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Although indigenous people are responsible for a significant proportion of sustainable land stewardship across the planet, they are often overlooked and seldom invited to the table when policy decisions are made. This week on Sea Change Radio, we are pleased to welcome indigenous economist Rebecca Adamson to discuss her pioneering work in the sustainable development space. We examine the tribal investment model she helped create, look at how increasing transparency in natural resource extraction can better protect indigenous communities, and talk about the impact she has made as a board member for both nonprofits and corporate America.
Narrator | 00:02 – This is Sea Change Radio covering the shift to sustainability. I’m Alex Wise.
Rebecca Adamson (RA) | 00:16 – What we have to do is get back to a place where our values are, what is driving the economy. This system can be reformed.
Narrator | 00:27 – Although indigenous people are responsible for a significant proportion of sustainable land stewardship across the planet, they’re often overlooked and seldom invited to the table when policy decisions are made. This week on Sea Change Radio, we’re pleased to welcome indigenous economist, Rebecca Adamson, to discuss her pioneering work in the sustainable development space. We examine the tribal investment model she helped create, look at how increasing transparency and natural resource extraction can better protect indigenous communities, and talk about the impact she’s made as a board member for both nonprofits and corporate America.
Alex Wise (AW) | 01:25 – I am joined now on Sea Change Radio by Rebecca Adamson. She is an indigenous economist, an indigenous rights activist, a serial social entrepreneur who focuses on connecting capital markets to community. Rebecca, welcome to Sea Change. Radio.
Rebecca Adamson (RA) | 01:39 – Thank you. Thank you, Alex.
Alex Wise (AW) | 01:41 – It’s a real pleasure to have you. First, why don’t you explain what an indigenous economist is, and at the same time, if you can summarize your work in that space.
Rebecca Adamson (RA) | 01:52 – Sure. And thank you so much for asking me about it. A lot of times the term indigenous economist just kinda shuts people down because it’s like, what the heck could that be? Uh, but I think part of it started with my, my very first job and looking at indigenous schools and the rights for parents to be involved in the school. And as I went on and became a development practitioner in indigenous countries, what I was finding was the very way we looked at the world, the paradigm on how we perceived and organized ourselves was fundamentally different. And so when I began looking at both the schools where the purpose of the school was individual rights or individual progress, I was seeing Indian schools as being a social change agent within the community. And so there was a lot of peer tutoring. There was a collective sense in view of the education. As I got into development, it even got bigger. And when I began looking at what we called success in economic development sense, it didn’t match our values. So if we saw a forest as successful, a beautiful living, breathing, large track of forest as successful, we weren’t gonna be successful in the market unless we could measure board feet and, and come back in with a profit. So looking at the indigenous economy, I began really peeling apart the difference in what success was. And that’s really what took me, uh, well, my whole career actually has been in that issue. And so in the sense of practice in the community, we got invol. I got in very involved in the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, the Lakota Nation, and looking at what would it mean there? And a lot of times economic development creates, have and have nots. And what we needed was a multiple income strategy that could create the most good and benefit for the most people, because that’s the fundamental purpose of an indigenous economy, to meet the most needs of the most people. It’s a goal within the economy, and it’s designed to do that versus what we see as accumulation and hoarding of a few, and the constant growth versus sustainable meeting, all the needs. So what came into existence in, in working with the Lakota people was the first Microenterprise loan fund in the United States. And we were looking at this vibrant, what was called informal sector economy, where people made rough box coffins, they welded crosses for the cemetery. One guy replaced the locks in all the government buildings every year. But we saw this just multitude of activities where people generated income for their households. And that’s the kind of economic development what we wanted to do. Since that time, it has com completely begun to grow and evolve in a way that I believe brings solutions to the forefront for what we’re facing today. But that was my first start in, in an indigenous economy. It was really practice giving practical application to the design principles, uh, of, of the values within indigenous societies.
Alex Wise (AW) | 05:19 – Can you give us some examples of how this template of community development within financial institutions, this movement that you helped create for the Lakota Nation has been a springboard for other, what are some of the organizations that exist today that have taken some inspiration from your first microloan fund?
RA | 05:41 – Well, from the first microloan fund, and I thank you for the question. I love taking indigenous thinking into the finance sector. You just don’t think about it. You think indigenous economies have to go backwards in time and to show that it really is a path for forward. Your question just allows me that platform. Thank you so much.
AW | 06:01 – It’s very true. So much of our thinking, the non-indigenous perspective on indigenous tribes, we don’t think about the rough and tumble realities of, of finance.
RA | 06:13 – Exactly! I love this. Thank you. And yet the principles are there in any sector, Alex, I mean, we could look at the agriculture sector, we could look at the actually, uh, corporate sector, which we could talk about later even. But in the finance sector of all places, uh, you’re thinking of these like, like balance and harmony has always been considered probably quaint. Ancient principles or customs balance and harmony were the design principles behind indigenous economies. So when we’re looking at the microloan funds, what started evolving were community-based financial institutions, because the money doesn’t reach communities anymore. The money’s spinning around in this great casino in the sky where most of the money’s being made out of stock appreciation or, uh, currency exchange. But it’s not even productive anymore. Money’s not connected to actual production, like making things.
AW | 07:19 – And you say the casino in the sky, there is that elephant in the room of gambling revenue as well into indigenous peoples, which hadn’t really been part of that original balance and harmony, I’m sure.
RA | 07:32 – Not at all. And actually, the whole disconnect between production took place under Nixon when he disconnected the dollar from the gold. It’s now just abstract. So it’s really a casino in the sky. It’s this abstract concept making more abstract concepts of which we actually withhold from our communities. So this was really looking at building an infrastructure of finance in the community Microloan fund from the early, early beginning of the pipeline, uh, we made loans to women who catered lunches to the Bureau of Ending Affairs. I mean, but they needed the startup money to looking at housing loan funds to looking at the, the loan range we had was up to about 50,000 in the beginning. They’ve gotten bigger since then. But the importance was keeping that pipeline connected to community at all times. We have community credit unions, we have community banks. So part of it was building this entire movement of community development financial institutions, and we needed a financial structure. So I was very involved in that. And finally, it came to a really good conclusion, uh, when President Clinton took office, and we had done one. When I say we, I mean the whole movement on this now because this is beyond indigenous people. President Clinton came in and we’d done a community development loan fund and a microloan fund, uh, in Arkansas. And so we got the legislation, the Community Development Financial Institutions Act, which basically helped really explode thousands of community development financial institutions across the country. But I’m pretty leery of government programs. And so what I really wanted to look at was a way to get the private sector connected. And this is where the piece comes in on indigenous economics of to meet the most needs for the most people. And I had been invited to go onto the Calvert Social Investment Funds Board, which was a mutual fund. And I created an instrument called Community Notes, which basically we got it, uh, designated as an asset class under the Securities Exchange Commission. And just today through Calvert, we have over $7 billion going through community notes and into Calvert Impact Foundation in a way that’s being deployed directly into community. Mostly a lot of this community infrastructure, um, community self-help housing is looking at the mortgage. Uh, we’ve got small businesses, uh, so we are really doing a lot of work and community. It’s fascinating because BlackRock even has a section in it where it’s really looking at community lending. Community investing is what it’s called now. So community notes really put for the first time ever a, a marketing or an organized investment vehicle where individuals, pension funds, institutions can all invest directly into community financial institutions.
(Music Break) | 11:08
AW | 11:58 – This is Alex Wise on Sea. Change Radio. And I’m speaking to Rebecca Adamson. She is an activist and indigenous economist. So you mentioned the work that you do for Calvert. I’m sitting on their board. You’ve sat on many boards, not just corporate, but also foundations and, and in the education space as well. So I wanted to focus a little bit more on what it takes to serve on a board. And we don’t have to name names specifically, but I wanted to get your perspective on the role that a board member plays. I’m sure the range is quite wide for you. You’ve probably served on boards where you felt like you, you weren’t making as big an impact as you could. And then you’ve, on the flip side, you’ve probably found it very rewarding. So you explained the Calvert side of your work, but why don’t you give us a little bit more of an idea of the breadth. You’ve worked on the Tom’s of Maine board and some foundations like the Bay Foundation. Why don’t you expand if you can.
RA | 13:00 – Well, I think the Calvert one was really an aha moment. They epiphany, I think with, with my body of work in that a lot of my work had been nonprofit and do, and doing the economic development in the communities. And even through both the foundation philanthropic side and the government granting side, we were, and this is again now back in the eighties, Alex, so a large size grant back then was maybe a $200,000, maybe $500,000. With the Calvert note, we had to go to our shareholders, and I made a case for the shareholders to, to recognize this might be higher risk and it might be a lower rate of return. And we needed them to vote. They voted unanimously to do this overnight. We had close to a billion dollars put into community investing. And that was like, aha, wait a minute. I’ve been spending all this time piecing together maybe a million dollar, uh, budget when I tapped into the capital markets and realized what the potential was. So because of that work, I’d been invited, like I said, to be on the Calvert Bard. And I really began looking at capital market flows. And I really began looking at the regulatory framework, not as a lawyer, but as a points of entree and places of leverage to begin to use finance in a way that could really help society. Well is a bit more than just getting the money because I’d, I’d been in situations where I’d seen money actually do damage if it’s not, not, if it’s not the right kind of money, the right size of money for the right purpose. Uh, and that’s what we’re seeing today. We’re seeing all this money flow to the wrong stuff. The environmental movement could put, I mean, I throw, throw a dart at any one of these things. And part of that is actually full circle in, in values. We’re working in a system that claims to be value neutral. I mean, in the medieval theology, the Pope was infallible. There’s no such thing in humankind. And so if we’re looking at this system and we’re claiming that the economy is value neutral, what we’re doing is making it unaccountable to us. And we have to look at accountability directly to us. And what we as a people understand to be success, which I’m pretty sure is the survival of humanity in the planet. Uh, and so when you look at this value neutral mechanism, you begin to realize what that does is it eliminates all the value but profit. So then what you have is it’s profitable. Well, two things. It’s profitable to continue to really drive obscene consumption because you have this belief system of growth, and you can’t get to growth through, you can’t get to sustainability through growth. That’s just ridiculous. That’s right up there with value neutral as far as the mythology of the markets go. Uh, so what you’re looking at is, well, I, I can give you an example. Just look at the, uh, GNP when they start measuring investments. Well, is it double entry debits and credits? And the credit side is the investment side. When you start looking at that weaponry is it is an investment. Uh, cigarettes are an investment. Guns are an investment. Education is a debit. New construction is an investment. Remodeling is a debit. So it, it’s better for the economy to tear down stuff, be wasteful, and build something brand new and consume new resources. And what we have to do is get back to a place where our values are, what is driving the economy. This system can be reformed. This system can really be reformed and change. We should know that because it’s a manmade system, but it’s, it’s operating as if it’s some kind of sacred cow. My first thing was to then look at indigenous people’s rights. And indigenous people’s land spans 30% of the earth’s surface, 30% with 80% of the remaining biodiversity on our land. Traditional ecological knowledge really works. So if we want to really look at climate change, if we want to really look at saving mother earth, we need to make capital flows accessible to indigenous people to do the traditional ecological knowledge and stewardship and have the land rights over that 30%. I mean, it, it was like my moment in the market, if we could connect this in a way that our lands are protected, we’re doing TEK, traditional ecological knowledge, and were funded in a way that the conservationists are funded to create their protected areas, we would have 30% of the land surface with 80% of the biodiversity beginning to move into a protected status. So, uh, really began looking at how we could direct capital markets in a way. And one of the things that I’m hoping to do in this iteration of my life is to really look at deep green funds and to begin to really look at deep green investment vehicles that will begin to connect capital markets directly to indigenous people. There’s lots of flim-flam out there around funding the protected areas that right now they get $143 billion a year. Conservation Finance Alliance says they need $843 billion a year. When you look at that funding flow, less than 17% makes it to indigenous people who do have 30% of the land. The protected areas represents about 15% of the land. And of that 15% that they’ve put into protected area, 40% was already indigenous land. So that’s like a net zero for conservation. So it’s really beginning to think strategically about our capital markets and how we can begin to redirect them in a way that is positive for deep green ecology. And I, and I think I learned a lot of this on the Calvert Board to bring it back. And that we, we have a, we had a, we started buying World Bank Bonds, which is not a really good thing except that we went in and we required the World Bank to report on its indigenous rights, its gender rights and its environmental progress because they’ve desperately, desperately wanted ESG as sort of a housekeeping seal on their, on their own investment portfolios.
(Music Break) | 20:19
AW | 20:48 – This is Alex Wise on Sea Change Radio, and I’m speaking to activist and indigenous economist, Rebecca Adamson. So Rebecca, you were talking about how important it is to restore land rights to indigenous peoples. Most of your work, I imagine has been domestic, but I just attended my, I don’t know, seventh or eighth Goldman prize where we look at the awards given to environmental activists around the globe. It seems like 75 to 85% of those award recipients over the years are indigenous peoples working tirelessly against big corporations to try to do exactly what you’re saying, restore these rights. Why don’t you talk about how your work, both inflow and outflow between domestic and global approach to what you do, like where you get inspiration from other countries and where you think you’ve created some templates for other indigenous nations to activate their communities according to some of your principles?
RA | 21:54 – Well, I started actually working internationally around 2004, what before that under my first organization. And then I left and created an international one, uh, because I really believed what I was learning domestically, working with these brilliant communities, uh, on development, uh, would apply globally and that I would learn more by working globally. And so I was, I created First Peoples Worldwide and worked, my first project was in Botswana with the San People. And, um, you immediately run into the conservation issue and, and which takes you into the climate change issue, uh, which takes you into water, takes you into air. Uh, and so when I started putting together, uh, what was happening, I began looking, you know, the economists follow the money <laugh>, see how this is going. And I began piecing together how the money was going out. And, and for instance, like I said, the Conservation Finance Alliance said they need 824 billion a year to take, manage their protected areas. Right now they’re at 143 billion a year. Well, when I tracked down the areas and I looked at conservation itself, Alex, what I saw was that our conservation was, like I said, twice as good. And yet the flow was 17% of that dollar flow was going to indigenous peoples. Uh, when, and there was, um, throughout the 2021 to 23, uh, I’ll have to check on the figure, but there was probably about, uh, 400 and some million that went to supposedly Indigenous People’s Conservation. And the way it goes out is that about 43% went to the multi and bilaterals. The, our funding went to the World Bank, uh, the Inner American Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the African Bank, the UN.
AW | 24:00 – Already fairly deep pocketed organizations, it sounds like.
RA | 24:02 – Right off the top, man. Yeah. And then another 40%, you’re gonna love this. It gets better. <laugh> 40% went to World Wildlife Fund. Um, all the big Conservation International World Wildlife Fund, the Nature Conservancy, they got 40%. So we were looking at a trickle of about 17%, and we were the ones doing the program, the traditional, well, what the way it was set up was they were supposed to be coming out and doing conservation and trying to get these protected areas set up, which they would then run as parks. Well, now there’s this whole movement of 30 by 30 to create 30% of the wilderness, uh, in protected areas by 2030. So you got Bezos and Bloomberg and Arcadia putting, right now, they got about $5 billion going into indigenous peoples conservation, of which it’s following the exact same flow. And I can’t imagine someone like Bezos wanting to pay 83% overhead for this stuff. I mean, it doesn’t make sense. You know, he is the businessman. I’ve been on those corporate boards. They look at this kind of stuff. They look at the, uh, competence in deploying the funding. If it costs them 83% to get the money out, they don’t know what they’re doing. Uh, and then there’s no measurement on the ground. It’s a little bit like this carbon offsetting. Nobody can track where that money goes. And there’s making no difference on the ground. And I think, um, the Guardian did a study that they said they figured 90% of the offsets weren’t really valid. We’re starting to build it small, but there is a basis for an infrastructure to absorb more funding at the community level. So there’s a way to really look at this issue that is both market, uh, conservation, climate change, and the piece that I started with community development, really a livelihood for indigenous people to stay there and take care of the land in a way that they have been doing for thousands and thousands of years. Now, the pushback that you get on this is that, well, they’re not doing a science approach. They do use science, and they have an approach that actually produces results. They know how to rebuild coral. They take care of the mango groves because it’s, uh, mitigates the, uh, tsunamis, uh, they have in and in drought. They have some amazing techniques around looking at how to mitigate the drought. So there’s principles here that are comparable. And like I said, as more time goes by, they’re being studied in a way that are proving they might be more, uh, successful in some of this. But we don’t need all the layers. We don’t need all the old school that is looking at again, well, what hasn’t, what hasn’t been, I mean, I go back to let’s look what our eyes tell us. Are you gonna believe what you see with your eyes or what you’ve been told to think? It’s like if we have 80% of the biodiversity on the 30%, that’s our land. And the other 70% of the land has 20% of the biodiversity. Somebody doesn’t know what they’re doing. Somebody doesn’t know how to take care of the land. Somebody doesn’t know how to nurture the biodiversity. And right over here, you have people that, for decades, <laugh> for millennials that have been taking care of it, I would put my money on what has a proven track record for stewardship. It, it just makes good business sense.
AW | 27:53 – Rebecca Adamson, thanks so much for being my guest on Sea Change Radio.
RA | 27:57 – I’ve enjoyed it completely. Alex, you’ve given me a platform that I’ve never had before. Thank you.
Narrator | 28:17 – You’ve been listening to Sea Change Radio. Our intro music is by Sanford Lewis, and our outro music is by Alex Wise. Additional music by Boozoo Bajou, Xavier Rudd and Bruce Cockburn. To read a transcript of this show, go to SeaChangeRadio.com to stream or download the show or subscribe to our podcast on our site, or visit our archives to hear from Doris Kearns Goodwin, Gavin Newsom, Stewart Brand, and many others. And tune in to Sea Change Radio next week as we continue making connections for sustainability. For Sea Change Radio, I’m Alex Wise.