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Who is Dennis Martinez

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Dennis Martinez: Giving Voice to Indigenous Environmental Practices

It seems to me that those who contribute most, in very real ways, are often busy when its time for the applause.

That is Dennis Martinez. More likely to be found in his boots, out in the field rather in front of a computer, Dennis is the type of leader that marches ahead with muddy boots, calloused hands and a generous heart.

With a academic background in history and philosophy of science, Dennis is also trained in Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), and is chair of the Indigenous Peoples' Restoration Network (IPRN), a working group of the Society for Ecological Restoration International (SER-I) and is co-director (with Agnes Pilgrim of Siletz Confederated Tribes) of the Takelma Intertribal Project (TIP) which brought back the Salmon Homecoming Ceremony after an absence of 150 years.

Traditional Environmental Knowledge

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Traditional Environmental Knowledge

I met Dennis Martinez back in 1994 and almost immediately made a connection with him. Intelligent, compelling and down to earth. My kind of person..and we share birthdays.

I attribute a lot of what I've learned about TEK from the interactions and conversations that I had around Dennis Martinez and his work.

In 1995, Dennis Martinez and SER, sponsored the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)Conference on Biodiversity here in North America in Tucson, Arizona. I am honored to have been a witness to all of those intensely, wise Native speakers. It was five days of rare conversations about environmental knowledge from Native experts from nearly every tribe in North America. What I learned there has shaped me in ways that are difficult to express but it was life changing.

It was there that I met Bill Tall Bull, Northern Cheyenne and in his failing health, he asked people to pray. I felt inadequate and humbled that I did not know how to pray in a way that would honor this man and his life... so I took the journey and many years later I learned songs and learned how to pray in a way to honor our elders and our children.

I met Esther Nahgahnub and William Commanda there and learned about the importance today of our people's history and prophecies.

But most of all I learned from Dennis and his passion for the earth, his connection to the plants and animals. Truly native genius.

Videos on Ecological Restoration

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Habitat Restoration

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Dennis Martinez Quotes

Dennis is a world renown speaker on ecological restoration and indigenous traditions. In my opinion, he has an amazing ability to express very complex and sensitive concepts with elegance and simplicity.

Below are just a few of these priceless bits of pure gold. Vote on your favorite.

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"There is no Indian word for wilderness because there was no wilderness."

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"Conserving our options means, in part, conserving the diversity of ways of thinking about problems." by Jessie Ford and Dennis Martinez

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What we are really restoring is our relationship with the places we live in and depend on as we learn, once again, how to be native to these places: to be caregivers to the land; to participate with our elder brothers and sisters, the plants and animals.

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We do not want victimhood. We want parity and compensation through recognition of our substantial contributions to your wealth. It is not an "ethnic" issue. Indigenous peoples are the miner's canary. It is about the survival of all humans...

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"There's big spiritual issues here," says Martinez. "This is an international phenomenon, growing over the last ten years. There are issues of the land, there are actual identity issues. It's all about who am I in an increasingly homogenized world."

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Support Traditional Environment Knowledge

In 2001 Dennis Martinez was an Ecotrust Award Honoree. In a field where amazing people like Gary Nabhan, Aggie Pilgrim and Dennis Martinez are overlooked for glossier projects, organizations like Ecotrust make sure these folks get the funding to keep them busy in the trenches and then helps to spotlight their efforts for the world to build on.

In honor of the muddied boots that make new science of ancient technologies,we ask that you donate $1 to EcoTrust.

Honoree: Dennis Martinez

Ecotrust is a conservation organization committed to strengthening communities and the environment from Alaska to California. We work with Native peoples and in the fisheries, forestry, and food sectors to build a regional economy based on social and ecol

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Projects and partners working together towards a healthier planet

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The Latest Yahoo News on Dennis Martinez, SER

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Articles from Dennis about TEK and Indigenous Restoration Practices

EcoTrust Honoree: Dennis Martinez
Dennis Martinez is honored as a finalist for the 2001 Ecotrust Award for Indigenous Leadership in Conservation for his work over the past thirty-two years on indigenous community based ecological and cultural restoration, and for his endeavors in building bridges between Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and Western Ecological Science (WES).
Founder, SER (Society for Ecological Restoration)
When I first began working, as a native person, in what could be broadly characterized as "eco-cultural" restoration, there was little apparent interest on the part of ecological restorationists and scientists in indigenous knowledge, or what we now call Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK). But we have experienced in the last ten or so years a sudden and growing interest by Western science in TEK.
Notes from the Native Garden « Terrain Magazine, Spring 2000 « Ecology Center
The Ecology Center promotes environmentally and socially responsible practices through programs that educate, demonstrate, and provide direct services.
American Indian Cultural Models for Sustaining Biodiversity from the U.S. Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station General Technical Report 63
Using Native American cultural models to restore habitat
Indigenous Science: The Cultivated Landscape of Native America
Using Native American cultural models to restore habitat
Dennis Martinez presents Traditional Ecological Knowledge http://www.ser.org/ http://www.ser.org/iprn/default.asp Jimbo Simons gives us an update on the Longest Walk.......
2008-03-17 - Dennis Martinez on Traditional Wisdom / Jimbo Simons Update - Ute Indian Museum Montrose, Colorado

Shout Out For Dennis Martinez

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