ABSTRACT
A distinct formulation of Indigenous environmental justice (IEJ) is required in order to address the challenges of the ecological crisis as well as the various forms of violence and injustices experienced by Indigenous peoples. Such an approach must be grounded in Indigenous worldviews. The legitimacy of global and nation-state political and legal mechanisms are called into question, as these same states and international governing bodies continue to fail Indigenous peoples around the world. This chapter highlights efforts of Indigenous peoples to offer a distinct understanding of IEJ through international Indigenous environmental and climate change declarations. Indigenous nations have diagnosed the causes of the environmental/climate change crisis and set a path forward for renewed relationships with the Earth. Their diagnosis differs from the approach taken by United Nations and other international organisations that continue to adhere to the same economic, environmental and political paradigms that created the ecological crisis in the first place. Indigenous worldviews and legal traditions in Canada and elsewhere reflect a co-existence with the natural world through which a path to IEJ and a sustainable future can be laid out.
