Bellingham ceremony kicks off tribal-led effort to preserve ancient forests
Calling on the wisdom of nature that is sacred to Indigenous people, tribal leaders and environmental activists launched a two-week push through Washington on Saturday, aimed at countering President Donald Trump’s attempts to build roads through national forests and open pristine lands to mining, logging and oil drilling.
In a gathering at Maritime Heritage Park in Bellingham, near where a Lummi fishing village thrived just a little more than 100 years ago, speakers decried Trump’s push to end the “roadless rule” and encouraged everyone to comment online against it.
Jewel James of Lummi Nation’s House of Tears artists told about 120 people who attended the ceremony that it takes courage to resist the government.
“This is your government, this is your Constitution. And we’re living in an age where we’re getting scared to speak up. It’s up to us to not be afraid as organizations, as people, to speak up when we see wrong,” James said.
James is a master carver whose traditional masks and a totem pole are at the center of the campaign to save the roadless rule, called Xaalh and the Way of the Masks. Several masks and the pole – which depicts a bear changing into a human clutching a salmon – were on display Saturday as part of the two-week tour. The tour ends on the Elwah Reservation, where removal of a dam has spurred salmon recovery.
“The (Nooksack) River is shallow. The water is heating up. The fingerlings died. The salmon are smothering. That’s what Bear stands for: Stay out of the salmon habitat. Do not disturb the salmon children. That is their home, that is their bed. We have a duty to respect nature,” James said.
Many in the crowd carried signs with slogans such as “Don’t pave paradise,” “Protect our public lands” and workers,” and “Love me, love my trees,” with an image of the Earth.
Speakers from the Sierra Club and the Bellingham-based RE Sources urged those in attendance to resist efforts to cut funding for the U.S. Forest Service and and National Park Service, whose scientists, rangers and firefighters work to protect public lands.
Michael Lilliquist of the Bellingham City Council and other elected leaders said that protection of open spaces begins at the local level, with housing and land-use policies that discourage sprawl.
“I love where I live, and a large part of that is based on the public lands that I can enjoy – our local city parks and trails, our national forests, our public shorelines, our national parks. So let’s preserve our public lands, not just as shared spaces but as a shared responsibility and legacy, so that our children and grandchildren can walk these trails, pause by these streams and experience connection just as we have. Our public lands belong to all of us,” Lilliquist said.