 Hello, everyone. Welcome and thank you so much for joining us today. My name is Gordon LeForge. I am a senior policy analyst with New America. Our panel today is co-hosted by New America's Planetary Politics Initiative and the Political Reform Program as part of the Future of Institutions, which is a project initiated and sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation. Future of Institutions is motivated by the observation that institutions are essential for managing the global challenges we face, and yet for various reasons are not up to the task of addressing those challenges. One shortcoming is that they generally govern with a focus on the short term, something of a myopia that is out of step with the long time horizons of the problems that we face, like climate change, and it's one that discounts the importance of future generations. So fortunately, many policymakers are beginning to recognize the importance of governance that prioritizes the interests of future generations. The UN is developing a declaration on future generations, and intergenerational justice is a major focus of the UN's summit of the future to take place next September. There is a lot that these efforts can learn from indigenous communities, many of which govern with a long term orientation that considers the interests of the future. The New America did some work illustrating some of these approaches in communities in Mexico, India, and Indonesia in a collection of case studies titled lessons from the past to govern for the future. And this is also the focus of our panel here today. It's my pleasure and delight to have moderating our conversation here, Thomas Hale. He is professor of global public policy at the University of Oxford's Blavatnik School of Government. His research and work focuses on how we can effectively and fairly managed transnational problems. This book, which will be published next spring by Princeton University Press is titled Long Problems, Climate Change and the Challenge of Governing Across Time, in which he details strategies for how we can shift our governance toward a longer term orientation. So thank you all again for being here. And with no further ado, I'll turn things over to Tom. Thank you very much, Gordon, for the kind introduction, and thank you all for joining today. As Gordon said, our theme today is governing for future generations lessons from indigenous communities. And I think it's really incontrovertible that today the world has a huge need, perhaps a greater need than really ever before to think about how we quote unquote govern the future. So look at issues like climate change or technology or demographic transitions or infrastructure or anything that matters for how societies are built, how we deliver a good society for all of us. We need to think about time scales in a much longer way than we have perhaps in the past. And we can all think about examples from our own lives, and certainly from our public institutions, where it seems like time scales are not matching the need that we have to think ahead. And so the UN and others, as Gordon was saying, have begun to think about how we can begin to catalyze and indeed there's many examples of this work happening around the world in all kinds of countries to build better long term governance practices across our institutions. And the summit of the future that will take place next year could be a real inflection point for how we as societies approach this question. And it sounds a bit like science fiction. This kind of idea of a summit of the future or governing the future. But actually, if you look around the world, there are so many good examples and practices to draw on. And indeed, many of them embedded in a wide range of indigenous traditions and practices and governance procedures that are already at the core of how many societies are governing these challenges today. So we don't need to imagine the future so much as look more carefully at ourselves and around the world to see some really positive examples that actually need to be scaled up, need to be paid more attention to need to be treated with the seriousness that they fully deserve. And as we look to this big level summit is actually critical perhaps to focus first on where we are today and where we have been. And with the, with the broadest possible view of that question, in order to really see how to proceed from here. So I'm delighted that we have a fantastic panel today to talk about these questions and briefly introduce them, but I encourage you to read their bios and the screens below you. And then we'll get into a conversation. I'm looking forward to your questions, which I'll save plenty of time for as well. So I'll introduce people in reverse alphabetical order to make it a little more interesting, starting with Prashil Watane, who is the Peter Kraus associate professor in philosophy at Wai Papa Tamata Rao, the University of Auckland. And Prashil's research looks at fundamental questions and moral and political philosophy, particularly those related to well being development and justice. We're also joined by Dina Julio Whitaker, who is a leader, sorry, a lecturer of American Indian Studies at the California State University, San Marcos, and she's also policy director and senior research associate at the Center for World Indigenous Studies. Dina is an award-winning journalist. She also has teachers courses on environmentalism in European Indians, traditional biological knowledge, religion and philosophy. Welcome Dina. And finally, we're joined by Cecila Bungu, who is coordinator at the ILNA program in Kenya, a research affiliate with the Legal Priorities Project, and a visiting researcher at the Center for the Study at Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge. Cecila also serves as an advisor at the AI Futures Fellowship, a lecturer at Strathmore Law School in Nairobi. So Cecila, welcome to you as well. What a great group to get into these questions with. So I'd like to start us off by turning to each of you and ask me to say a few words about some of the practices, some of the procedures, some of the governance technologies, if I can put it that way, that you see working in the various kinds of indigenous governance practices that you're looking at and working with. Where are we seeing these actually? What are they, and where are we seeing them look? And I wonder if we could start with you, Krisha, to kick us off. Kia ora. Ngamihi atu ki a tātou i a tātou nei e nohokōrero ai iro tō i tēnei hui. Kōkushō wātane tēnei e mihi atu nei. He uri no Ngāti Manu te Hikato, Ngāti Whātō Rākei me tōa. Thank you so much for the invitation. It's lovely to be here. So I'm dialling in from Tāmaki, which is Auckland in Aotearoa, New Zealand. But my communities are mainly, if you're familiar with New Zealand, the islands of Aotearoa from the far north of those islands. So a place called Taitokero, which is from Auckland, all the way up to the tip of the tail of the fish, as we call it. But also I have connections to the Pacific, to the islands of Tonga as well. So I just wanted to say, so in case people are not aware of this, when modern Aotearoa, New Zealand was founded in 1840, what happened was a partnership between two cultures and two systems of law and morality was forged. And we call that Tētititi o Waitangi, or Tētititi. And so that document, that founding document, recognises this to be the case. And so it promises to uphold the authority, the sovereignty, the ethics and laws of Māori. And it commits to a relationship of equal partnership between Māori chiefs. 500 Māori chiefs signed the Māori version of Tētititi and the British crown. And so I think it's important to say first that the intentions of the treaty are significant for at least two reasons. Well first, because Māori systems of law and morality and philosophy are grounded in quite different foundations from our mainstream views. So they begin with the idea that all things are situated within, for instance, and storied in and through a complex system of relationships. And these relationships are widely inclusive between humans, non-human animals, flora and fauna. Natural entities such as land and mountains and forested areas and waterways and such. And then these relationships extend backwards and forwards in time in both physical and spiritual forms. So as well as across vast distances in space. So they try to include everything in the present, but also imagine ourselves as being part of communities that extend further in time than just the present too. And so what that means is this idea of valuing relationships and relating well is essential to a well functioning community for Māori communities. And by that we just mean valuing relationships means to recognize the importance of that complexity and that varied network of social and environmental connections and separations in which we live our lives. And what it means to relate well means to seek to cultivate and to negotiate and to navigate these relationships on a day-to-day basis. And so the second reason just quickly why Tertidity is significant for a conversation about this kind of thing is because it entails duties and responsibilities to work together in equal partnership on collective concerns. So when it comes to common concerns, genuine engagement with Māori tribal communities, there's a network of Māori tribal communities across the country, and that's really critical based on Tertidity. And we have to do that in ways consistent with our collective needs and our goals and our values, our different values. And so that necessarily involves facing all sorts of things, history and also pursuing appropriate and enabling collective futures. But one of the things that we find, hopefully this will make sense now, is that we get co-governance models in Aotearoa, New Zealand. And the stories behind these initiatives, and there's quite a few of them, the Waikato River Authority or Arkei Reserves Board, the stories behind them, how they've developed can be different. Sometimes they're the outcome of treaty settlements with which many communities are still going through. One of my own communities of Ngāti Manu in the north, we're going through a treaty settlement process. But sometimes they're not part of treaty settlement processes. We also find legislative developments in environmental law, as we've probably heard about, such as the granting of legal rights to natural entities. They provide really interesting and important insights for relational restoration in more permanent forms. And one of those, an example that I'd like to use is Te Ure Weta Act of 2014, which gives legal rights to the forested area of Te Ure Weta in order to strengthen and maintain the connection between the tribal community of Tuhoe and that forested area. And so what else it does, which is really important, is it recognizes Te Ure Weta Act, the different kinds of relationships that not just Tuhoe have with the forested area, the tribal community has with the forested area, but the importance of that area for other Māori too, and the importance of that area and the importance of relationships to that area for all New Zealanders. So it actually maps the different ways in which we can relate to the forested area and the kinds of responsibilities that come out of those relationships. And so it doesn't just recognize the importance of Te Ure Weta for the tribal community of Tuhoe as Kaitiaki, as stewards of that area, which we could maybe go on and talk about later, but the way in which any kind of co-governance model must recognize the multiple relationships that we all have with this landscape and the importance of understanding those relationships, recognizing them and enabling co-governance that celebrates that. Kia ora. Thank you so much, Michelle. It's been a really fascinating example and one that I'd be curious to ask was a quick follow-up question on, which is, so in this model of co-governance and this idea of things being embedded in the land and these sort of web of relationships that are all mutually independent, does that make a different sense of time and governance than it would in, say, this and that sense of coherence and interconnectivity was not the case? And how does that manifest? Absolutely. I mean, maybe we can, I'm sure this will come up again, but there's a tendency what you find within, so we can talk about governance at that level, but also within Māori tribal communities there's particular forms of relating well in terms of what we might call sort of governance and what that means for future people. What you find are practices that actually do give you a different sense of time because what they do is they bring the future closer to us. That's their purpose. If it's the case that we ground a philosophy in relationships, then you need processes and practices that regenerate those relationships all the time. All these kinds of practices are embedded in social practices like language where ancestors are always in front of us, always present when we deliberate about important decisions. For instance, in Marae, which is our kin communities, ancestors are always in that whare in that house with us because they're embedded in all the carvings that you're sitting within. The house itself is known as our ancestor. So there's ways in which really wonderful ways in which the environment too is talked about as ancestors, so that the ancestors are always ever present, and that gives you a different sense of time, a different sense of existing in the present and what that means. And of course, not just ancestors but present as well, future people as well are always embedded in the language and the landscape and the plant names and the way in which plants grow and the way in which the ecosystem works together. There's ways in which we embed this idea of intergenerational responsibility and all those things. I think it's really fascinating to think about how when you take nature seriously, take a forest seriously, take a river seriously, you have to also take seriously its time scale, which might be a bit longer than say the election cycle or the quarterly report or even a human lifespan. And that inherently alters the kind of scales we're thinking about and prioritizing. Lastly, I wonder if we can turn to you next, and come back to the same question of, in your work and what you are working in the communities you're working with and with the areas of policy you're engaged in, where are you seeing really good examples of where future generations or a broader consideration of time is coming before and what can we then do. Yeah, so why peace not seal you squeeze Dina Julia would occur. And I'm coming to you from the homelands the unseated and traditional territories of the Hashem and nation one annual band of mission Indians, but my own ancestry is in the Okanagan band of the local confederated confederated tribes which is in Washington State. And, and so, but I'm here in Southern California, which is where I was born and raised. So, you know, I wanted to just kind of point back to what crucial was talking about which, you know, has so many parallels in American Indian thought, you know, in American Indian epistemologies and ontologies and that's what we're talking about here, these very different knowledge systems and ways of knowing the world. And, and so there's, there's, this is what's so, you know, interesting and important about Indigenous knowledge across Indigenous cultures worldwide we can see commonalities even though we you know we we always have to preface that by saying that there is no one, you know, monolithic Indigenous knowledge, but there are commonalities and the way that we talk about them were in the institution where Cal State University, San Marcos, and the way we teach our students is by sort of winnowing, winnowing it down to these four or five principles that we encourage our own students to embrace and to embody in their own lives. And, you know, and crucial was, you know, really centered that idea of relationality and relationality as a really the core concept for Indigenous knowledge across the the the globe, you know, where how how people interact with the natural world is based not on this extractive utilitarian kind of way of being in an environment or on the land but in a way that's relational and when it's relational that implies reciprocity. We, so altogether we call this the four Rs or the five Rs, relationality, reciprocity, and then, you know, once you recognize those, those ideas, it invokes the concept of responsibility so you have responsibility within those relationships. And then that also cultivates respect or requires respect and even results in a sense of reverence for the world so it's not that it's not a religious concept. You know, especially or particularly but it's really a spiritual precept this idea of reverence and it's something that results from these other, these other actions or orientations to the world so when we have a world view that centers these principles and issues, then, then the automatically you are inhabiting a space where you are accountable for future generations. And so we can see this really clearly of course in the US there are more than 500 tribal nations and so you have at least as many ways of talking about these things and how it works for it. But one of the most prevalent and probably most well known is something that we call the seven generations principle, and that comes directly from, especially the Haudenosaunee people the Confederacy, who, who have embedded these policies in their own political practices and governance systems for at least 1000 years. And we know that from their oral traditions and what they call the, the great law of peace and I can put it in their word. They have a term for it but it's a Haudenosaunee term that I can't pronounce. But the great law of peace and this this great law of peace is really what created the model for the kind of Confederate Confederate form of governance that we see in the US but it's preceded by the Iroquois way of governing through the creation of these these Confederacies that at the same time maintain autonomy for each of the individual nations. And so, and so you have this model that recognizes simultaneously autonomy and and collective collective work and governance and and so at the same time, you, you know, we have this view of the world that that recognizes its responsibility to seven generations into the future and when you do that. It changes how a society uses land and how it, it lives in within its own ecosystems and so, so I think that's really the, the foundation for what Indigenous knowledge has to offer in terms of governance models, more broadly speaking and you know as we hear Indigenous people say that the, the, the hope for the future of humanity in this time of existential crisis it this hope lies in Indigenous thought and Indigenous worldviews. And, and so that's really what they're talking about. It's, it's not, it's not about taking Indigenous perspectives or Indigenous religions or cultures and appropriating them. But it's recognizing that there are these very different approaches to reality and to, to life that, that all humans can embody and can build into governance systems that create the possibility for long term sustainability. But they require really hard conversations and really hard questions about how the modern world is constructed. And, you know, here of course we're talking about of an epistemological and ontological view of land as being of service to humans in this very very extractive way. That's really what capitalism the capitalist state system that we live with now that's what it's built on. We don't think about long term sustainability we have entire economies based on the endless exploitation of the natural world and that's what's gotten us to this, to this the precipice of our very own existence. And so it's not a popular conversation we're not really allowed to have that conversation in our mainstream narratives, even in conservation spaces. You know, and so we have these buzz terms of sustainability and, you know, but and so we, and there's all this greenwashing that goes with it but so we there's always this, this imperative to make, to make capitalism somehow sustainable and, and I think the hard conversation or one of the biggest hardest conversation is, is that really possible. And we have to be willing to ask those questions and answer them in really honest ways if we're to think about what long term sustainable governance looks like, you know, going forward, you know, with a view toward future generations so. So that said, there's, I think that there are ways that that people are trying to do that I'm seeing it being exercised in, you know, there's being a in the US anyway, a greater, a greater respect being paid to indigenous families, which our current administration has issued some very strong policy statements and embedded them in some of their own practices that center and prioritize indigenous knowledge in land management regimes and I think that's really similar to what crucial is talking about about co governance in, in Alteroa. And, and then also in conservation organizations I'm seeing a growing, a growing appreciation for it, although I am concerned about how conservation is happening globally and what's now being called a fortress conservation. And I think we need to to name that. And, and to say that there are, you know, a lot of human rights abuses going on, going, happening in the name of conservation. And of course this is a model that was exported it was from the United States. And within the United States, you know, I see, I see hopeful signs about a paradigm shift and that's really what we're talking about here is about what, how human societies need that paradigm shift moving forward so I'll stop there. And that's, I really like the clarity of how you express these five hours, you know, it sounds almost tried to when you put in something a list of numbers but exactly how you make an idea clear and powerful so thank you for that. And I will remember that one and then repeat it. Can I just ask you for one one quick follow up question which is I really like your idea of how you, by reframing your epistemology in this way, you really get to a different result. And it sounds so persuasive. So, for example, where you've seen it work at an individual level or a community level, where, by taking, if I can, as you put it, if someone's out of the kind of framing that we mostly find ourselves in in capitalist society and instead using the framing of the five hours or the other one, you've seen, you know, a person change their mind or you've seen a community get to a different outcome they would have otherwise or where you've kind of seen that happen in a very kind of immediate and practical way. Anything, anything come to mind there. I think, you know, outside of indigenous communities, I think probably the, the closest thing I'm seeing is, again what crucial was referring to in terms of rights of nature frameworks. We're seeing people struggle with that in the US I think auto is a little bit further along with that. In the US, there are, you know, novel legal approaches to, to testing, you know, what rights of nature frameworks can do for, for communities wanting to change their relationship to the natural world and stop, you know, really toxic extractive industry. It's been, you know, largely unsuccessful, I would say, although I think there are probably little pockets of success here and there. It's even something that tribes tribal governments are incorporating slowly into their own governing frameworks, and you might ask like why would that be necessary. If they're already indigenous societies, you know, with their own epistem, epistemologies and I think the best answer to that question is that tribal governments today are not traditional governments they are models that were imposed on them through the processes of forced assimilation and so what the modern tribal council that we have today is, is just that it's a really colonized version of, of an indigenous governance system and, and so, and they know that, I think for the most part and there is a move to, to, to walk it back and to embed traditional values, customary law into their own legal constitutions and, and the way one, one of the ways that they're doing that is through instituting some of these rights of nature frameworks so I think that that's, you know, there's a long way to go with, with that framework but it is something that seems to have potential promise. Thanks so much. I'm going to come back to all of you on this question of how do we integrate different kinds of governance practices in a way that's actually moving us forward and not one one taking over from the other. I think after we hear from Cecil, who I think I'd love to ask the same question and ask the others, you know what from your work where you seen examples of indigenous practices really creating some powerful new, not new some powerful ways of thinking about problems in a way that may not be coming from other other perspectives, particularly on the long term questions we face. Great. Yeah, thanks a lot. So I'm going to start by explaining what you had the limits of my research. So, I'm actually, I've not studied what communities are doing now. I think that has some impact on what I can say and what I can't say I have only studied, or I'm my project only studies. And I quote, and I quote, traditional African thought looked like pre colonially. Yeah, so, and I review around 13 14 communities across sub Saharan Africa, so that's West Africa, some from West Africa some from specifically Nigeria Ghana, well present day Nigeria Ghana, some from East Africa is in central that's specifically from Uganda, present day Kenya Uganda Ethiopia. Yeah, and then some from Southern Africa and specifically South Africa. I believe this Botswana, that's right. And in Switzerland. So, yeah, it's just more like an intellectual history of how they thought about future people and how they thought about future time. And, yeah, but anyway, I'm sure I can still. Yeah, I still have some useful points for the specific question. So, in, in, like, in big summaries, some examples of practices, which I think, like, lend themselves to what D9 and crucial love mentioned as a way of thinking a broad way of thinking. It's a more logical technique that is more helpful to to taking care of the future generations. So, let me give some examples now. So, there's a lot of situations in which resources resources. Stuff is is is not consumed to totality sort of is not extracted or consumed to totality and instead some nucleus of that is left for the benefit of the future, future time or future generations. I've seen that with, for example, cattle. So, in terms of taking cattle, instead of taking all the cattle you could take you leave some cattle. And then I've seen it in terms of bulbs. So, like onions among the hunter gatherers in Southern Africa, leaving some for for future generations to also benefit. So, for example, is, yeah, so land is a big deal. Land is a big deal. So, resources like land are not seen. This is essentially replication of what Dean has said resources like land are not seen as as an asset that ought to be used primarily for our benefit instead. It's not seen as it's almost like they're one with the land. The person is one with the land but you're a trustee of the land, seeing as you will not be the last in the line, almost certainly. And to some degree, the land itself has spiritual has something is that is deeper than just an asset, something has something deeper to it than just being an asset to solve your your ends. So, so that definitely changes the relationship of people with the land. And instead of, for example, farming it to, to the to the limits, they, they are more, they're more careful with how hard they, they, they till it. They preserve some certain trees are like, particularly special and they're never touched, and so on and so forth. So, so that's a that's a very common example, the land questions that's an extremely common example. Another one is, this is more like, yeah, this is more like two ways of thinking now. So, in, in, in totality, there's this sense of being wholesomely concerned with the kinds of lives the future generations will live. So that, that I got that from evidence for, for example, in West Africa, many communities where artifacts are preserved to be passed on to the future generations, because they had, they were believed to have certain spiritual powers and so on. So, it's not just that they're concerned with, will they survive, or will they survive economically. They also concerned with the other aspects of their lives and so that's that's quite unique, a bit different from even how many of us think about future generations today. The ones, people who care about them, yeah. Yeah, and then finally, yeah, seeing your life as consequential to how future generations will live theirs. So many people then, so their lives as being consequential to how future generations will be able to live theirs. Yeah, so I'm going to stop there. Yeah. Thank you so much. So I think the ideas on, you know, leaving, not taking everything thinking about land as an inheritance for others, thinking about the impact of your life on generations, being concerned with them, saving things them whether they be some of that land or something like that Spiritual artifact of great importance. These are all really interesting signals and I'm really struck at some of the commonalities we've all been talking to across these ideas and indeed commonalities perhaps with the moral intuitions that humans tend to have on many of these questions, but also the disconnect, which means more intuitions and the society which we live today, where we're all too often lives are seem to be at odds. So I wonder if I could go back around and ask our great panel again to see a bit more about what's the implication of the practices you point us toward the met cosmologies ideas for how we should govern today and specifically let's think about this declaration on future generations that's coming up. Let's think about the summit of the future. The world has said we're going to try to become better at this. So what would be your advice to the policymakers who are going to be trying to write those documents and then hopefully implement them going forward. Kia ora Anu and thanks to the panelists for really interesting ideas so far so much to think about. So one of the things that I think is important for for what I was talking about co governance is that there's a recognition of what we call Kaitiakitanga which is very similar to both what Dina and Cecil were talking about about stewardship about the importance of that that idea for all of us. And that kind of relates to something else that Cecil said, which is our concept of Rahui, which places temporary constraints on our activities to ensure that we can, we can flourish in the long run. And that goes for you know fishing marine areas, for instance, any kind of harvesting practice so that's already embedded. So I think what's really important is that motivating and enabling responsibility taking which is really the challenge is the lifeblood of something like Kaitiakitanga of stewardship. Right, and wider indigenous notions of those ideas as well. And so I think what it helps us to do is recognize the importance of a number of things empowering and learning from our local communities for charting change centering social environmental responsibilities and our policy and legal solutions, but also you know enabling flexibility and innovation in our process and processes and practices to so that we can rethink our responsibilities because I think to meet the challenge of intergenerational justice that we and we absolutely need to do that we must be willing to transform our theories and our practices in quite profound ways and we need policies and processes that nurture and cultivate good relationships that enable rather than constrain these relationships which is what we find the world over. I think our theories and our practices have to be guided by a commitment to both deeply intimate sort of relationships as well as remote ones right providing guidance for how how we foster justice and solidarity within present generations in ways that cultivate a real concern for future generations that can motivate that concern and you know we need to find the courage to kind of do that to completely transform and remake development infrastructures and policymaking. And because what we find often is this idea that future people are a case in question that needs to be dealt with it's this kind of problem that sits on its own that we somehow need to sort of speak to. What we find within indigenous communities is that future people are part of everything that we do right from the start right that's and that's the kind of change that we need the kind of rethinking that we need in the world. Thank you so much for sure I think that's a really powerful way of putting it, not saying having this sort of box over here that's called future generations that you take we're going to take the way to how you make it part of the practice of everything to think about and do. Do you know, can I ask you the same question so what, what, what do we take from the, the purchase you've been laying out noise been laying out what how could we think about incorporating them into the governance world we see and feel and experience today. So, you know I always go back to my research project, which is around environmental justice. And, and in the way that I, I talk about it in the context of the US is that there has to be a process of accountability. And we can talk about, you know, all we want about future generations and you know what we need to do to change our governance structures and all of that. But we, there has to be a process for accounting for these histories these colonial histories that so many indigenous people are still, you know constrained by. So these, these domestic systems of domestic law that that subjugate indigenous people in ways that that are non consensual. And certainly the case in the United States I imagine that's true in, in Aotearoa, and in other, certainly in other settler colonial context, but you know, I think in places like Africa recessals from, you know they're still dealing with a lot of internal internal colonialism as well, even after, you know these decolonization movements of the 50s and 60s and, and since then. And so that has to be grappled with you know and we there has to be an acknowledgement that that this foundation of the colonialism shapes the world as we know it today the modern state system is founded on it. And there's got and that's all about imperialism and you know these systems of violent repression. And, you know, we can't, we cannot effectively think about future generations and and and hope for a more sustainable future until that's honestly grappled with and, you know, we, we have nothing internationally we have no framework for that we have the United Nations declaration on the rights of indigenous people but that's not a treaty and it has no force of law. There's not even a mechanism for implementation or enforcement. So, you know, I think that that's a really important piece of it how do we get there. How do the nations, the states, the modern state system, have that conversation and get beyond feeling threatened by indigenous people because that's really the block the obstacle. They, you know, we had what was it dozens of wasn't 11 states that abstained from the vote in 2007 and we had of course for that voted no, you know, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Australia they have all since endorsed it but but in the case of the US it was endorsed with a list of disclaimers saying that you know yes we endorse it as long as you know it it adheres to domestic law and of course domestic law is the problem. So, so it's disingenuous at best and there has to be a process for moving through that you can't get from point A to point Z, you know, going from here to this. These systems of governance that take future generations into account and, you know, or, you know, and and center them without taking into account the all the stuff in between so, you know, we have to have that conversation. That's a really important point, you know, and think there's maybe some kind of irony perhaps in the fact that they were now seeing this conversation and around need for better governance of future generations because of challenges like climate change or technological changes that, if I can put it this way sort of contemporary states are are grappling for solutions these problems that they didn't quite they're not quite built in a design not weren't designed to think about a problem that spans 1000 years right they're designed for other other purposes. And so there's a bit of an irony isn't there of them now looking to some of the governance practices and community traditions and epistemologies and you say that they've displaced to find some solutions there. And so I think grappling with that an authentic way needs to certainly be part of that. You know, irony if I, but also, maybe some humility to think about what the, you know, what are we, how do we draw what we know together as a whole people as a whole society and try to build something better for the future that's going to look different from in the past. That's really interesting moment here. And I wonder if there's a chance for the summer of the future to be a place where some of that conversation begins through that so there should be. If there's not then I see that is a shortcoming. Yeah, it certainly be. I think we'd all agree kind of not a pretty big failure to sort of gesture toward this idea and say and invite some indigenous leaders to come speak in some sort of tokenistic way. And these things are not actually engaged with the substance of what's being said. And that's, and so I think that's a real challenge for most of the processes like the UN, those of you who have been to them will surely think you know this is a clunky bureaucratic, very political kind of thing but you know this is awesome in the future right this is our chance as a world all of our societies to come together and say here's what we'd like to see going forward so we should be thinking about how to make it successful in this way. So kind of to you next to reach out to the question of how to reflect in the practices that we're talking about and sort of incorporate them or we make the institutions we actually face based on them. Do you see any examples of that playing out from your perspective or, and I really, you know, it's fantastic that you've got this historical perspective on it too because we need to see what's been in the past to have some models about you so are there any things you're seeing change or not. Yes. So, I'm, I guess this is a question about implications for this SOTF. And so my my sense is, I don't want to repeat what's been said I completely agree with what's been said already by both crucial and dinner. I don't want to go through that again, but I'd like to highlight two particular things I think first. Well obviously useful ideas and knowledge for the agenda can come from anywhere I think that's one one really press really important thing. And, and so I think it would be great to have an agenda that is based off of some serious effort I suppose to to to collect useful ideas from everybody or as many people as possible from across across the world. More importantly, I think the responsibility. Okay. So, the responsibility question is more, more difficult. So, presumably we want an agenda that sets out certain responsibilities, certain well presses the case that we need to do certain things, whatever we call them. But the world looks very different from the world that the people I'm studying lived lived through. So, I think the effort next year would be pointless if it doesn't respond to the responsibility question, because I listened to the member states. Well, the representatives of the member states in one session which I had the privilege to join. And the G77 were all pretty much aligned that this is taking away from our development agenda. And they're very, they don't like that story very much. I think, well, same thing with the climate change story right. It's a common but differentiated response. Responsibilities I think, given the history of where we are, you know, these countries, many of these people they didn't sign up to be hyper capitalists. They, it was, well, like, you know, it wasn't they, they were forced to to to join the system, because they needed to pay hard stocks, for example, the people I'm studying. So, I think it's impossible to make any serious progress, unless the responsibility question, and who, who bears more responsibility, and how the whole thing will work, given the development expectations of the countries, people from the countries I'm studying have, I think that just has to be addressed one way or another and so that will require lots of courage from, from everybody involved. Lots of courage, lots of uncomfortable conversations, but I can't see how we make any serious progress without that and finally, yeah, I'll, yeah, I think, other than that, I think we can get a sense of from a messaging perspective. I think using or like talking about indigenous communities and what they were doing is a useful way to center the, the possibilities or what we want to do as a continuity that's breaking from the discontinuity that's gone on for many years, now, going back to, I guess, going back to our roots, I found that people in a strange way feel more at peace when they are in alignment with their ancestors, with what their ancestors were doing and no one historical arguments are used so effectively like that. And so maybe from a perspective of convincing people to, to care more, this might be going back to what indigenous communities were doing might be a very powerful way to convince them that it would be aligning with your ancestors. Yeah. So, that's, that's what I think, thank you. Thank you. So I think the point you make on the politics around the subject is very apt, you know, be, there might be a version of this if you imagine where this sort of some of the future says okay in the future we're going to have to do this and this and this things we should care about. And here's how we could work together to make that possible. But obviously, for future generations, the first and most important has down payment on the future to going forward should be say delivering the sustainable development goals in every country in the world by 2030. And then building from there and the sort of longstanding idea in the U.S. sustainable development as meeting the needs of current generations without compromising the needs of future generations is, you know, sort of sums up exactly the challenge and if you think only too much about one half of that equation, you're kind of doing violence this principle in a very clear way and as he pointed out very clearly doing not not doing it in an even hand away doing it exactly the way that reinforces the historical injustices of the past. And so that has to be part of this conversation. And I wonder, and we're going to turn to questions from the audience in a moment so please audience to keep the questions flowing in. But I'm really wondering how we, how we use this moment effectively given that. Okay, so you and summit right so declaration is not going to in the blink of a snap of a finger change everything. I think that many of you have pointed to what part of what needs to change at least maybe the biggest part is a bit of a mindset change a bit of a normative change or sort of reestablishment of some principles that could become operationalized or perhaps like the examples we were giving of rights for nature and etc. But actually it's really part of this bigger shift. And actually that's maybe where a declaration, like looking back to the previous decorations, the rises, etc. could actually be a useful tool when we wrote something maybe not tomorrow maybe not the next day but over over time that could solidify so maybe there's something bigger there we could we can reach toward. Have you taken a quick reaction to it but in the meantime I also asked the fantastic team here at New America to begin feeding questions through so we can get some of them into the room as well. I'm always waiting for this to come up any any thoughts on on that big proposition are we is the is a declaration the tool to change our minds. As you can show you want to come in that point now please. Yes, thanks that's such an interesting question so again Cecil Dina fascinating lots to think about. So it reminded me that in the Pacific we say that we walk forwards into the past and backwards into the future. And that what that means one of the ways we can take that is to say that we look to the past and the collection of epistemic resources that we can find there to help us navigate present and future challenges right but it's doing more than that. That's because when we when we look to the past we're forced to situate ourselves not only to to recognize the history and the injustice which Dina talked about we're absolutely forced to do that but we also were also forced to situate ourselves as part of an intergenerational community. Right we have we have to start we see ourselves as part of a much bigger story and journey and that's what inspires us to recognize and and imagine relationships far beyond our own temporary temporarily and spatially bound lives right that our community is so much bigger. And I think that's the kind of narrative that we need to make change in the world because for some reason well for obvious reasons. The narrative is that our lives our generation is defined by development metrics and the stuff that we have and all the other things and how destructive we we've been but actually our generation as indigenous communities think about it wins or loses based on what we leave behind for our descendants that's where the value of our lives come from right and that's such a motivating force for us to think all the time about what that means for how we live our lives now and if we can somehow change our narrative globally about that I think we might make some progress but yeah that both Dina and Cecil reminded me of that that kind of powerful image of the indigenous communities carry so killed it. Thanks crucial. Do you know there's other comments very welcome also throw another one into the mix which is one of the questions coming online is asking about Central and South America there's any any of your knowledge touches on examples from there you will have to bring that in. Or indeed they may expand it further any other regions of the world that you think we should be thinking toward obviously we can shouldn't be thinking very very globally about this and should it be great opportunities for further resources to be put into. On to the side et cetera, but also a very practical questions coming through. So, you know what was it wasn't really concrete things that governments could do like a local government a city government national government that they could start doing tomorrow or someone wanted to begin to make change what could they do to draw from the indigenous governance practices around future relations particular. Do you know if any of those who want to be like to pick up. Oh, sure. But at first I had a thought is crucial was was talking. One of the things that I've learned in my years of scholarship and working on international indigenous or indigenous issues within the international arena is that, you know, going back to this question of justice is that people don't. People aren't motivated to change based on morals. I mean, this is a heart I mean this is just harsh truth like, you know, we, there's there's been I've over the years, you know, from indigenous communities to like member states of the UN. You know, the approach to shame governments, and to, to, you know, to bring them to task, based on these moral arguments and they haven't worked. And so, so, you know, looking from like a lens of political science, like, this is what it looks like to me is that that people don't change, unless there's some kind of benefit to, to, you know, like that's just the real politic of it. You know, maximize self benefit, or self and self interest and so we have to be realistic about that and so that if we understand that in those terms however harsh they are. It can lead us to a different kind of outcome so if we if we approach as indigenous people if we approach our relationships to colonial governments. With that understanding, you know that that what we want to do is be persuasive. And I think we're getting there I think that the current historical moment is rich with possibility because governments, you know, we are in an existential crisis, you know, globally and they're starting to listen to indigenous people, they are because they know that indigenous communities are sustainable by definition right that it to be indigenous is to have survived, you know, long term in certain ecosystems without destroying themselves. And, and even indigenous cultures have not always succeeded and and history is littered with examples of them. But for the most part, you know, those kinds of collectivities that we call indigenous communities today exhibit this ability to survive you know this this ability of longevity. And so, so there is, there is a recognition now, and I think it's coming out of a sense of desperation and so, you know, it creates an opening for us to have these conversations. But, but understanding that you know governments aren't going to change they're not going to look at changing, you know, you know magically shifting their own perspectives for future generations, unless they really understand that it's, it's in everybody's best interest and it's really in their own best interest so, and that's what, you know, once, once that's sort of, you know, grass, then, then we have the possibility to create meaningful and long lasting change. So, that's just a thought that I that I had as we were and I know doesn't really answer the questions that you pose but but I really wanted to like get that out there. Because it's something that I've thought about for a long time and increasingly operate from that perspective like just the real politic of all of this. Well, as a political scientist, you know, I'm, what you say residency very strongly indeed the book that Gordon kindly mentioned long problems is coming in the spring that I've been working on is trying to really grapple with this question of how when future generations have no power because they don't exist, they don't even have this kind of power that the press person might have in the present, how can they possibly influence their, you know, the tooth and nail fights and politics that determine things that affect them. And, you know, I think, I think I agree with you that morals alone rarely sway the day. I think the morals can be powerful when they are mobilized alongside constituencies that come together to build, build power and there's, you know, different kinds of examples of, you know, say the colonization movements that have been very successful through through that when coupled with harder forms of power, such as economic work like so even on a conference. However, of course for future generations those options aren't on the table because they don't they can't, you know, come here and make us do anything. And so how do we think about the, you know, we kind of have this, their ability to succeed will impart reasons you say depend on their ability to gain allies in the present all of us who can do something to help them. And that would require, I think, this moral, you know, connective tissue can be a form of building those coalitions, at least in part. The other example that you know the group is really spoken to, I think powerfully has been around the legal side of change so even though we can't necessarily get people to do things sometimes, you get lawyers to compel courts to come to the right decisions and recognize rights you can force changes to the power of law. And this has been fascinating examples where say children have successfully sued their governments for to do more on climate change to better defend their, their rights going forward. I wonder if that's also a track for getting the getting for 14 change in a way where it's just repeating what people should do is not necessary. We've had some some further questions come in, which I should put to you, one of which is around the role of universities and I think everyone here is attached to university. And so this maybe is a useful question for us to think through. So what is the role of these kinds of institutions, places of higher learning and contributing to understanding of new forms of governance, and what can we do with them to really advance this issue. And I think all of you are working on this question so I need to give you your thoughts. Since we haven't heard from you yet in this time, would you like to start us off? Yes, sure. Yeah, great question. I think your books are testament to the role of universities right I haven't read it, but I'm looking forward to reading it. So, yeah, I think who else than university professors who get time to think and write books and papers that hopefully may have can be cited in cases, can be used by student groups to movement build. So I think that's one important way that professors get, well, the best maybe somewhat the best place people to think about these kinds of things. I also think student groups, universities provide a very good ground to build movements that can have a very big impact on the cultural moment. So I think from if I think about the animal welfare movement, for instance, based, I mean, a lot of it is a lot of people who end up pushing hard are inspired by singers work and this is in an an university group specifically and this is true for many other moral or moral or movements about specific issues. So yeah, I think universities are a terrific place for this to happen, both formally and informally. Obviously, you could argue about the institution itself and how it can help in terms of like the, the, the leadership, I guess the people who make the big decisions and how they can help. I, I suspect that's a bit of a more complicated issue than that it's, it's a very good place to also get good outcomes. So I'll just really respond with those two specific examples. Yeah. Thanks. So I'm sure we come to you on this question. You see us need to do next. So, yeah, that's a great question. So I think there's two things I want to say about this. So one of the obvious things is, I think universities need to change themselves to because often they're they're actually driving the kind of ontologies that we're trying to say we need to I think they can do quite a lot of work to try and cultivate disability and students in the next generation to kind of be comfortable in different worlds, for instance, so that there's more kind of openness to kind of not not necessarily leaving your own ontology at home but actually, you know, being comfortable sitting in a different in a different kind of ontology and so trying to develop as lots of indigenous scholars have done different kinds of epistemic kind of tools and ethical frameworks that can enable that kind of sort of world traveling if you want to call it that. But also I think the university is only one part of the story. Often conversations like this one, if I can say this overall or between sort of professors and policymakers, right, that's where the conversation happens. And we need to do more to bring activists and practitioners and local communities and the university really has a role in doing that. Often communities are still absent from communities are absent from university work, not all of it, but a lot of it. And so we need to reconnect this kind of epistemic infrastructure so that we all get to have a say about the future. And we all get to have a say about how we should be educating the next generation. So, Kelda. Thank you for showing us a fantastic hand point on where our limits are as institutions and where we do it. Expand them if we want to really change the anthologies that we're engaged in. I'm doing that. I'm passing universities but also this ministering the time I'm going to ask all of us are panellists for a final reflection or any any further final judges that might have. So do you feel free to add anything beyond that's been in your mind you haven't had a chance to say yet alongside thoughts on universities. Yeah, I would echo what crucial just said and and it was exactly what I was thinking about the role of community engagement in the the university setting and I think that's a really important part like you know community engaged research and community based participatory research is really important and it's really the work that I do I'm not a career academic at all I'm, I'm just a, you know, contingent employee, I teach very part time most of my work is in community. But I bring all of that together intentionally in the work that I do. And that's really part of my philosophy to teaching is to highlight the work that I'm doing and to model that for my students and you know, we have. I think there's lip service at certainly at the university I teach at lip service about, you know, community engagement and, and, you know, that kind of stuff but you know like they say that they value it and I'm sure that they do but you know it's the sad thing is that I don't often see it in my colleagues and that's, that's the hard part. I think this is Alan's conversation on universities. You know senior university like this one which has something like 900 years of history. You have some really low points in relationships between the university and society, for example when there is armed conflict between the students and people living in the town of Oxford, so much so that several of the faculty flooding created a new a new university at the time over in a place called Cambridge which then became the one where it's just those now attached. So, you know, universities have a checkered history here is my point. And that's the name of a good opportunity for us to reflect on. I do think this is what you said about thinking about the space where ideas can change and grow and where people can come together around new ideas is a really powerful role and that's a great responsibility for us as we think about the governance systems and broader sense that we're necessary to help humans navigate the world we've now built for ourselves and the one we're going to have to think about how to navigate going forward. So, just, I know we're dangerously close to the end of time so I want to thank all the work that's going to organize this event but I want to make sure we don't I'm not closing off any final thoughts that crucial to So, do you know how to share with the audience? Any final points you wanted to bring? Yeah, can I just say something really quick. So, two days ago, two days ago, I have been at a conference where people are thinking about deep time. And how think about the long term, and one one really provocative and interesting people was about how we're framing it excessively as a spiritual experience that is necessary before we take action. And that's problematic in its own way and maybe what what we need is to focus instead on the specific actions that can be taken and less on the whole thinking differently, etc, etc. Yeah, I just thought it was really provocative and interesting and yeah. Okay, so I think it's a great note to end on because indeed, you know, we, and universities think a lot about thinking and do a lot of thinking and action is also is ultimately where the world comes comes together so how do we act in a way that's I think a lot more about it and, you know, indeed, I don't think the world, as people have been saying over the time needs to kind of have invent some complicated new set of governance procedures for doing this well. And that's kind of recognizing what we have, recognizing where our priorities are and where they need to shift and, you know, probably will be some changes we need to make with governance systems. Indeed, Delta is many of them, but it's not rocket science is something we know how to do indeed we have many great examples as we've been talking throughout the last several minutes on what those look like and what they could look like so I think that's a really helpful starting and possible. It's actually something we're already doing or you know how to do always need to do it. And so I like says the idea to end with action because we know what to do. Thank you, Dean and thank you so so thank you for shield for your fantastic comments. Thank you audience members for your great questions and for your attention. Thank you so much to Gordon and Sarah and New America and Alex and America for helping us come together. And for everyone else who might listen to this and thinking about how you can act to. So, wonderful conversation. Thanks all again, look forward to seeing how this issue develops as you get to some of the future and beyond. Have a great day.