to our food, medicine, shelter, and clothing. Still, most of us walk through life and ‘nature’ without recognizing plants as the beings shaping the planet.

The Vegetal Turn
Given the magnitude of challenges facing the Earth, recent years have seen a renewed and growing attention to plant life across the humanities as well as in the social and natural sciences. This Vegetal Turn is generating transdisciplinary conversations within and beyond academia that seek to create awareness of plant lives and stories and that pursue respectful relationships with plant beings by advancing an ethics of care. How can we better understand the role and agency of plants in shaping on Earth? What does respect mean when engaging with a forest, a field, an orchard, or a potted plant? How do we advance a transition from thinking to acting, from research to practice, in our connection with plants?

What actions are now needed?
We believe that the current challenges of the Anthropocene offer a compelling and urgent opportunity to advance a movement for thinking and engaging differently with plants as well as for increased allyship and exchange between researchers, practitioners, educators, and activists. Networking with Plants in the Anthropocene is a newly created network for those involved in research, education, and advocacy for human-plant relationships of care and reciprocity, and a collaboration between the Consortium of Environmental Philosophers, The Plant Initiative, the Literary and Cultural Plant Studies Network, the Eternal Forest project, and other groups. We invite connections with additional existing and incipient networks and communities concerned with plants and ethical plant-human relationships to carry out multidisciplinary projects. Such a “polyculture of ideas” will bring together Indigenous and non-Indigenous science, literature, philosophy, poetry, art, anthropology, education, botany, and environmental activism.

What do we do?
Networking with Plants in the Anthropocene aims to create and offer tools, content, and methods for transdisciplinary and transgenerational environmental education engaging with the Vegetal Turn that isinternational but locally grounded. The network collaborates to advance outreach and education for the general public through books, conferences, videos, podcasts, and other educational materials, both online and in person. Networking with Plants in the Anthropocene is built on a foundation that is respectful of Indigenous and local botanical knowledges, contemporary scientific discoveries, and world philosophies and literatures. We support generative ways to cultivate educational pathways through art, stories, songs, ceremonies, and individual experiences as well as opportunities for collaborative action.

We welcome your support for the goals of better understanding plants and aligning human behavior with plants in more ethical and respectful ways. For more information or to join in this initiative, please contact us: networkingwithplants@gmail.com

Who We Are
Networking with Plants in the Anthropocene’s Steering Committee:

Alice McSherry

Anna Perdibon

Deepta Sateesh

Evgenia Emets

Joela Jacobs

Kate Brelje

Marcello Di Paola

Paul Moss
thinkingintheworld.com/projects/netw…anthropocene/

American Indian Airwaves (AIA), an Indigenous public affairs radio porgram and, perhaps, the longest running Native American radio program within both Indigenous and the United States broadcast communication histories. Also, AIA broadcast weekly every Thursday from 7pm to 8pm (PCT) on KPFK FM 90.7 Los Angeles (http://www.kpfk.org).  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aiacr


American Indian Airwaves is produced in Burntswamp Studios and started broadcasting on March 1st, 1973 on KPFK in order to give Indigenous peoples and their respective First Nations a voice about the continuous struggles against Settler Colonialism and imperialism by the occupying and settler societies often referred to as the United States, Canada, Mexico, and the Latin and South America countries located therein.

American Indian Airwaves operates as an all-volunteer collective with no corporate sponsorship and no underwriters.

EcoJustice Radio presents environmental and climate stories from a social justice frame, featuring voices not necessarily heard on mainstream media.

Our purpose is to amplify community voices, broaden the reach of grassroots-based movements, and inspire action. We investigate solutions for social, environmental, and climate issues with an eye to advance human health, steward wild landscapes, and solve the climate crisis across the USA and the world.

Featured weekly on KPFK Los Angeles and KPFT Houston, and found on all major podcast apps. We are nationally syndicated through the Pacifica Network and PRX and heard on public radio stations across the US and downloaded in over 25 countries.

Co-hosts Jack Eidt, Carry Kim, and Jessica Aldridge present a broad range of perspectives: land defenders and water protectors; Indigenous leaders, front/fenceline community spokespeople; youth organizers; ecosystem and land stewards; regenerative farmers and permaculture specialists; spiritual and faith leaders; environmental health advocates and practitioners; documentary filmmakers; climate scientists; and political decision makers.

EcoJustice Radio [http://EcoJusticeRadio.org] is produced by SoCal350.org since 2017. 

Tune in live to KPFK Radio Thursdays from 4 to 5 PM (PT) at 90.7 FM Los Angeles, 98.7 FM Santa Barbara, 93.7 FM North San Diego, 99.5 FM Ridgecrest-China Lake, or KPFK.org. 

We also are featured on KPFT Houston from 4 to 5 PM (CT) at 90.1 FM or KPFT.org and other public radio stations on the Pacifica Network.

New tracks tagged #Traditional ecological knowledge