30 million buffalo once roamed this continent. Cristina and Ervin, co-founders of INDIGENOUS LED, want nothing less than to bring them all back.
Rivian donated two R1Ts to INDIGENOUS LED that support daily work in the field like towing animals, hauling equipment and monitoring herds across rugged terrain — quietly and emission-free.
Read more about INDIGENOUS LED below and get involved here.
We first met Cristina and Ervin while filming on Blackfeet territory in northwestern Montana for Jane Goodall's film Reasons For Hope. Since then, we've had the privilege of supporting their deep dedication to protect and heal the connection between land, animal and people.
How does the R1T support your work in the field?
Ervin: There's really nothing the truck can't handle. We've hauled buffalo and driven through many places I wouldn't try to go with other vehicles. I can't wait to drive it in the snow this season.
How did your work with the buffalo start?
Cristina: This work chose me. I was obsessed with animals and somehow it was communicated to me that my job was to make the world a better place for those animals, and everything associated with those wild beings - humans, landscapes, and cultures. My conservation work took me on a path that connected me to the buffalo, I feel like the buffalo chose me.
What is the cultural and ecological significance of the buffalo?
Ervin: To our tribe, buffalo were our existence and our beginning. They were what we lived on - our food, our clothing, our lodging our tools. We are also connected to them spiritually; they are a significant part of our ceremonies. Our existence is just the same as theirs, that's why we call them our relatives. Being one and the same and taking care of each other, that's why they're such an important part of us and our culture that was lost or taken away. Alongside other parts of our culture that have been lost or taken, it's important for us to have them back.
Cristina: Buffalo are a keystone species, that means their presence (or absence) has a cascading effect on the surrounding ecosystem. If we look at endangered ecosystems in North America, grasslands are one of them. Buffalo has the ability to restore those grasslands, and the surrounding ecosystem including bird diversity, plant medicine, healthy soils and carbon sequestration. Buffalo are increasingly looked at as a natural climate solution. At INDIGENOUS LED we also work with other keystone species like the beaver. There's a clear link between these keystone relatives that hold different parts of our ecosystem together.
What is Indigenous-led conservation? How does it differ from other forms of conservation?
Cristina: INDIGENOUS LED was founded in recognition of how powerful Indigenous ways of knowing, being and living with Earth are for the earth and for the people. It's about building Indigenous voice and power, so that what Indigenous People have always known can become louder, can become the norm and can be shared with others. Through Indigenous-led conservation we can be in a leadership role in protecting, healing and celebrating the natural world. We can offer an antidote and a way to reconnect.
We don't just focus on science or policy or advocacy. We try to do it all because we realize that in the Indigenous way of knowing it's all connected. If we were to define Indigenous science - it's that it is place based, it is relational and it must be done in community.
If we were to define Indigenous science - it's that it is place based, it is relational and it must be done in community.
What does it take to reclaim a harmonic relationship with nature?
Ervin: The biggest thing is helping people reconnect in whatever way that they're comfortable with. It might not be with Buffalo, it might be with another animal, it might be with a bird, a plant or a flower. That's how you make things heal, is to help others find that reconnection to what's within them.
Cristina: We need to get people with the animals and on the land, without expectations and agendas. We need to create experiences for people where they just get to be in relationship or relearn how to be in relationship. There's something powerful about creative expression - painting, music, written words - that lets us remember and feel and speak the language that helps us reconnect.
To help people heal we have to find ways to reconnect that feel comfortable. It might not be with Buffalo, it might be with a bird or a plant or a flower.
What makes partnerships like this one with Rivian work?
Cristina: You have to be grounded in your heart. When you're in that grounded place, you have truth and you have the ability to connect. You don't have to think about the partnership, it's guided - we do the things we need to do in order to advance why we're partnering together. It's about relationship and how are we going to use this partnership to change and drive things. It has to come from the heart.
Ervin: What makes it easy is that we’re two different entities on the same path to make things better here. We’re both looking at ways to heal this land and heal this earth.
How can people get involved in your work?
Cristina: It's about we. If everyone can start to see who they are in the we - and if we can do it from a place of love, relationship, collaboration and respect - that's how we turn things around.
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