Indigenous Conservationist of the Year for 1997
Mary Thomas Speech
September 22, 1997
First of all I would like to acknowledge and thank our fellow native people for allowing us into their territory. We at home always acknowledge people when they allow us to come and visit. I am really honored that you have accepted me here and honored me in the traditional way. I would like to thank you for this wonderful introduction as well as thank those who are responsible for putting this on. Most of all I would like to thank my dear friend, Nancy Turner, for her thoughtful nomination of this prestigious award. In addition my gratitude goes to the many people and organizations that combined their letters of support.
Being given such an honorable award is truly something that has been quite a shock to me given the background that I have lived as an Elder of the Secwepemc Nation of the interior of British Columbia, Canada, looking back into this background remembering my days beside my grandmother. You honor me for something I lived with as values and principles which were common among our people on a day to day basis, such as respect for Mother Nature: only taking what we really needed and respect for all living things. Since the beginning of my constant struggle towards promoting these very same values and principles, I still carry very deep concern for the depletion of our traditional plants as well as the lack of knowledge of what they are for.
I would like to at this point to add a little bit of what Nancy was talking about regarding the Birch tree. A couple of years ago, we did an experiment with a group of young people to prove to the forestry people why it is important to leave some of the leafy trees where they had replanted. We found this great big old stump of a Birch tree, which grew three other birch trunks from this big stump. We tapped a little bit of one side of the tree. We were getting a gallon of sap in the morning and a gallon of sap in the evening. I would make this into syrup. Now this was just one tree giving sap, let alone the whole forest. These are the trees that the forestry people were cutting down because they were believing that all these trees were choking out all of the trees they planted, which were the fir and the pine. According to our elders those trees, the broad-leaved trees are very important to the environment because they believe the sap, when it goes up the tree to create the leaves, is there collecting solar energy. When the sap goes back down into the ground in the fall, the leaves drop which creates compost. That sap that goes back into the ground has a lot of solar energy that feeds the other trees.
We did another study, after we had done this. Can you imagine 2 gallons per day for a whole week? It was still coming. We patched up the hole and left it alone. When you look into an area where all the trees have been cut out, plowed and replanted we find people putting all kinds of chemicals back into that dead soil in order to grow food that we eat. This is one of my biggest concerns. This is just a little sample of the studies that we have been doing.
Also, I am really concerned about our fresh waters and the effect that it has on the animals and the environment surrounding them. The pollution of the air that we breath; what it leaves in store for our future generations and our sacred Mother Earth. Most of all we need to encourage all individuals, nationalities and countries to come together to address all areas of concern; the concern for this beautiful world that we live in.
A part of this coming together would be to build bridges over the holes that go with racism and destruction that goes with it. No matter what background we come from our need to address the conservation issues are all common. With the loss of our plants, waters, animals and air, we as aboriginal people lose that spiritual connection to Mother Earth and each other and most critical to ourselves. If we do not have that spirituality, then we have no existence.
It is this strength of spirituality in me that has brought me here today. Some of you may not be aware of this, but my husband has been very ill. I have been told there is no cure for his sickness. I am here to accept this award in honor of him, my family and my friends who have always provided encouragement and support for me to continue the challenge of promoting my beliefs and knowledge.
I thank all of you for this honorable recognition and pray to the Creator everyday that we may achieve our highest expectations to preserve the land, water, air and spiritual strength that we need to carry our work forward.
Thank you very much. I am very honored.
