Sherri Mitchell
/
TRIBAL AFFILIATION: Penobscot Nation
PANEL TITLE: Weaving a Sustainable Environment
WHAT IS YOUR PANEL ABOUT?
"The keepers of Indigenous knowledge carry thousands of years of data on things such as medicinal plant properties, biodiversity, migration patterns, climate changes, astronomical events, and quantum physics. They carry the stories of countless epochs of human history, going all the way back to the beginning of human life on Mother Earth. And, they provide insights that help fill the gap between our physical and subjective experiences, helping us understand how our internal consciousness impacts the ways that we view and experience the external world around us." Sherri Mitchell Weh'na Ha'mu Kwasset, excerpt from 'All We Can Save; Truth Courage and Solutions for the Climate Crisis.'
BIOGRAPHY
Sherri Mitchell -Weh’na Ha’mu Kwasset, is an Indigenous attorney, activist, and author from the Penobscot Nation. She received her Juris Doctorate from the University of Arizona’s Roger’s College of Law, specializing in Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy. She is an alumna of the American Indian Ambassador Program, and the Udall Native American Congressional Internship Program. Sherri is the author of the award-winning book, Sacred Instructions; Indigenous Wisdom for Living Spirit-Based Change, which has been published in four languages. She is also a contributor to more than a dozen anthologies, including the best seller, All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis, along with Resetting Our Future: Empowering Climate Action in the United States, and Growing Up Native in America.
Sherri is the founding Director of the Land Peace Foundation, an Indigenous educational organization with three core program areas – Preserving the Indigenous way of life, the cultivation of competent cultural leadership, and the advancement of ecological equity and justice. The Land Peace Foundation has provided training for the 5 largest environmental NGO’s on the planet, helping them develop better policies and procedures for engaging with Indigenous Peoples living on the front lines of climate change. They also curated an eight-part series with the Global Council on Science and the Environment that provided training for thousands of scientists and scientific scholars from more than 40 countries, highlighting Indigenous scholarship and traditional knowledge. Sherri was also a key member of the development team for the ACE Mandate of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), under Article 6 of the UNFCCC and Article 12 of the Paris Agreement. This framework was adopted by the Biden Administration and is currently being used to provide education, engagement, training, and workforce development for climate action in the United States.
Sherri serves as a Trustee for the American Indian Institute and has been a part of their youth and elders circle for more than thirty years, she sits on both the Global Indigenous Advisory Council and the North American Advisory Council for Nia Tero’s Indigenous Land Guardianship Program, and is a board member for the Post Carbon Institute.
She is also the recipient of several human rights awards, including the Mahoney Dunn International Human Rights and Humanitarian Award and the University of Maine Alumni International Human Rights Award, and her portrait is featured in the esteemed portrait series - American’s Who Tell the Truth. Sherri is the convener of the global healing ceremony, Healing the Wounds of Turtle Island, a gathering that has brought more than fifty-thousand people together from six continents, with elders from 40 Indigenous nations, to focus on healing our relationships with one another and with our relatives the natural world. She teaches across the globe on issues of Indigenous rights, Earth rights, and transformational socio-spiritual change.
