Environmental and social justice movements often seem to ignite as if by magic. But they are actually more like slow burns, building strength year after year before spreading like wildfire.
To hear first-hand how grassroots activism can grow into a full-scale movement, we caught up with Corvin Russell, an indigenous rights activist in Toronto, Canada, and an original organizer for Defenders of the Land. With support from Global Greengrants Fund and our partner Rainforest Action Network, Defenders of the Land brought together more than 60 representatives from different indigenous communities around Canada in gatherings held in 2008 and 2009. For the first time ever, grassroots indigenous activists came together to share their struggles and experiences. They forged alliances and started educating others about the importance of self-determination and control of traditional lands.
Then, two months ago, the Canadian government passed legislation that tramples environmental protection and severely undermines centuries-old treaties with indigenous peoples. Backlash against the legislation sent grassroots work, begun by Canadian indigenous rights groups like Defenders of the Land, viral. Known as Idle No More, the movement has galvanized First Nations communities across Canada to organize, protest, and demand that their environmental and treaty rights be respected.
You have done a lot of community organizing. How do movements take hold?
Movements have a specific epidemiology. They spread slowly at first, then they hit a critical mass, and then they suddenly spread everywhere. You don’t really know exactly when that’s going to happen.
What role did Defenders of the Land play in building momentum for the indigenous rights movement in Canada?
In 2008, KI and Algonquin leaders were imprisoned after they used direct action to stop mining exploration in their territories. I was involved in the successful solidarity struggle to free them. It was an important victory for the communities. But one of the things we heard was that indigenous community activists were very isolated. Because many of them were facing similar issues, a few of us felt it would be important to provide a space where they could actually meet and talk.
Our first gathering in Winnipeg in November 2008 was the first time that grassroots people—traditional, spiritual people, elders, and youth—had ever come together in this way. It helped create a collective sense of the issues.
We also did three years of weeklong, locally organized educational sessions in cities and towns across the country. That was very important in terms of building a base of support within the cities. At least in Toronto, indigenous people who were involved in those original sessions are now leading the Idle No More protests.
Idle No More is a national network made up mostly of indigenous women in cities, who are still connected to their home communities. It’s not like Defenders of the Land was the only backstory. The communities are where a lot of this work has been done over decades.
How have young people fired up the movement?
First, young people on the reservation are creating a collective sense of what’s happening, and they’re doing it on Facebook. Ironically, the government has prioritized piping high-speed Internet into a lot of these communities. So you can be in a far-north community that has super-high-speed Internet but doesn’t have good drinking water or other basic facilities. The unintended consequence is that people are talking to each other across communities in ways they weren’t able to before.
Second, there’s a whole new generation of university-educated indigenous people, who still have a connection to their home communities, are comfortable with the language, and understand how the dominant culture works. They serve a really important bridging role. As with any movement like this, it’s unpredictable and magical. But it wouldn’t have come together in the way that it has without those two factors.
What is the connection in Canada between indigenous rights and environmental justice?
In Canada in the last few decades, I don’t think there’s been a major environmental victory that wasn’t the result of a movement lead by First Nations or that didn’t have the significant participation of First Nations. Because they have a constitutionally protected right to be consulted and accommodated, they are bulwarks against development.
This environmental justice movement is about all Canadians and everyone on the planet. Canada is now ground zero in the battle to stop climate change because our government is one of the worst on that issue and because the tar sands are a ticking time bomb that will really destroy the planet. So indigenous communities are really the best line of defense for all of us. The more support we give them in that struggle, the better off we’ll all be.
How does grassroots funding contribute to building a movement?
I’m grateful to any funder who supports grassroots organizing. Because we’re working on long-term change, it happens in a way that’s hard to perceive in the moment. So, it’s a huge contribution when a funder takes a leap of faith and supports even something like a meeting. Those dollars really go a long way because we aren’t working with giant budgets. Our gatherings in 2008 and 2009 were organized on a shoestring and we had to make every dollar work.
What’s next for Defenders of the Land?
The indigenous leadership of Defenders of the Land and Idle No More are in conversation about building a broader alliance to form a movement that won’t get exhausted, burn out, or lose focus. The question is: how can this be a sustainable movement that inspires long-term transformational change?