Chief Oren Lyons
Chief Oren Lyons (1930) is a Native American Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan living in Onondaga, NY. He was a founding member in 1977 of the Traditional Circle of Elders and Youth: this council of respected Indian leaders meets annually to provide an avenue for Native American culture to inform and contribute to contemporary cultural and political debate. For more than fourteen years he has taken part in meetings in Geneva of Indigenous Peoples of the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations. He warned the world that climate disruption should motivate us to raise up our leaders:
“The environment isn’t over here. The environment isn’t over there. You are the environment,” one of the most striking figures at the Global Environmental Youth Convention. “The law says if you poison the water, you’ll die. The law says that if you poison the air, you’ll suffer. The law says if you degrade where you live, you’ll suffer. … If you don’t learn that, you can only suffer. There’s no discussion with this law.”
In the 1960s, Lyons joined what has been dubbed the “Red Power movement,” a group of Native American activists who came together across tribal lines to draw attention to Indigenous rights and struggles in an era of unrestrained growth. Now retired from teaching, Lyons continues to inspire generations through his leadership in public speaking. Chief Lyon sincerely believes that the deforestation faced by Canada and the Amazon rainforest will be saved by the youth of today, for they are the ones who can make a difference.
Organization: He is Chief of the Onondaga Nation Council of Chiefs of the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, the Haudenosaunee.
Location: Upstate NY, USA
Book: Children’s Book Dog Story. He edited Exiled in the Land of the Free (1992), which made the case for the influence of the ideas and values of the Iroquois Confederacy on American democracy and the Constitution. He is the publisher of Daybreak Magazine.
Website: LYONS (ecojusticeforall.org) 2) Chief Oren Lyons | MY HERO
