In August of 2009, the Haudenosaunee Environmental Task Force and the Onondaga Nation’s environmental team visited Bradford, PA to talk to neighbors there and witness first-hand the impacts of hydrofracking.

I was getting a headache. We’d only been there for ten minutes, but the periodic strong whiffs of propane gas were already getting to me. “It was worse two days ago,” Yvonne Shafer explained to me, “the whole outside and inside of the house would smell like that, about every half hour. At its worst, I spent two hours in the basement because it was the only place I could breathe.”

    The Haudenosaunee have a unique spiritual, cultural, and historic relationship with the land, which is embodied in Gayananshogowa, the Great Law of Peace. This relationship goes far beyond federal and state legal concepts of ownership, possession, or other legal rights. The Haudenosaunee are one with the land and all that depends on the land, and consider ourselves part of it. It is the duty of the Nations' leaders to work for a healing of the land, to protect it, and to pass it on to foture generations.

Hydraulic-Fracturing

The Haudenosaunee consist of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca and Tuscarora Nations. The Haudenosaunee Nations and its people have a unique spiritual, cultural, and historic relationship with the land, which is embodied in Gayananshogowa, the Great Law of Peace. This relationship goes far beyond federal and state legal concepts of ownership, possession, or other legal rights. The Haudenosaunee people are one with the land and all that depends on the land, and consider themselves apart of it. It is the duty of the Nations’ leaders to work for a healing of the land, to protect it, and to pass it on to future generations.

Land, fresh water, air, plants, forests, animals, birds and fish are all part of the environment that supports our wellbeing. The rising temperatures and changing weather caused by global climate change will affect these resources. This change may also have significant cultural effects, because of our strong interdependence with our natural environment native people may experience greater impacts of climate change. We know an indefinable change is upon us and it is important that we anticipate climate shifts, so we can respond and adapt accordingly, to meet the responsibilities in caring for the natural world as well as our communities.

In the coming months the Haudenosaunee Environmental Task Force in conjunction with The Center for Native People and the Environment-SUNY ESF will be holding community workshops that will facilitate in the learning of predicted climatic shifts, including local impacts. Along with community learning of the predicted climatic shifts, we are interested in listening to the concerns of the people. These workshops look to address how the coming climate change may impact culture and lands, as well as possible tools and resource that could be implemented in the future to address these shifts. Being native we hold traditional knowledge of our environment passed down from generation to generation. You being a holder of this knowledge, is an important part of the solution to global climate change. With your input we can identify concerns and trends about climate change effects, and be a factor in deciding what steps should be taken to help our native communities be resilient in the face of climate change.