Ponca Tribal Rights of Nature: Restoring the Balance

In this time of climate chaos human survival means placing our activities within the boundaries of the Earth’s ability to absorb our impacts and protect the system of life for future generations. Traditional Indigenous knowledge has never been more important.  Over 80% of the world’s biodiversity is protected by Indigenous peoples whose ancestral relationship and responsibilities to Earth’s system of life remains intact.  Nearly everywhere, the legal paradigm of laws protects the ownership of nature, further removing us from the culture of living in balance with the earth. To support such a massive cultural shift will require a combination of modern scientific and traditional ecological technologies under a new body of human law to codify and implement these values.  The Ponca Nation, led by the traditional Pa’ tha’ ta Women’s Society are on a journey to bring Indigenous led-Rights of Nature, modern scientific testing, traditional and modern practices to bear to restore the balance for their community and to serve as a model for other communities. 

The forced journey from the original Ponca tribal homelands to what would become Oklahoma took place in 1877. The direct descendant of cultural genocide, Program leader Casey Camp's grandfather was eight years old when he was walked at the point of a bayonet from Nebraska to present day Oklahoma. The removal did not allow the Ponca time to gather, harvest, or protect the traditional seeds of our natural foods and medicines. One third of the Tribe died on the Ponca Trail of Tears, and another third died as a result of hunger, illness, and hostility in unfamiliar lands.  The Ponca, who were once prosperous farmers, hunters, and warriors, were relegated to dependency upon the U.S.  Government and the Commodity Food Program. This program continues to provide foods high in fats, processed sugars and milled grains.  The once healthy Ponca became a nation riddled with diabetes, heart disease and obesity. 

Over the next 140+ years a minority of Ponca Traditionalists, or wisdom keepers, began to farm, and seek out local sources of edible fungus, medicinal plants, and spring waters. Recognizing the inherent relationship of Indigenous people and the land, these Traditionalists knew that the future of the Ponca lay in the customs of the past. They passed down the teachings of the ancestors from generation to generation, including the story of the sacred Ponca corn. This sacred seed was saved for the Ponca by a Lakota family, who at great risk to themselves, harvested the last of the Ponca crops left behind in 1877. 

 In 2015, with great ceremony, the Sacred Ponca Corn seeds were returned to the family of Program Lead Casey Camp. What should have been a time of great joy turned to one of anger and sorrow with the realization that the lands the Ponca inhabit are contaminated by the extractive fossil fuel industry, fracking, and pollution. Water is often contaminated, soil is leached of nutrients, and traditional planting knowledge were lost.

Recognizing legal Rights of Nature places obligations on humans to live within the boundaries of the natural world. Globally, Indigenous communities are leading this environmental movement far beyond a legalistic framework and toward system change that marries ancestral knowledge with modern science and technologies to transition economies and restore ecosystem balance.  

Movement Rights has worked with numerous Indigenous communities around the globe working on establishing Rights of Nature, including bringing a US Indigenous delegation to New Zealand to learn from the Whanganui tribe who were the first to recognize a river’s rights to regenerate its vital cycles. The tribe co-manage the Whanganui river with the government and teach communities how to make decisions based on the holistic wellbeing of the river using ancient and modern technology. 

Supported by Movement Rights, the Ponca were the first US tribe to recognize the Rights of Nature and Climate in 2017. The Ponca found that Rights of Nature resonated with their own traditions, understood that the path would be long, and felt it is a powerful statement to transform western law to reflect Indigenous understandings. Only by building a coalition of intertribal River Rights protectors, an influx of independent water testing, rekindling of ceremony, implementing traditional ecological knowledge and economic just transition strategies can tribes come together to protect their traditional responsibilities to the Earth and her sources of life from fossil fuel harms. 

The strategy is in two parts:

• Defending and decolonizing Ponca territory and sacred waters against fossil fuels through an Indigenous-led Rights of Rivers model that is deeply rooted in tribal sovereignty, ceremony, and Original Instructions, guided by the tribe's hereditary Women's Society, Pa'thata, keepers of the Waters since time immemorial.  

●    Healing the traditional ecosystems of the lands that the Ponca now inhabit with sustainable agriculture, reclamation of ancient wisdoms, modern best practices, and introduction of traditional seeds to heal the soil. 

In 2023, the vision of Casey Camp-Horinek, Drumkeeper of the Pa’ThaTa, Environmental Ambassador of the Ponca Nation, Wisdom Keeper, Traditionalist, and  proposed Program Lead came into being. With invaluable partnership support, a traditional Ponca Earthen Lodge was constructed. This Earthen Lodge is the first built since forced removal to Oklahoma in 1877 and will serve as the epicenter of the transformative strategy outlined above. 

As the dream takes form, and the Earthen Lodge comes to life,  raised garden beds, solar lighting, composting stations, roots cellars, and rain catchment systems are but a part of the reclamation and rematriation of the land. With the knowledge that although removed by miles from the facilities themselves, the lands have been harmed.  Local farmers' use of pesticides, particulate airborne pollution, and climate chaos created droughts have left soil that is in need of healing.  

The Pa’ThaTa women along with the broader community will plant and harvest a plot of sacred Ponca Corn; conduct water and soil testing; replant native species along the rivers; bring new technologies, regenerative energy and economic options toward a transition from fossil fuels.   

The Ponca of Oklahoma includes about 5,000 tribal members, all descendants of the survivors of their Trail of Tears journey. The Ponca of Oklahoma chose the spot where their reservation remains because of the confluence of the Arkansas and Salt Fork Rivers, which reminded them of their homeland. The settler community that eventually surrounded the tribe would later be named Ponca City.  

Victims of environmental  injustice, the Ponca reservation lies withing a toxic corridor of extractive industry, hydroelectric producers, carbon black production. Faced with what at times feels like insurmountable odds,  apathy, substance abuses, domestic violence, poverty, food insecurity and loss of cultural ways plague the Ponca. Reclamation of traditional ways of living and connecting with the land and  traditional foods will spark the fire of healing for the planet and our people.  

Oklahoma is home to the 4th largest Native American population in the United States. The 39 federally recognized tribes constitute 8% of the state's population. It is no coincidence that more than 80% of the world's remaining intact forests and biodiversity is in Indigenous hands. Indigenous Peoples are  global leaders of green movements, including the Rights of Nature, which provides legal standing for ecosystems in law, and creates the necessary space for other economic avenues to emerge that are sustainable for current and future generations. The planting of sacred seeds is in line with the Natural Law.  

Movement Rights co-founders are leaders in Rights of Nature, with decades of experience working with Indigenous peoples and a broad spectrum of resources and partners. Beginning in 2015, working with our founding board member, and Ponca elder, Casey Camp Horinek, we began to formulate a strategic plan to elevate Indigenous-led Rights of Nature in North America by making a long-term commitment to the Ponca Nation and regional tribal communities. Our Indigenous and women-led team at Movement Rights follow Casey's  leadership in all of the activities we have undertaken in support of the Ponca Nation and Oklahoma tribes, including: 

• Drafting and development of Ponca Rights of Nature and Righs of Rivers Statutes.  
• Movement Rights sponsored an Indigenous delegation, including Casey, to New Zealand in 2018 to learn from the Whanganui tribe who were the first in the world to recognize the Rights of a river, using a guardianship model. 
• Movement Rights co-founder Shannon Biggs has worked with, learned from and supported Indigenous tribes and communities leading the Rights of Nature in Bolivia, Ecuador, New Zealand, Colombia, India and more. She led the President's Panel on Rights of Nature at the 2010 Cochabamba Peoples' Conference on Rights of Nature and Climate Change and was present as thousands of Indigenous people drafted the Universal Declaration on the Rights of Mother Earth. As a GARN leader she has participated in numerous global Tribunals featuring Indigenous land and water defenders and was part of a 3-person delegation to TIPNIS Bolivia to investigate violations of the Rights of Nature in 2019, among many other activities. 
• Movement Rights is a leader in frontline and Indigenous fossil fuel spaces, including sitting on the steering committee of the People VS Fossil Fuels coalition. We have presented at global symposia on fracking and fossil fuels. 

●     Movement Rights, along with Casey and the Ponca Nation, held the first national Indigenous-led Frontline Oil and Gas (FOG) conference, showcasing the Rights of Nature as a strategy and learning from other grassroots BIPOC leaders on the frontlines of fossil fuel activities and indigenous led climate chaos solutions. Each Convening takes  place in a different Oklahoma tribal community, led by members of that community. They determine what the program looks like, who is invited, what Indigenous experts will be needed, and provide outreach to community members. All of the activities we engage in have happened through the local leadership of  Oklahoma tribes exploring how they can apply their tribal sovereignty to protect the land and waters. 

Rights of Nature has been passed as a legal construct throughout the world, but in Indigenous hands it is far more than shifting law, it is a way to codify Indigenous understanding of how to live in balance with the Earth's offerings in a modern world. 

Movement Rights is a respected Indigenous and women’s led organization with expertise in and partnerships with Indigenous-led solutions. We have been at to forefront of the Rights of Nature movement, now law in over 30 countries. Globally it is the fastest growing environmental movement, much of that work has been led by Indigenous wisdom.  Movement Rights has been instrumental in the passage of Rights of Nature laws in many communities, and fighting for implementation of those laws with a number of Indigenous communities worldwide.  We are a co-founder and executive committee member of the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature (GARN) and sit on the Indigenous Council for GARN. 

Movement Rights has worked with and learned from Indigenous communities from New Zealand to Bolivia, India and here in Turtle Island to understand how Rights of Nature can be a deeply transformative space beyond merely changing law, but changing culture. More than just a legal construct, in Indigenous hands, this movement is working to bring ancestral wisdom, We focus on blending traditional ecological knowledge, modern science and law together to shift how we as humans live. Movement Rights is the only organization focussed on the holistic implementation of (Indigenous-led) Rights of Nature in the US. 

In the Ponca territory of Oklahoma, Rights of Nature is a framework for bringing back traditional crops, blending modern science and use of water and soil testing to put technology in the hands of communities to making a safe and just economic transition from from being fossil-fuel reliant to vibrant self-sufficiency with renewable energy, healthy agriculture climate resilience and more. 

We have learned much from our fact finding delegations with Indigenous Rights of Nature solutions around the world, including our delegation to New Zealand to explore the guardianship Rights of Nature model known as the Whanganui River Agreement. There we met with Maori, government officials, lawyers, scientists and technology experts. Although translation to a US-based tribal community shows many differences in approach and execution, the idea is primarily to showcase how Rights of Nature—beyond just passing a law—can be implemented as a pathway to change. We have made a long-term commitment to the Ponca Nation to actualize this blending of ancient and modern technology and thinking to restore ecological balance to a tribe that has been left as a sacrifice community in a fossil fuel epicenter. 

Rights of Nature seeks to transform legal, cultural and political systems rooted in colonial law and ways of living as "owners" of nature that places endless more profit at the center of ecosystem decision-making rather than wellbeing and balance with a finite system we call "natural law".  Rights of Nature, and the inherent relationship of Indigenous peoples with the Earth, will introduce Indigenous led climate solutions and wisdom as Natural Law.  The barriers are immense, and yet this movement continues to grow faster than any other environmental movement in history.Climate chaos is tangible, and radical change is required now.  

Transitioning from fossil fuel economy to models of justice and sustainability is equally daunting, and yet must be done if humans are to remain part of the system of life on Mother Earth. 

Neither of these massive challenges can be done on our own. Funding alone will not solve the problem, we must work with others to create an entirely different path. Indigenous people are the natural leaders of climate justice solutions, and our work is deeply rooted in Traditional Ecological Knowledge and ancient wisdom of living in balance with the Earth's offerings. 

We do not take lightly our undertaking or underestimate the need for solutions from every sector. We embrace the MIT solver initiative because it brings so many minds and experiences together for change. 

We will need to blend ancient traditional knowledge and modern technology in many ways including: 

• water and soil testing and geo mapping of fossil fuel effluent in the river system

•bringing back traditional crops in an area where fossil fuels have damaged soil and made organic farming impossible for 16 miles, necessitating techniques such as soil remediation, raised-bed farming and companion crop planting.

• bringing in viable options for renewable energy such as tribally owned solar and wind power

• educating the Ponca tribal community on ways to participate 

• working with Land Trusts and other partners to potentially buy back some of the Ponca's traditional land for use as a learning farm and repatriation center

• organizing efforts with other tribes in the area to enlarge the project 

Casey is an enrolled elder of the Ponca Nation of Oklahoma, and a respected indigenous wisdom keeper whose deep roots in the community include cultural leadership, environmental stewardship, and a large family who reside on or near the Ponca Nation lands.