Water is Life: Meet Autumn Peltier

This is fifteen-year-old Autumn Peltier. You may know her already. She is the Chief Water Commissioner of the Anishinabek Nation in Ontario. Peltier assumed her role as a clean water advocate at age eight, and by thirteen addressed the UN General Assembly.

Peltier sees herself as “protector” rather than a “protestor.” This distinction is an important one. Some might assume protestors are out to make trouble. But protectors are determined to prevent others from creating more severe and long-lasting problems. It seems we can all get on board with that.

As we learned from the Standing Rock protests, the first peoples of this land offered a powerful model for collective resistance. But they did more than that. Their way of life models a way forward. If we slow down to listen, the first nations of this continent can show us how to live in harmony with the earth again.

The movement’s slogan in Lakota is “mni wiconi” which means “water is life.”