"Foreword" [2013] ELECD 228; in Abate, S. Randall; Kronk, Ann Elizabeth (eds), "Climate Change and Indigenous Peoples" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2013) xxi

Book Title: Climate Change and Indigenous Peoples

Editor(s): Abate, S. Randall; Kronk, Ann Elizabeth

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781781001790

Section Title: Foreword

Number of pages: 2

Extract:

Foreword
It has often been said that treatment of indigenous peoples, both within
the context of the American legal system and now globally, represents the
metaphorical `miner's canary' ­ a bird released into mines for which its
demise or distress provides an early warning of potentially grave danger
to those that follow.
Felix Cohen aptly noted of indigenous peoples within the United States:

[T]he Indian plays much the same role in our American society that the Jews
played in Germany. Like the miner's canary, the Indian marks the shifts
from fresh air to poison gas in our political atmosphere; and our treatment of
Indians, even more than our treatment of other minorities, reflects the rise and
fall in our democratic faith.

In this book, a diverse collection of commentators highlight how, in the
context of climate change, indigenous communities are, once again, pro-
viding a critical warning to the broader global community that cannot be
ignored.
On one hand, the book documents how climate change is having a dis-
proportionate impact on specific indigenous communities and lifeways,
implicating a range of international human rights concerns and social
justice issues for which legal remedies will likely follow via established
and emerging causes of actions and theories, domestically and within an
evolving international law framework.
In contrast, this collection adequately presents indigenous peoples
in their proper role as internationally recognized sovereigns and global
partners. Gone are the days in which indigenous peoples are cast merely
as victims of colonization, powerless ...