Antone Minthorn: A portrait of Native resilience and leadership

Apr 302013
 

Editor’s note: Antone Minthorn has served on the Ecotrust Board of Directors since 2002.

For most of his life, Antone Minthorn has served his people and his community. Raised on the Umatilla Indian Reservation by a Cayuse grandfather and a Nez Perce grandmother, Antone learned about the Nez Perce War of 1877 from some of its survivors when he was just seventeen years old.  He heard about the fighting skill of a few hundred warriors who managed to hold off the U.S. Army after tensions exploded into battle. The Nez Perce eventually fled their homelands in the Wallowa Valley, led by Chief Joseph, traveling over 1,500 miles until Joseph, not wanting to lose any more of his people, ultimately surrendered in Montana Territory. Antone kept this story close, and later left home to spend three years at Gonzaga University before joining the Marines in 1957.

Antone Minthorn. Photo by Leah Nash.

Antone Minthorn. Photo by Leah Nash.

The 1950s and 60s were a trying time for tribal people. The Bureau of Indian Affairs initiated its Relocation program, and after six years of military service, Antone entered the program and traveled to Los Angeles to find work. He got married, started his family, and when he was able, transferred within the Relocation program to San Francisco.

When he arrived in the Bay Area, the Civil Rights movement was in full swing in Southern states and had begun to spill over into the urban areas. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, Berkeley was in the throes of the free speech movement, and the war on poverty was declared in 1964. He stayed for nearly a decade, bearing witness to and participating in many of the movement’s actions and marches. Antone lived in the Sunnyvale Housing project, was Chairman of the Housing Committee, and led his first protest at the housing authority offices demanding tenant rights. He managed an Indian basketball team and met tribal people who were Navajo, Sioux, Comanche, Hopi and Apache.  He and his son experienced the race riots of 1966, the occupation of Alcatraz, and he followed the Fish Wars on the Nisqually River where Billy Frank Jr. held “fish-ins” in protest of treaty violations.

His time in San Francisco was one of learning about community action and how to administer programs. And it was here he began to understand the true meaning of the word “sovereignty.” Antone began to wonder who he was after meeting so many Indian people from across the nation. He wondered what to do with the stories of the Nez Perce War that would not leave him.

After he finished college in 1973, the Umatilla Indian Reservation called him back. His degree in urban and regional planning landed him a job at home with the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR) development office as a land use planner and zoning administrator. In 1981, he was elected as the CTUIR general council chairman and later the chairman of the CTIIR Board of Trustees. His vision was and continues to be one of restoration – to restore the CTUIR land base to its original treaty boundary, to build a tribal economy, and to develop a strong education program for tribal youth – and of resilience. A resilience founded on the stories of his people’s survival.

Through his experiences, Antone cultivated a leadership philosophy based on that of Chief Joseph: A good leader should be fearless, but always concerned about the safety of his people. His fearlessness, dedication and patience influenced many CTUIR’s successes, including re-acquisition of tribal lands, the return of salmon to the Umatilla River and the development of an innovative reservation economy.  According to Antone, resilient people know that creating change takes time, vision and commitment. Effective leadership means hiring people who are smarter than you, letting your managers manage, being proactive, learning how to leverage treaty rights, negotiating rather than litigating, and most importantly, an effective leader must walk their talk.

Chief Joseph surrendered in the Bear Paw Mountains in the cold Fall of 1877 so his people would survive. Antone Minthorn carries this legacy. His people have survived wars, broken promises, loss of lands, and total assimilation. But instead of surrender, he is doing something extraordinary. He is rebuilding his nation.

 

 

Vietnam’s Hoi An and the resilience of culture

Feb 192013
 

By Julia Babcock

Historic preservation often occurs in between boom and bust cycles when strong communities endure the shifting economic landscape around them. The Vietnamese city of Hoi An’s story of preservation is strongly shaped by the Thu Bon River,which has attracted an ebb and flow migration of people from surrounding nations for hundreds of years. Since the first century, historians believe Hoi An was the premier port for trade in the region. When the river silted up in the 18th century trade declined sharply and Danang to the North became favored and developed by international influences.

Boat on Thu Bon River

A traditional boat plies the Thu Bon River in Hoi An. Photo courtesy Julia Babcock/Portland State

Over the last few decades, Hoi An has experienced a renaissance, growing to 100,000 local residents and hosting over 2 million tourists a year. Despite the economic shifts, Hoi An’s culture has remained strong creating a unique convergence of people, traditions, and philosophy.

We’ve come to know Hoi An through a series of exchanges over the last several years between Portland and Hoi An, hosted by Portland State in partnership with UNHabitat. Under the leadership of Dr. Marcus Ingle, PSU has developed the International Sustainability Investment Strategy for Vietnam which focuses on sharing leadership and governance model between Vietnam and Portland to meet sustainable development goals. A new State Department grant will support a Professional Fellows Program for mid-level Vietnamese professionals under Dr. Shpresa Halimi.

In Summer 2012, it was Portland academics and officials who got to learn first-hand about Hoi An’s renaissance.  During a tour of a recently renovated silk market, Mayor Le Van Giang shared what touches people about Hoi An:

Our people have a generous spirit that is contagious. No matter where people come from, when they experience Hoi An, it touches their heart. Our community is built on a longstanding tolerance and respect for a variety of cultures.”

That insight underlines the type of social legacy that lives on in modern Hoi An. Yet like all pillars of sustainability, without proper stewardship it can be lost in a generation.

Hoi An's old town. Photo courtesy of Julia Babcock/ Portland State

Hoi An’s old town. Photo courtesy of Julia Babcock/ Portland State

Today, people come to Hoi An for a variety of reasons. Tourists come to enjoy the small city’s well-preserved historic district recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site on the riverfront and scenic beaches along the East Sea. Researchers come to study the effects of climate change which has been exacerbated by seasonal floods as well as erosion and loss of wetlands due to expanding development.

It is the shared goals to preserve Hoi An’s cultural history and  manage rapid growth by embodying Ecocity principles that makes for a unique opportunity for sustainable development in practice that has attracted international consultation from partners such as Portland State.

In Fall 2012, a delegation of leaders from UNHabitat and the central Province of Quang Nam (where Hoi An is located) came to speak at the EcoDistrict Summit about their experiences working with Portland practitioners to adapt the EcoDistrict framework. During a tour of Portland’s Southwest Waterfront, Mayor Giang reacted to the newly developed neighborhood by saying, “We may need about fifty years to replicate the sustainability principles we are seeing in the infrastructure here.”

His reflection was directly related to the explanations provided by Portland officials about the emergence of green streets, buildings and roof designs in the district to shape watershed health as well as the history shared by an local urban designer, through pictures of the sites decade-long transition from heavy industrial uses to residential and institutional district.

Though Hoi An has not had to face the clean-up of heavy industry, concurrency issues are mounting. Foreign investment in tourism facilities has led to increases in traffic and the use of public space without key infrastructure upgrades to treat pollution issues. Notably, there are no wastewater treatment facilities currently in operation and financing these investments without private dollars can be daunting to leaders in the developing world. A number of terrestrial and marine species are being monitored by staff from the offshore Cham Islands Biosphere Reserve as a means to educate Hoi An residents about the link between watershed health and the health of the islands.

Looking at Portland’s model, Provincial leaders were impressed with how many interests were embodied into projects like the Bonneville Dam and the recent Johnson Creek flood restoration. What international tourists find enviable in Hoi An’s rich culture, Vietnamese delegations have admired in Portland’s green infrastructure investments. Only time will tell if Hoi An can find a way to balance infrastructure upgrades to accommodate growth without losing the character that has evolved over centuries.

Vietnamese delegation in the Columbia Gorge. Photo courtesy of Julia Babcock/ Portland State

Vietnamese delegation in the Columbia Gorge. Photo courtesy of Julia Babcock/ Portland State

Just as green building professionals discovered the embedded energy in historic buildings, historic preservation in places like Hoi An is showing the potential to guide sustainability principles on a neighborhood and city scale. From the core of cities where commerce shaped culture for centuries, neighborhoods can arise from the stable structures that held the scale and feel of communities together during periods of change.

In this way, Hoi An demonstrates that sustainability is not only about balancing social, environmental and economic goals; Hoi An teaches us that sustainability is also about maintaining the cultural traditions that honor the past, inspire the present and protect future generations.

Julia Babcock is the Program Coordinator of the Intel Vietnam Scholars Program at Portland State.

 Babcock and Khanh Pham, a Ph.D. student in Urban Studies, have started a Vietnam Forum at Portland State that meets bi-weekly to share information about emerging research as well as hold a space for presentations from students, professors and professionals who come to Portland from Vietnam to study sustainable development. To attend a meeting or for more information about programs, please visit: http://www.pdx.edu/vietnam-forum/

Here is short video outlining some of Hoi An’s opportunities and challenges.

 

From Alaska with love: Aid helps African clinic recover from fire

Jan 252013
 

Editor’s Note: Jon Waterhouse is 2012 Ecotrust Indigenous Leadership Award honoree and a National Geographic Explorer. Through his international Healing Journey, he has connected with people around the world, including the people of South Sudan featured in this post, which first appeared in NatGeo’s Explorer’s Journal.

 Thousands of birds fill the sky above the White Nile at sunset. (Photo by Jon Waterhouse)

 

By Jon Waterhouse

A December 23rd fire in South Sudan prompted a fast, steady and miraculous aid response.

For the last four years, in the remote village of Old Fangak, South Sudan, a health-focused team of Alaskan volunteers have labored long and hard beside steadfast community members. The focus of their combined effort is the construction of a humble medical clinic. A disease called kala-azar (visceral leishmaniasis), often referred to as Black Fever, has ravaged the area for decades and in 1989 Dr. Jill Seaman (featured in the January 2013 issue of National Geographic Magazine) arrived in Old Fangak. She began developing a treatment process for this deadly and indiscriminant disease and has tirelessly administered care to thousands in this vast land – without running water or electricity.

There are no adequate buildings in Old Fangak in which Dr. Jill can perform medical procedures, so the construction of the clinic has been attended with a great deal of anticipation. Traditional African dwellings, called tukuls, are abundant in Old Fangak but they are built on dirt and constructed of sticks, mud and cow dung – not so ideal for performing surgeries. There is a very old colonial building still standing, built sometime during British rule, but not much in the way of maintenance has occurred on the structure over the decades.

Traditional African huts called tukuls are abundant in Old Fangak. (Photo by Jon Waterhouse)

 

Adding to the difficulties of providing medical care in Old Fangak, access to clean water is limited. During the dry months the dirt is hard like concrete, which makes well-drilling efforts in the village during the ‘building season’ problematic to say the least. Just another aspect of the challenges faced by the volunteers. As far as the rest of the year, Old Fangak is located in the Sudd, the largest swamp in the world, so when the rains begin, there is only mud. Deep, sticky mud.

Many surgeries and treatments over the years have been delivered in tents and under trees.
I remember when a man who had gouged his eye 2 years prior received word of Dr. Jill and made the 3-day trek to Old Fangak to see the legendary doctor. His damaged eye had adhered to the lid and was permanently open, infected, swollen and painful. He stated he had not slept in the 2 years since sustaining the injury. The surgery to remove his eye lasted for 10 hours amid the buzz of flying insects attracted by the light of Jill’s headlamp (which looks just like mine from REI.) When the patient awoke after surgery he was astonished to be rested and free of pain, and was eager to return home. Dr. Jill all but tied him down to keep him overnight to monitor his post-op condition but he had cows to tend and the walk home would take another 3 days. So off he went. This is typical of the patients seen in Old Fangak. I can see Dr. Jill bidding him farewell, shaking her head, shrugging her shoulders, and watching him walk off across the savannah toward home. Yet his unexpected departure offered no reprieve in the doctor’s busy day. For every patient seen by Dr. Jill in a day, hundreds more await. The numbers are unfathomable.

So with the new clinic in place, access to a higher standard of dispensing treatment for her patients was finally close to being realized, and the new clinic was near enough to completion that it could house the supplies and medications used in Dr. Jill’s daily efforts.

Dr. Jill explains a treatment process to her patients. (Photo by Jon Waterhouse)


The clinic’s creation in this little known region of Africa has been arduous. It’s location in the Sudd makes cross-country travel to and from the village impossible. Many might naively imagine that with a Range Rover, a load of fuel, and a spirit of adventure you could simply drive the roughly 900 kilometers (550 miles) from Nairobi to Juba, refuel then break a trail the remaining unknown number of kilometers (perhaps 500?) to Old Fangak. But, alas, there is no road to Old Fangak. Aside from the lingering effects etched by decades of civil war, the terrain hosts a series of natural obstructions. Wet and dry riverbeds, deep ravines, rocky outcrops, large patches of acacias (or mokala – tall, bushy trees with huge thorns) and mucky, green wetlands around water sources might imply that Mother Nature herself is rebuffing the presence of humans there.

This road is nowhere near Old Fangak but is typical of the few overland routes in South Sudan. (Photo by Jon Waterhouse)


Take a look on Google Earth and see for yourself (or even just Google Maps). Even with the cost of fuel hitting around $40 per gallon at one point, trust me, if it was possible to drive to Old Fangak, we would be doing it.

Modern and traditional materials combine to make up a gas station in South Sudan. (Photo by Jon Waterhouse)

Our only options in delivering building materials and medical supplies are by plane and boat, but unless you pay the exorbitant cost of nearly $10,000 to charter a small plane, the process is unreliable. And though a narrow branch of the White Nile River nears Old Fangak, trained boat mechanics are scarce, so simple mechanical issues also impede river travel. Sadly, basic boat operation and safety is not always taught or practiced and precious lives have been lost on the river during the building of our clinic. River travel can be unsafe for several other reasons as well. Dangerous wildlife is always present, and add to that the fact that any boat carrying building materials or cargo might eventually come under the gaze of someone who believes that cargo should belong to them, so there are also heavily armed threats.

Old Fangak is accesssible by air or this river. (Photo by Jon Waterhouse)


This clinic in Old Fangak has been a long time coming, and the hope it has brought is immeasurable. Volunteers have paid thousands of dollars out of their own pockets to get from Alaska to Old Fangak and have used their own resources including their annual vacations building this clinic, working with materials and supplies donated by generous individuals from the United States.

I could go on, but I think you get my drift. It has been an arduous labor of love. So you can imagine the overwhelming heartbreak Dr. Jill must have experienced as she typed an early morning email (sent via INMARSAT) on Dec. 23rd to her partner in this grand effort and the director of the Alaska Sudan Medical Project (ASMP), Dr. Jack Hickel, describing how a fire in the wee hours had ravaged the clinic. Thankfully, no one was hurt. But in addition to a large inventory of medical equipment, supplies, our meager solar power system, and other necessities, an entire year’s worth of the expensive kala-azar treatment was lost. The shock that this tragedy could occur after so many had given so much to make the dream of the clinic in Old Fangak a reality was almost too much to bear. All who have given so selflessly to bring this thing to life were stunned.

A crowd assesses the fire damage of Old Fangak’s new clinic. (Photo Courtesy ASMP)


Gutted by fire, the new clinic in Old Fangak will not see its completion next month, as planned. (Photo Courtesy ASMP)


The fire in the new clinic is a devastating set-back for ASMP members. (Photo Courtesy ASMP)


Dr. Jill and ASMP volunteers sort through the post-fire debris outside the new clinic. (Photo Courtesy ASMP)


 

Jack was stunned, too. As he re-read the email and attempted to fully understand what had occurred, his wife, Josie, made a call to the pastor of their church in Anchorage. December 23rd fell on a Sunday and the morning service would be starting in an hour. That morning, the pastor told of a tragic fire in South Sudan, and of the incalculable efforts by Alaskan volunteers to improve the lives of the grateful Sudanese people there. By the end of this Sunday sermon, the offering plates literally overflowed… to the tune of almost $15,000. Their outpouring of care and concern for the people of Old Fangak – strangers in an African village with whom this congregation has never had contact – was astounding. I am truly in awe of their gracious generosity.

Word continued to spread through the Alaska Sudan Medical Project team. I have to admit that upon reading the email, I, also, was momentarily grasped by the emotion of shear gloom. All that work! But when I hung my head and relayed the news to my wife Mary, her first response was, “We’ll contact the gang at National Geographic right now.” … Yes! We knew that through the many channels there, more good would come. I felt pretty hopeful as I sent out a group email and soon spoke with my close friend and fellow NGS Education Fellow, Dr. John Francis, aka the Planetwalker. John made a call to TIDES (Transformative Innovation for Development and Emergency Support), a Defense Department research project based at The Center for Technology and National Security Policy of the National Defense University. From there, after several conference calls and much logistical strategizing between  John in New Jersey, myself in Anchorage, and several key players in between, we could see a giant ball starting to roll.

TIDES swiftly assessed our needs and contacted Solar Stik, a provider of portable power solutions serving government, defense, commercial and individuals across the globe. Since our solar powering units were destroyed in the fire, Solar Stik immediately assembled a replacement system many times more powerful, proficient, and robust than the one we lost, complete with the detailed training necessary to utilize their advanced technology. DHL Global also came to the rescue and nobly volunteered to ship the valuable cargo free of charge. Vital logistical assistance was provided through the remarkable US Africa Command, one of six of the U.S. Defense Department’s geographic combatant commands. TIDES then contacted Samaritan’s Purse, a non-denominational Christian organization that provides help for those in need around the world. In an incredible gesture of generosity and humanity, Samaritan’s Purse not only offered an almost immediate replacement of the cherished kala-azar medication (and the supplies necessary to dispense it), but assurance that they would deliver the shipment to Old Fangak within just a matter of days.

Thanks to TIDES for the immediate emergency response! ASMP’s David Kapla unloads medicines and supplies assisted here by… a future pilot? A future doctor? (Photo Courtesy ASMP)


We were floored! Since the fire, our ASMP guys on the ground – David Kapla in Old Fangak and Jason Hahn in Nairobi – have worked around the clock. They have paved the way for all of these incredibly charitable organizations to assist ASMP and Dr. Jill in getting the replacement medicines and materials to where they need to be. My hat goes off to them both as they have been tossed into a truly awful circumstance and have handled it with selfless efficiency.

This fire was indeed a tragic turn for us, but the flood of good prompted by the disaster has re-energized us beyond imagination. We are pulling through a tremendous challenge with a greater understanding of how many are standing beside us in this effort, and our crisis is now a source of hope and inspiration for everyone involved.

I believe I can speak on behalf of ASMP and the people of Old Fangak in offering a special ‘thank you’ to John Francis. Without his call to TIDES, we would still be in a state of crisis with little hope for a quick recovery.

To learn more about this project, the organizations who have helped, and the wonderful people behind them, please visit these websites:
facebook: Alaska Sudan Medical Project
www.samaritanspurse.org
www.star-tides.net
www.solarstik.com
www.africom.mil

www.planetwalk.org

 

UPDATE 1/23/2013: Dr. Jill just relayed to us that amid the flurry of aid and response to our clinic fire, WHO (the World Health Organization) actually got a shipment of kala azar meds and supplies to Old Fangak so quickly that her patients never missed a single dose! Awesome! WHO’s presence in South Sudan has been a Godsend for Dr. Jill, ASMP and other relief organizations there. We are truly grateful for their unfaltering presence and assistance as we work to improve health and living standards for the many who call Old Fangak and its region in South Sudan home.

 

.

 

 

Jon Waterhouse is the executive director of the Yukon River Inter-tribal Watershed Council.

A rich sense of honor: Learning from tribal leaders

Dec 062012
 

In this world of broken economies, broken climates, and broken institutions, it’s an opportune time to ask: what if native people were in charge?

On Haida Gwaii (the Islands of the People) off northern British Columbia, an area one-third the size of BC’s lengthy Vancouver Island, native Haida are back in charge. They don’t just oversee a pittance of a government-defined reservation. They own and co-manage the whole place, as a matter of sovereignty and inherent rights, part of a series of hard-won stands, court cases, alliances, negotiations and the occasional reconciliation agreement over the last two decades with the provincial and Canadian federal governments.

Here’s what’s happening on Haida Gwaii now: The vast forests aren’t being auctioned off to the highest bidder, freeing the islands from the endless boom-and-bust cycle of industrial forestry. Instead the Haida have implemented a go-slower harvest of trees, certified their own holdings under the rigorous Forest Stewardship Council, and begun supplying high-end niche manufacturers like Martin guitars and Steinway pianos – while looking after cultural and environmental matters.

Indigenous Leadership Award honorees and staff

Ecotrust Indigenous Leadership Award winners past and present gather with Ecotrust staff on Nov. 13. Photo by Liz Devine.

Where only a few years ago trophy hunts for bears on native lands by non-native outfitters were Haida Gwaii’s claim to fame to some, now Haida people are hosting ecotourists and sharing traditional ecological knowledge about the temperate rainforests there — its hot springs, staggeringly diverse marine life, endemic bears, and local salmon runs. Haida artistry — so desired around the world that Haida totem poles were lifted by early invaders and sent to European museums — is now flourishing again on the island, supported by a new cultural center.

An economy and way of life rooted in place is re-emerging and growing stronger in resource use, land and marine management.

Most telling, non-native loggers on the islands recently cast a vote of confidence of sorts, siding with the Haida in a recent blockade. The non-Haida logging families voiced support of the Haida Nation in the Supreme Court of Canada saying that they would rather entrust their future to the Haidas than international corporate giants or the provincial government.

“It makes sense to have people who depend on a place also manage its resources,” says Guujaaw, the President of the Council of the Haida Nation. “Timber companies just don’t have to think about fish or the long term on the earth—only this year’s bottom line.”

All up and down the West Coast of North America, from the Aleutian Islands to the Mexican border, Alaska Natives, First Nations, and American Indian tribes are resurgent and the results are hopeful: more holistic land and resource management, stronger advocacy for the things we all need (like clean water and healthy fish), a renewed focus on community health, family and personal wellbeing. Native leaders and governments are positioning their communities and those around them for recovery and long-term health. This is the sort of leadership we’ve been yearning for but lacking in the United States and Canada.

As Jon Waterhouse, executive director of the Yukon River Inter-Tribal Watershed Council says: “Maybe it’s not that we don’t fit in, it’s that they don’t fit in. The modern business model doesn’t work for everyone. And modern culture has lost its way.”

Native people have persisted, survived and are modeling leadership practices beyond their borders. “We have no choice,” Gail Small, Northern Cheyenne, told the crowd on November 13 at Ecotrust’s Indigenous Leadership Awards ceremony, which recognizes the innovative work of leaders like Small to advance cultural, economic, social and environmental resilience.

Leaders gathered for the awards ceremony, many of them past winners, expressed several common goals for the near future.

This group sees it as critical that modern science be informed by traditional ecological knowledge, those timeless management tools and techniques that helped native people through fat and lean times. Along the Broughton Archipelago on the British Columbia coast, Chief Adam Dick (Kwaxsistalla) and Kim Recalma-Clutesi have documented the way native communities once stewarded extensive clam ”gardens” to buffer against cyclic salmon run declines in the region. Inland from their territory, ancient Okanagan teachings dictated that key returning salmon be left in the rivers at the headwaters of the great Columbia River system, to protect spawning stocks.

A new generation of tribal leaders, represented at the gathering by ten outstanding young people from Alaska and British Columbia, are translating the wisdom and the language of their elders into action in native and non-native cultures alike. And they’ll need to do that before it is literally too late — with a dwindling cohort of knowledge keepers such as Adam Dick. Leaders would like to build new institutions of learning to speed that knowledge transfer, the “Harvards of traditional knowledge.”

What was palpable from the discussions of the gathered leaders was the sense of obligation now to lead all groups, Native and non-Native alike. They voiced a common sense of struggle with people and communities everywhere, despite the dark periods tribes have endured in recent history under American and Canadian rule. Jeannette Armstrong, an Okanagan leader, spoke of other communities across the land as “brothers and sisters,” on a shared journey to restore the Earth and to build wellbeing and resilience.

“We can do nothing by ourselves,” Northern Cheyenne leader Gail Small said at the awards gala. “We all need you, all of you, whatever race, whatever culture. We have to come together to protect what’s in jeopardy.”

The journey will not be easy. But Small and others helped bring their communities back from respective states of destitution, landlessness, and near extinction. And they did so by overcoming what the Supreme Court of Canada has recognized as an “impoverished sense of honour” on the part of governments in not recognizing the historical sovereignty and rights of aboriginal people. By insisting upon their inherent human and sovereign rights to living well in their homelands, native peoples are showing the way to a more resilient world.

Living resilience in Rwanda

Nov 082012
 

It would be perfectly alright for Landry Ndriko Mayigane to celebrate normalcy. He could clock in and out at his government job monitoring diseases and expansion in the Rwandan poultry industry. He could sit back and marvel at how Rwanda’s capital city of Kigali, his home, is becoming liveable — expanding and cleaning up, as President Paul Kagame aggressively pushes modernization. He could find a wife and settle down. And given his country’s past, that would be enough.

Instead, Mayigane, 31, is in constant motion. A trilingual veterinary doctor whose passport is thick with stamps, he has ambitions to be a world leader. “One of my goals is to be the UN Secretary General,” he says unabashedly.

Landry Mayigane. Photo by Sam Beebe

He’s not wasting any time. A respected avian influenza authority internationally, he’s part of the U.S. Center for Disease Control’s worldwide network. And he moonlights as one of the global climate movement’s top young exponents in Africa.

He’s organized rallies across Africa for the likes of 350.org and is a serial founder of organizations and chapters on the issue. His latest two groups seem to have staying power and resonance in a world where climate change consequences are quickly piling up: the nonprofit Rwanda YACA aims to turn Rwanda’s ballooning cohort of jobless youth into renewable and appropriate energy entrepreneurs. His African Youth Initiative on Climate Change works to network young people all over the continent with educational and professional development opportunities that will help them approach the continent’s problems from a resilience perspective.

In a wounded country, in a battered region of the African continent, Mayigane is a walking testament to resilience.

“Like our president, I want to dignify Africans,” says Mayigane, who is at Ecotrust for a four-month U.S. State Department-sponsored fellowship. “We need to think and learn globally and act locally.”

Though that’s nearly a worn-out phrase in the West, it’s a more pithy pair of ideas to swallow in Africa, and particularly in Rwanda, where global problems are exacerbating local ones in a small, landlocked and heavily agriculturally dependent country.

Mayigane knows this first hand.

His father was one of 20 children born on his grandfather’s land in the northern part of Rwanda. With land now being distributed to Mayigane’s generation and the next, there is simply not enough to go around. This is happening all over the country; He quotes a figure that 200,000 young Rwandans migrate to Kigali and other cities from rural areas every year.

Meanwhile, global warming alters weather patterns and touches people across Rwanda. In a visit to villages in the eastern part of the country last May, he says that roughly 20% of the poultry he inspected was suffering from heat stress. The chickens were lethargic and panting to reduce their core temperature and egg production was off. Rwanda is also expecting livestock disease to spike along with temperature and rainfall changes.

“It’s going to be a challenge to feed the population in the face of climate change,” Mayigane says. “And that’s where resilience comes in. How can we make cheap technology available, create jobs, and fight climate change at the same time?”

If Rwanda YACA is successful, it will quickly begin employing people to spread cheap energy technologies, from solar panels to charcoal made from food waste. They’ll also begin tree-planting campaigns, to help alleviate wood shortages in villages, in addition to controlling flooding and erosion.

But Mayigane will also seek to boost the social entrepreneurship of group members, through training programs that teach them to creatively seek out and solve problems in their own community.

His own spark came from the seven years he spent at vet school in Senegal. After that, a world of possibilities opened up to Mayigane, beyond the comfortable confines of a good student who cashes in for a government salary and pension.

“My dream,” he says, “Is to help Africa become more competitive so that African youth will be proud to call it home.”

Mayigane on Rwanda YACA (Youth Alliance for Climate Action:

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