• Humans are not the first species to threaten its own and others' extinction by way of resource depletion and pollution.
• Ancient species survived similar crises by reorganizing their living systems from aggressively competitive to peacefully cooperative.
• Presently evolved species can exist only because the Earth spent billions of years burying atmospheric carbon in forests and underground, much of it as fossil fuels; to burn these forests and fuels reverses the planet's system for keeping atmospheric conditions and climate conducive to species health.
• The Earth's living systems can clean up considerable pollution, but only if they remain healthy; destruction of forests, seashores, water tables, ozone layer, etc. makes it impossible for the Earth to perform the cleanup.
• Industrial hi-tech monoculture agriculture is so destructive in terms of fossil fuel use, pollution and desertification that the human species can no longer be sustained by it;only indigenous, traditional agriculture, demonstrably more productive and sustainable, can meet human food needs in the very near future.
• Small community societies of indigenous and traditional peoples survived in health for many thousands of years without overpopulating because they were composed of living systems in balance with their environments; industrial society, by contrast, threatens its own extinction within a few hundred years of existence because it has created overpopulation and has violated most principles of living systems.
• Biodiversity is essential in all living systems, including human. Monoculture is as destructive and dangerous in human social systems as in human agriculture; the failure to respect and protect indigenous and traditional cultures in the attempt to industrialize all humanity according to one model actually hastens human extinction.
• Technological production is natural to the human species, but must be reevaluated and revised in a goal-setting context of healthy survival.
• The most promising survival path for humans is to merge appropriate technology with the knowledge, wisdom and ecologically sound practice of indigenous and traditional peoples.

Western/Northern science and industry from their outset shared the conviction that man is master of all nature and would bring about a Golden Age for all humanity by conquering, subduing and transforming material nature to his own ends. Nature, according to John Locke, the principal philosopher architect of this tradition, has no value in itself, gaining value only when transformed by industrial man. This view of nature still prevails today, notably in genetic engineering and patent discussions for the GATT.

We now look back on a tragic history of the White/Younger Brother's destruction of indigenous cultures to build his technological world. It is a world in which non-human species are rapidly extinguished as vast tracts of forest and mineral-rich earth are transformed into a network of great urban sprawl cities, a top-heavy world in which seven percent of the people own sixty percent of the land and use eighty percent of the available energy. It is a world in which nature has been seen only as a supply base and a dumping ground, a polluted world which testifies to the White Brother's failure to respect the Red Brother's sacred Earth wisdom. It is a world in which we finally recognize that humanity may well face extinction through its own folly.

Indigenous Science:
There can no more be one true science than there can be one true religion. Native science (not to mention Arabic, Vedic, Taoist and other) has contributed enormously to modern knowledge. Mechanist science, in its reductionist search for the parts of natural "machinery," has failed to see holistically, systemically. The whole enterprise of industrial society science is based on removing phenomena from their natural context to "control" them, while the whole concept of indigenous science is teaching natural phenomena in natural settings in order to integrate yourself with them. It is not a science that stands apart from nature to look at it objectively; it does not eliminate the sacred, but integrates it. It fosters dialog between humans and the rest of nature.

If we take the single example of agricultural engineering, the modern high-tech Green Revolution cannot hold a candle to the sustainable productivity of highly developed Inca agriculture, or even to that of the traditional "permaculture" farming practiced by the natives of India prior to colonization.
Green Revolution agriculture uses vast quantities of fossil fuel energy to produce machinery, fertilizers, pesticides and irrigation systems, all of which combine to irrevocably destroy soils and water tables, not to mention the destruction of the traditional communities of people who formerly owned and farmed the land. These people, who developed healthy, productive seed and varied crops over thousands of years on the same land, are now pressed into serfdom on huge mechanized farms that grow monoculture crops from sterile seed and will remain productive only for limited time before the ground is reduced to saline desert (see The Violence of the Green Revolution by Vandana Shiva, Dehra Dun, India 1989).
Green Revolution statistics show greater yield of, say, rice per hectare than traditional methods, but they ignore the fact that the same hectares were not only producing rice, but fish, pigs, vegetables, fruit, fertilizer and mulch on soil/water that remained healthy with no chemical input. A century ago, a British agricultural expert toured India to see how he could best advise Indian farmers to improve their agricultural practices. His conclusion was that the Indian farmers had more to give to the English in the way of advice, because they knew so much about soil composition and health, pest control, water management, crop breeding, and all other aspects of agriculture.

Yet in the present GATT (General Agreements on Trade and Tariffs) discussions, scientists continue to promote the idea that nature can and must be technologically transformed by scientific techniques. Seed that was developed over thousands of years by indigenous peoples or peasants is defined as "primitive cultivar" until brought into a laboratory, genetically altered and then patented for ownership (in direct violation of sacred contract living). If these GATT agreements go through, the indigenous peoples or peasants who developed seed will be fined for planting it unless they buy the seed from its new "owners!"
Pre-Inca and Inca agriculture developed hundreds of varieties of potatoes, high protein grain and beans, corn and many other carefully bred crops, feeding millions of people on the same lands without destroying them. Over half the food eaten in the world today traces its roots to the Andes. Their mountain agriculture included automatic irrigation systems and climate-control to prevent freezing. Only minimal work was required in their plow-free tabled fields. Freeze dried potatoes were among their inventions. Indigenous people without the urban social organization of the Inca were equally sophisticated in their agricultural practice (see Darrell Posey's position paper for this meeting: Indigenous Knowledge in the Conservation and Utilization of World Forests).

Because we are accustomed to equating science and technology with mechanical instruments, machinery and all the material products of our culture, it is difficult for us to grasp the enormous scientific and technological prowess of peoples who consciously kept their material goods to a minimum in order to live in ecologically sound ways. Yet science is the systematic accumulation of knowledge about our natural world and technology is quite literally human artifice. However invisible much indigenous technology was, it often worked better than the mechanical technology of the modern world.

Much indigenous science is extremely sophisticated in what we call "interdisciplinary sciences," such as geology/meteorology. The Hopi, for example discovered that in the Southwest underground copper deposits draw down lightning, bringing life-giving rains to the desert. They know that mining can change weather patterns as surely as the Kogi know that deforestation and mining are drying the climate around them so their mountains no longer have adequate snow to feed the rivers on which their crops and lives depend. Both cultures have observed the destruction while the white man saw only the copper and the gold that would bring him wealth.

Survival Conclusions:
Native science uses the sacredness of nature as its guidepost to what should or should not be done by humans. To be sacred is to be inviolable, to be treated with utmost respect. To have a sacred contract with nature, as said above, is to care for it, protect it, give back to it as much as is taken. When the White Brother's inventive genius comes together with the Red Brother's deep wisdom, we will develop an appropriate technology that does not violate the Earth, but restores it and permits all creatures to live in health.

In terms of United Nations policy on indigenous peoples, it seems to me essential that:

• The UN sponsor an educational campaign designed to build respect for indigenous and traditional peoples; that supports them in telling their own histories and worldviews, and that makes clear that much land was taken from them by utterly unjustifiable means.
• The UN set up a World Council of Indigenous Elders with international media coverage to advise world leaders (CEOs, international bankers, politicians, religious leaders, etc.)
• The UN immediately begin inviting Indigenous Elders, even before formal recognition of their nations, to address the General Assembly on critical world issues.
• The UN support indigenous peoples who survived the past half millennium of industrialization in their land claims, lest the very basis for their existence be denied them further.
• The UN look very seriously into its policy of not recognizing indigenous nations existing within the borders of member nations, though these member nations have never legitimately acquired title to the aboriginal lands.
• Whenever indigenous nations have conflicts with industrialized nations, whether over patents on their intellectual property, independent nation status, land disputes, or other issues, the negotiations do not take place within the legal structure of one disputing party's culture: e.g. industrial society courts. Fair negotiations can only be possible in some compromise structure of discussion agreeable to both sides, possibly within the UN.
• Ethnobiological research be supported by the UN in ways that promote the conservation of indigenous and traditional cultures and actively prevent their exploitation.
• Appropriate technology be made available to indigenous peoples upon consultation with them.