I am writing to request that the Department of Interior Bureau of Indian Affairs reach out to the U.S. Forest Service and provide them with direction and guidance on the matter of respecting and implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).

As the state of Vermont begins to engage its own commitment to the global “30 X 30” land conservation initiative in response to human-poor behavior-caused planetary degradation, through the passage last year (2023) of Act 59 (H.126), an Indigenous coalition has coalesced to add necessary - and heretofore missing - perspectives

Petition From VT Indigenous Communities and Allies to Extend Public Comment Period on Proposed Telephone Gap Forest Logging Plan

We share here a direct observation from Atowi Co-Director Melody Walker Mackin, in response to Vermont Public’s latest article is a long-running series that continues to present selective presentations of perspective. The referenced quote is below and Melody’s commentary follows.

On March 19. 2024, Norwich University hosted the 2024 iteration of the annual Resilient Vermont Conference, an event organized by the Resilient Vermont Network (RVT) also located at Norwich.. One of the integral themes of this year’s Conference - with an overall approach entitled “After the Floods” - was a Native perspective on resilience in the light of climate-related and associated societal change.

The second Governor of Plymouth Colony - Edward Winslow - spoke of the Native people with whom he often traveled and their practice of maintaining a mnemonic story line within the landscape - in his 1624 chronicle "Good News from New England".

“New Lights in the Dawnland” is a two hour audio documentary based on five individually recorded voices recounting 13,000 years of Indigenous history of Sokwakik /Squakheag/Northfield (MA) leading up to the arrival of English colonists in the 17th Century and the impacts of colonialism that followed. Replete with tribal songs, flute and drum interludes and ambient sounds, this conversational telling of the story creates its own imagery, to the considerable satisfaction of those whose voices are interwoven throughout.

This is a good example of how “the past” of a concept -“moose” for example, directly from Western Abenaki “moz” (to use one Algonquian dialect of many) - carries the force of its origins into the present, even if unseen or unacknowledged.

An article by Robert F. Smith, in The Commons weekly newspaper published Wednesday, January 31, 2024 .

Several members and allies of the Southern Vermont Elnu Abenaki held a packed informational meeting on Jan. 21 in response to controversies regarding their tribal integrity and to answer questions about this from the public.

The Brattleboro Reformer newspaper, in an article by Chris Mays that was published Jan. 29, 2024, reviewed the Jan, 21, 2024 presentation held at the Westminster West (VT) Congregational Church, sponsored by Living Earth Action Group, and filmed by Bellows Falls’ FACT-TV.

Neighborworks is a nationwide supporting organization for over 250 netowrks that create opportunities for people to live in affordable homes, improve their lives and strengthen their communities. Our local Windham & Windsor Housing Trust (WWHT) is one such member, and Neighborworks just shared an overview of the “Bellows Falls Garage” project that they recently completed just upstream along Kwenitekw (Connecticut River) near Kchi Pôntegok (Great Falls, at today’s Bellows Falls, Vermont).

A video transcript from FACT-TV of Bellows Falls - filmed and produced by Alex Stradling. From the event flyer:

Living Earth Action Group (LEAG) will be hosting a presentation by Brattleboro/Wantastegok resident and Atowi Project Co-Director Rich Holschuh (with other possible guests), on Sunday January 21, 2024, at 6:30 pm at the Congregational Church of Westminster West. We will discuss the dynamics at work among the Abenaki First Nations Grand Council in Quebec, Canada…

A commentary published in VTDigger on Jan. 11, 2023 - A close reading of this Assembly of First Naations position statement about Bill C-53 makes it clear where the W8banaki organization (formerly the Grand Conseil de la Nation Waban-Aki Inc - founded in 1979 as a Tribal Council composed of the Abenaki bands of Odanak and Wôlinak) is taking its cues in devising an anti-VT-recognized Abenaki strategy.

I stand beside all the multitudes of Indigenous Peoples who are mixed race. You are Indigenous.

In December, we are in the last month of the Gregorian calendar year, the chronological construct that orders the modern Western world. This calendar has its origins in the cycles of the sky beings - Sun, Moon, Stars, and Earth herself - but, as with many other aspects of our cohabitation, we have drifted far away from those intimate connections.

The original headline for this Seven Days article "Caught in the Cross Fire | Fighting between Québécois and Vermont Abenaki tribes puts conservation groups in a bind" and the now-shortened "Fighting Between Québécois and Vermont Abenaki Tribes Puts Conservation Groups in a Bind" is both telling and misleading, an all-too-common media proclivity.

Awhile back, Atowi Co-Director Rich Holschuh joined an interview with Root Words podcast producer Stephen Abatiell of the Shrewsbury Agricultural Education and Arts Foundation. Recently, Stephen included a part of that conversation in a new episode - Part 3 of a 5-part miniseries entitled Restoring Relationships.

What passes as “history”…

At the 25th convening of the Annual Vermont Journal of Environmental Law Symposium, held at its home base of Vermont Law & Graduate School in S. Royalton, VT on Saturday, November 18th, 2023, Atowi co-director Rich Holschuh was asked to offer a Land Recognition statement.

Working with Barbara Schultz from the Town of Springfield’s Trail Committee, Atowi contributed an audio file linked to a QR code, relating Native heritage and Abenaki vocabulary within the narrative provided on the signage. A webpage is in development with this information also.