Winona LaDuke, Anishinaabekwe (Ojibwe) environmentalist, economist and writer will appear with Stewart Brand, author, former editor of the Whole Earth Catalog and founder of several organizations like the Global Business Network. The discussion promises to be enlightening and contentious as Brand is a proponent of nuclear power, GMO crops and geoengineering  (check out his book, “Whole Earth Discipline“), while LaDuke advocates for a nuclear-free future, green energy and ecological practices. LaDuke’s latest book, “The Militarization of Indian Country from Geronimo to Bin Laden,” addresses military impacts on Native Americans, from naming to nuclear testing.

Journalist Mark Hertsgaard, environment correspondent for The Nation and author of the recent book “Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth,” will moderate the discussion.

Don’t miss this event! Get your tickets now.

What: Fix or Nix: The Environment & Technology
Mark Hertsgaard in conversation with Stewart Brand and Winona LaDuke

When: Thursday, July 21, 2011
7:00 p.m.; doors open at 6:30 p.m.

Where: Richard & Rhoda Goldman Theater
The David Brower Center
2150 Allston Way (at Oxford), Berkeley
One block from downtown Berkeley BART

Tickets: $10-$20 for adults, $5-$10 for ages 21 and under (buy them here)
For more information call 510-859-9100.

• Biocultural diversity
• Integrating cultural and spiritual values into conservation, tourism and heritage management practices
• Embracing the values of local people to dramatically increase the success of conservation and sustainability efforts, for the benefit of all

Reconnecting Culture and Nature is presented by Luisa Maffi, co-author of “Biocultural Diversity Conservation,” and Robert Wild, co-editor of “Sacred Natural Sites.”

Register here! If you can’t make the live webinar, don’t worry — it will be made available at Earthscan’s archive so you can tune in at your convenience.

The program, titled “Saving Sacred Lands,” also featured interviews with Gathuru Mburu, director of the Institute of Culture and Ecology in Kenya; Silvia Gómez a consultant for Gaia Amazonas Foundation in Bogota, Colombia; and
Liz Hosken, director and co-founder of the Gaia Foundation in London.

Listen to the full program here.

8 p.m., Saturday, May 8
David Brower Center, 2150 Allston Way, Berkeley, Calif.
Tickets available at the door, $15-25 sliding scale

Enjoy storytelling from all perspectives and sacred spaces and places at this fundraiser for Indian Canyon. The event features:

• Ariel Luckey (Free Land)
• Ann Marie Sayers (Ohlone/Indian Canyon)
• Carl Anthony (Urban Habitat)
• Christopher “Toby” McLeod (Sacred Land Film Project)
• Janeen Antoine (Lakota Sicangu)
• Kanyon Sayers-Roods (Ohlone/Indian Canyon)
• Ken Brower (Author)
• L. Frank (Tongva/Ajachmen)
• Malcolm Margolin (Heyday Books)
• Melissa Nelson (Ojibwe)
• Paloma Pavel (Earth House Center), and
• Willie Underbaggage (Oglala)

Download the flier here.

At first blush, it may seem incongruous for a group that’s focused on protecting traditional cultures and ancient sacred places, but the Sacred Land Film Project is about to join Web 3.0. (OK, I admit I had to google “web 3.0″ to make sure that is what we are doing … so you can see what level I’m at.) But with so many developments that have already proven effective in communication and mobilization — like text messaging, Facebook, and Twitter — we are hoping the next steps will be even better at building community and fostering educational experiences.

The best part of this new development? We’re getting a lot of help. Losing Sacred Ground has been accepted for participation in the Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC) Producer’s Institute for New Media. The Institute is a 10-day workshop that partners documentary projects like ours with mentors in technology to help filmmakers develop projects that go far beyond theatrical screenings or television broadcast.

As BAVC describes it, “The intention of the Institute is to develop socially relevant media projects for emerging digital platforms … Producers may propose a range of delivery strategies, including cellphones, other hand-held devices, set-tops, Internet, portable software and more.”

Previous participants have designed online games, experiences in Second Life, interactive art exhibits, digital community spaces and marketplaces, and video-based educational platforms. You can check them out here.

Our team is hoping to use technology to encourage people to experience and appreciate the natural world. Our original idea was to combine documentary techniques with the concept of geocaching (a sort of treasure hunt using a handheld GPS) and audio guides/webcasting to create an experience we’re calling “geocasting.”

We envision an experience something like this: users can download an audio guide, with optional GPS coordinates, into their iPod, iPhone, GPS, or other mobile device. They can then travel to one of our sites — currently we’re hoping to start with the Shellmound in Emeryville and Devil’s Tower National Monument in Wyoming.

The audio guide will lead the user through the site, describing the people and cultures that once inhabited the areas that the listener is seeing. The sound might also include native music, interviews with people indigenous to that area, and commentary on modern impacts — for example, the controversy surrounding the climbing of Devil’s Tower. After their trip, geocasters will be able to share their experiences, photos and thoughts online on a dedicated website.

In addition, BAVC is going to help us develop an augmented reality component of this project. We’re not sure what this is going to look like yet — and any description I make is likely to be wrong. Suffice it to say, this will be the really innovative part of our project and most likely beyond anything we’ve imagined thus far.

We’re hoping that this project will help people connect to the rich histories of environments that they might otherwise overlook. We also think it will be fun! So stay tuned for more details as the project gets under way.

On March 11, a coalition of 140 international organizations sent a letter to Brazilian President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva demanding an immediate halt to the plans and urging a consideration of alternatives to the mega-dam. The dam project would destroy a vast area of the Amazon rain forest, displacing tens of thousands of people, including tribal people whose livelihoods depend on the river and forest.

Lend your support by sending a message to the Brazilian government.

If you’re in the Bay Area, you can learn more about the struggle to save the Xingu and protect indigenous rights at an event this Friday, hosted by our friends at International Rivers, featuring two films, a panel discussion and live Brazilian drumming:

When: Doors open at 6:30 p.m., Friday, March 19; film starts at 7 p.m..

Where: The David Brower Center, 2150 Allston Way, Berkeley (map)

What: Film screening of Amazonia: Voices from the Rainforest by Glenn Switkes and Monti Aguirre and the award-winning short Battle for the Xingu, directed by Iara Lee, followed by a panel discussion on efforts to protect the Amazon river and the forest it sustains.

Panelists include:

• Aviva Imhof, Campaigns Director, International Rivers
• Leila Salazar-Lopez, Campaign Director, Rainforest Action Network and Board Member, Amazon Watch
• Monti Aguirre, Latin America Campaigner, International Rivers

Afterward, stick around for some refreshments, music by Samba Jam, and great conversation!

Cost: $15 at the door. SAVE $2 IF YOU PURCHASE ONLINE. Purchase tickets here.

For more information, e-mail Karolo Aparicio at karolo@internationalrivers.org, or call 510.848.1155.

Designed to provide continuing education and professional training to those involved in the management, preservation and stewardship of Native American sacred lands, the seminar will cover areas including federal laws, tribal and federal land-management guidelines, historical and cultural factors, the consultation process and other tools for achieving protected status for culturally significant places.

For more information, including a detailed agenda, pricing and registration information, visit the NPI website.

In other SLFP news, if you haven’t already checked out our newly posted photo slide shows highlighting our Losing Sacred Ground production trips to the Altai Mountains of Russia and Australia, you can do so here. A gallery from the best of In the Light of Reverence is also included. Stay tuned, we’ll be posting more in the coming weeks.

Logging crews were turned back at about 5 a.m. on Dec. 16 at Orleans Mountain Lookout Road by approximately 15 activists, who lit a large fire in the roadway.

“This morning’s small but important victory marks the beginning of our campaign to defend Karuk sacred sites and protect the health of our forests,” Orleans local Chook-Chook Hillman said.

The blockade was organized by the Klamath Justice Coalition, which claims that current logging does not comply with the fuel-reduction plan agreed to in dozens of community meetings with stakeholders. Following a two-and-a-half-year consultation process, native and non-native community members from the Orleans region agreed to the Orleans Community Fuel Reduction and Forest Health Project, which was intended to enhance forest health and reduce the threat of wildfire through undergrowth removal.

As part of the plan, the U.S. Forest Service agreed to protect corridors of the forest around the Karuk Tribe’s ceremonial trail system. The plan banned commercial harvesting and heavy equipment in the protected areas, and prohibited cutting of hardwood species and large-diameter trees throughout the forest. It also called for multiparty monitoring of the logging operations.

Upon commencement of the plan, Karuk organizers said, subcontractors carrying out the logging work began violating the project guidelines.

“To date, we’ve had trees as large as three to four feet [in diameter] that have been felled in the buffer zone,” Karuk tribe spokesman Leaf Hillman said, noting that loggers have also set up heavy equipment, including a skyline logging system that uses towers and cables to move logs through the forest, inside the protected areas. In addition, the Forest Service failed to implement the promised multiparty monitoring.

Tyrone Kelley, the Six Rivers National Forest Supervisor, told the Associated Press that the current violations are the result of an oversight by the Forest Service, which failed to write the restrictions into the logging company’s contract. The Karuk Tribe is demanding that the Forest Service cease all logging on the 914 acres in question until these issues can be resolved.

The tribe conducts a semiannual ceremony throughout 9,000 acres of the forest, a region they’ve dubbed the Panamnik World Renewal Ceremonial District. Hillman said the area has been nominated for the National Register of Historic Places. During the ceremony, a priest travels through the forest on the tribe’s traditional trails to locations where various dances and prayers are held.

This is the same area that was the subject of the historic “G-O Road” case in the 1980s, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Native Americans did not have a First Amendment right to stop a Forest Service logging road from penetrating their sacred High Country.

The Klamath Justice Coalition is investigating legal measures it might initiate to halt the logging.

The group used humor to make earnest demands aimed at improved rights for Native Americans. Their bold action was the  the first indication that Native American culture could rise again. “Alcatraz was a big enough symbol that for the first time this century Indians were taken seriously,” Lakota scholar Vine Deloria Jr. said.

The occupation led to real changes such as the creation of Indian-studies programs, tribal museums, increases in funding for college students, and legislation that supported self-determination, including the removal of federal Indian termination policy.

The annual sunrise gathering to celebrate indigenous people’s rights will depart for Alcatraz from Pier 33 on Nov. 26 as. early as 4:45 am.

Coit Tower will also be lit with film projections the evenings of Nov. 25 and 26 to greet those attending the sunrise ceremony. The film, titled “Indigenous Renewal: Alcatraz Occupation Remembrance + Ohlone Presence Celebrated!” prefigures the return of the Ohlone to San Francisco and asks viewers to consider what “indigenous” is. Community radio KPOO-FM 89.5 will broadcast a live program to accompany the projection from 6 p.m. to at least 11 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 25.

It’s a night to remember and celebrate the power of unified action for change.