Originally Published on TheMessenger by Fernando Garibay and James Cooper
Amauta Indigenous People take part in a ritual of gratitude to Mother Earth in Bolivia on Nov. 8, 2023.JORGE BERNAL/AFP via Getty Images
Recent reports of the lithium “gold rush” trampling Indigenous rights in Argentina, Bolivia and Chile are no surprise. Long a victim of unrestrained extraction, systemic discrimination, and cultural imperialism, Indigenous Peoples around the world have suffered from chronic underdevelopment. They have shorter life spans, are more prone to illness, and languish in poverty more than non-Indigenous Peoples do. This is true throughout Latin America but also for the First Nations in Canada, Native Americans in the United States, and Aboriginal Peoples in Australia, as well as other parts of our planet.
Even more troubling is that with centuries of colonization, pillaging of natural resources, and rampant urbanization, the Traditional Knowledge of Indigenous Peoples, cultivated from millennia of co-existence with their environment, is at risk of being lost. Without celebrating, archiving, preserving, and extending their collective wisdom and legacy, we face the loss of their profound wisdom, a possible tragedy to the detriment of all of humanity.
Music can play a critical role to counter this potential outcome. Long the primary technology and conduit for the preservation and stewardship of Indigenous innovation, music historically has been the language of Indigenous Peoples to share their cosmovision. Those who have inhabited the Amazon basin transferred their innovative ways for human survival and approaches to sustainable development through a musical dialogue with the actual fauna and flora. Indigenous Peoples have long been the voices of our environment; it is time we all started listening.
It is no secret that we are all experiencing unpredictable disruption of our environment, punctuated by increasing glacial melts, attendant rising seas, flooding, land erosion, soil depletion, hurricanes, fires and other catastrophic climate events. Many around the world are struggling to achieve or create a more conscious way of life and, in this context, it is our responsibility to not disrupt or destroy Earth’s most vulnerable communities, especially the Indigenous ones.
Working with stakeholders and cultural leaders from around the world, we are building a musical project for this year that brings in Indigenous voices. As global capital seeks new green technology to reverse the trends affecting our climate, we have much to learn from Indigenous Peoples and aim to engage a new generation of artists. New channels that encourage harmonized traditions and facilitate dialogue are critical. Music as a conduit for connecting us can be a major factor. By coupling the wisdom and technology of Indigenous music with the novel aesthetics and mechanisms that are prevalent in pop, hip hop, and electronic dance music, we can transcend languages, cultures, and even economic models.
But we need the participation of everyone who wants to honor the past and be a co-creator of a sustainable and creative future. There is still time to make a difference. In the dwindling rainforests throughout our planet there exists secret technology, unique methodologies that leverage music as a conduit for stewardship of ancestral and cultural best practices. Our natural environment has its own symphony. Corporations, impact investors, family offices, philanthropic foundations, and individuals need to listen more to Indigenous Peoples and to their pleas for more sustainable approaches to human development.
But these efforts have to be sustainable, not just the development itself. We have seen enough feel-good initiatives that start and end with a big event. Events like COP 28 and other do-good initiatives are just a start. The world’s largest and most successful corporations are welcome to join the movement of restoring the balance disturbed by major commercial initiatives and their impacts. They helped to facilitate our lives, to empower the capital, and now can be of great assistance in finding solutions — even at a profit — to solve the challenges we face.
This initiative will help us all. It moves beyond traditional corporate quarterly earnings results and into seven generations of impact and planning. As we struggle with the future of artificial intelligence, we must reconnect with what makes us smart: Learning from the wisdom of the past. In this we can be post-Industrial and pre-Industrial all at once.
Our planet’s Original Nations who populate the rainforests, wetlands, highlands, coastal lowlands and, too often, the cities because of deforestation and chronic underdevelopment, deserve better. The transformative power of music can help bring back balance, and it feels so good too.
Fernando Garibay is a hit record producer and the founder of the Garibay Institute, a global creativity think tank.
James Cooper is a professor of law at California Western School of Law in San Diego and vice president of the Garibay Institute.