The Indigenous Peoples Celebration Committee (IPCC) and the Brookline Office of Diversity and Inclusion and Community Relations (ODICR) co-hosted Conversation on Climate: Indigenous Communities and Climate Justice on Monday, Nov. 28 from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. The event was part of the town’s effort to celebrate Native American Heritage Month and raise awareness about climate change and its impact on Indigenous peoples and their land.

The event began with IPCC Chair Felina Silver Robinson reading Brookline’s Land Acknowledgement. The Land Acknowledgement is meant to recognize Brookline’s historical treatment of Indigenous and African peoples and such treatment’s lasting impact on said peoples.

“We acknowledge the theft of land, culture and lives and the ensuing enslavement of Indigenous and African peoples that occurred here,” Robinson said. “These early policies set the stage for centuries of systemic racism.”

Robinson then introduced a recording of a presentation that Julian Aguon, a Chamorro human rights lawyer and author from Guam, delivered to students at the high school on Thursday, Oct. 6, in which he recounted the recent developments on his native land.

Aguon discussed his home country and the impacts of the United States’ military endeavors on Guam. He described how several Guaminian wildlife species have recently gone extinct as a result of the United States’ construction of a 59-acre live-fire training range, which entailed the bulldozing of Guam’s limestone forests.

Aguon said these losses of nature have guided his work at Blue Ocean Law, an international law firm dedicated to protecting the rights of Indigenous peoples across the Pacific region.

“[Blue Ocean Law has] worked in many jurisdictions and in all of [them], we are trying to stop the spread of massive environmental devastation,” Aguon said.

Crystal Johnson, the keynote speaker for the Conversation on Climate and an environmental planner, concluded the event by presenting A Black Indigenous Voice, which discussed climate justice and equitable solutions to the climate crisis.

Johnson said climate justice can be achieved when the lens through which we view the impacts of climate change is altered.

“Climate justice acknowledges that climate change is having different social, economic and public health impacts on different people. It recognizes that there is a disproportionate impact on low-moderate income (LMI) and Black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC) communities,” Johnson said. “These are the people and places who are least responsible for the problem, yet they are bearing the brunt of the environmental issues.”