Many people view the current Anthropocene as almost a manifestation of past beliefs of a dystopian future. There is also disagreement on what to do to maintain the environment currently. I personally lean on the side that extinctions are bad and we should prevent them, but others argue it is just a product of the environment. Some want new texts about another disastrous future.
Parallels can also be made between the protection of indegnious cultures and habitats by and the conservation of the environment. Indigenous people believe in strong relationships between nature and humans. Colonization has disrupted the positive elements of this relationship, and have damaged ecosystems that indigenous and natural people have inhabited for many years. The “campaigns”(Dystopia) caused settlers to overpower indigenous homelands and have almost total control. Indigenous people no longer have any power over the places they live in, similar to how nature had power before man manipulated it. The settlers disrupted the environment and the indigenous people to the extent that the idnegenous people could not adapt to the disruption like deforestation, pollution, etc.
In the Great Lakes a couple of restoration projects are being done to help improve environmental conditions and stop degradation. One environmental component that was disrupted is the fish species, Nmé. It was massively overfished, with numerous invasive species and dams disrupting the lakes. In response, the Natural Resources Department came up with numerous cultural ceremonies combined with the reintroduction of the Nmé back in the water systems. The ceremonies help indigenous people rediscover their relationship with the fish, making them more likely to protect things like this from happening in the future.
Wild rice has also been disrupted by settler establishment, with other types of rice putting it out of economic viability even though it is very nutritious and has been a native species for a long time.
Hopefully, indigenous people combined with other residents of the world can help protect the natural environment that rightfully belongs to them.
