Sixteen-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg met with indigenous youth climate leaders Tuesday as she visited the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota. Thunberg was welcomed by 16-year-old high school junior Tokata Iron Eyes, who was just 12 years old when she joined protests against the Dakota Access pipeline in 2016. Iron Eyes later appeared with Greta Thunberg in a video produced by the Lakota People’s Law Project urging Congress to stop the Keystone XL pipeline.
Tokata Iron Eyes: “Indigenous peoples have been on the frontlines of the climate crisis, and we know how to live in balance with the Earth. And so, when we’re talking about solutions, we have to include indigenous peoples in the conversation. So, let’s protect our indigenous peoples, their rights, their communities, their way of life, because that’s what we’re going to need when we go into this battle.”