In the 1830s, the U.S. government removed the Muscogee Creek Tribe from their ancestral lands in modern-day Alabama and Georgia and gave the tribe’s farmland to settlers. Soldiers forced more than 14,000 tribal members to leave their villages, including their warm and wet fields used for growing cotton, the most profitable crop at the time. Muscogee people were forced to march thousands of kilometers west, many while chained to soldiers, or packed on boats to relocate in unfamiliar lands with drier soil.
The Muscogees were one of multiple Native American tribes forced to relocate west to Indian Territory, which eventually became Oklahoma. The ancestors of Yvette Wiley, a citizen of the Muscogee Creek Nation, had to adapt their lifestyle to a climate with different natural resources. Now, the Muscogee Creek Nation and other tribes in the South Central U.S. once again prepared to adapt to a changing climate – this time because of carbon emissions impacting average global temperatures.
President Biden has said that tribal nations are critical to his administration’s plans to combat climate change. During Biden’s 7th day in office, he signed an executive order announcing that the federal government will participate in a worldwide initiative to conserve 30% of land and water by 2030 (30 by 30). World leaders have said that large-scale nature protection can fight climate change by protecting the Earth’s forests – also seen as carbon sinks. However, the United States is the only major world nation not officially a party to the United Nations biodiversity agreement which the 30 by 30 initiative is part of.
— source news.mongabay.com | Evan Bourtis | 22 Jul 2022