Beyond Sustainability
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It also confirms a highly advanced knowledge of how to be in the world; the rules, limits and practices of sustainability.” (Mander, 193) In understanding that Haida unemployment was extremely high and logging would have generated jobs, Suzuki wanted to know why they so strongly opposed it. He decided to interview Guudjaaw, a Haida artist who had led the Haida in a highly public opposition to the clear-cut logging of their homelands, and asked him why they opposed the logging. Guudjaaw answered, “Our people have determined that Windy Bay and other areas must be left in their natural condition so that we keep our identity and pass it on to following generations. The forests, those oceans, are what keep us Haida people today.” (Suzuki, 16) Today the Haida are praised for one of the most innovative models in the world which they have fashioned as significant partners in the Gwaii Hannas Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site which provides protection over much of their homeland, as well as, better long-term economic benefits in its maintenance than in its destruction. Indigenous peoples increasingly are “rejecting the interventions of economic globalization while demanding basic and universal rights: self-determination, land preservation, cultural integrity, and respect for the earth.” (Mander, 77) In spite of the reluctance and resistance of governments in enacting appropriate legal and political measures, good dialogue is taking place