Wild 12 Congress in South Dakota

By Frank Murphy, 15 November, 2024

A friend of mine told me that as soon as we get into South Dakota I should go to a K-Mart and get a pair of Wrangler jeans and a checked shirt and consider some boots and a cowboy hat as well. We were nervous about coming into this very red state at this point in time, but in fact our fears were unfounded. This was first evident when we checked into the famous old Alex Johnson Hotel and the person behind the desk was a very large transvestite. Then in front of the elevators there was a wall of famous people who have stayed at the hotel including a few presidents, lots of music and movie stars, and Dr. Sylvia Earle. Rapid City turned out to be a pretty cool small town at least around the downtown area. The local Native Americans hanging around town greeted Hinano every morning with a hearty, “hey Hawaiian lady, we love you.”

The WILD 12 Congress was of course about saving/conserving wilderness, but since it held in South Dakota, more than 50% of the presentations were about or by indigenous peoples and their relationship to their place. Plus, there was whole events that were open to Indigenous people only. Because of this, and partly because this has been an issue for a while, the term” wilderness” was kicked around quite a bit. The point being that before 1800 or so wilderness had sort of a biblical meaning – a place you were banished to, etc. – and then, with Emerson and Thoreau, and later John Muir it became a place where people were scarce, and you could go to for solace and renewal. Recently it has been recognized that there the reason there were no people in this “wilderness” was because they had died from disease and been massacred and driven from what had been their ancestral lands. Hinano and I had read about this and discussed it and already decided before we got there that one of our talking points on wilderness would be that, for indigenous people, there is no such thing as “wilderness”, it is simply home. It turned out that we had decided right because this was repeated over and over by indigenous participants and became in fact a major theme of the conference.

We were there as sort of a triumvirate of ocean representatives with Cristina Mittermeier and Sylvia being the other two, and pretty much led off the second day of the congress with Cristina doing a talk, then Sylvia, and then Cristina leading a panel discussion with Hinano as a panelist. Cristina’s main focus was to rally support for ratification of the High Seas Treaty. We had agreed to be co-sponsors of her petition, and we also agreed to present our petition against DSM. She did a powerful presentation about ocean conservation, with great video and photographs. She spoke glowingly about us and our work on Tetiaroa and did a very good pitch for both petitions.

Then Sylvia did her usual amazing job of convincing people of the importance of moving to save the ocean now. She mentioned TS and the Honu project as a new model for deep ocean research and knowledge.

In Cristina’s panel, Hinano was able to flesh out the relationship between the ocean and the indigenous Pacific islanders. She talked about TS and the work we do to promote ocean conservation, from the island to the BCI. She also talked about the connection to the deep ocean as a place of creation. She was impressive as usual and this was a great start for the week and introduced her as representing the Voice of the Ocean.

On the Thursday Hinano did a plenary talk about the Voice of the Ocean which was similar but shorter than her IMPAC5 talk and ended with a powerful call to come together against DSM, and a pitch for the High Seas Treaty. By chance she had been paired with a panel discussion on indigenous ideas about the Rights of Nature. So, she went first and then three women (2 indigenous) spoke eloquently about Native Americans and their relationship to the natural world. For the Q&A session Hinano joined the two indigenous women on the stage for excellent questions and discussion, and the realization from multiple Native Americans that they need to consider the ocean when they talk of the natural world.

  • wild12 congress
  • wild12 presentation
  • Christina, Hinano, & Sylvia
  • hinano speaking at the Wild 12 congress
  • Sylvia Earle speaking at the WILD 12 Congress