Video: Indigenous Guardianship, Nature, and Peace

April 11, 2019
margarita mora

This monthly public series, convened by Dean David N. Hempton of HDS, brings together a cross-disciplinary RPP Working Group of faculty, experts, students, and alumni from across Harvard University and the local area to explore topics and cases in religions and the practice of peace. This meeting concerned indigenous guardianship and culture with intersections of nature and peace.

Speakers

• Margarita Mora, Director of Partnerships, Nia Tero
• Indira S. Raimberdy, Executive Director, Peace Building Center

Moderator

• Professor Dan McKanan, Ralph Waldo Emerson Unitarian Universalist Association Senior Lecturer in Divinity, Harvard Divinity School

Event sponsored by Religions and the Practice of Peace (RPP) and Sustainability and Health Initiative for Net Positive Enterprise (SHINE) at MIT.

See the full event description


FULL TRANSCRIPT:

[CALMING MUSIC]

DAVID HEMPTON: So welcome to our final spring RPP colloquium. I'm David Hempton, dean of the Divinity School. So thank you all for coming. I'd like to extend, especially a warm welcome and thanks on behalf of RPP and the Divinity School, to our two featured speakers this evening. Margarita Mora is here with us, and Indira Raimberdieva who's joining us from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, and will be here with us virtually. And so it's going to be a wonderful experiment. 

We'd also like to express our appreciation to our moderator, Professor Dan McKanan, and also with us here in the front row to the sustainability and health initiative for net positive enterprise shine at MIT for a cosponsoring tonight's session and to the Reverend Kahn Vickers Budnee and Al Budnee, and RPPs other generous supporters for making all this possible. As always, we'd like to especially thank our very talented group of RP assistants and staff for all their tremendous work behind the scenes to organize and host tonight's event. Let's give them a round of applause. 

[APPLAUSE] 

We want these sessions to provide a space in which we not only learn about peace, but also practice peace with one another. To begin our time together, we'll start with some introductory words from two of our wonderful graduate assistants, O'Dallas and Nick. So O'Dallas, please. Thank you. 

O'DALLAS: Hello. Welcome. We are gathered to advance sustainable peace and to learn and grow in our peace practice. Let's begin by cultivating engaged, caring, and appreciative relationships here and in all our settings. Sustainable peace is a complex endeavor to which everyone has much to contribute. We'd like to share some aspirations which we hope you'll help us keep in view. 

As members of one human family, how can we relate to one another in a spirit of love and friendship despite our differences, disagreements, and limitations? How can we acknowledge contributions from all cultures and traditions as equally valuable and appreciate and benefit from everyone's experiences and wisdom? How can we attend to our biases and to oppressive systems of power based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, economic status, and other factors, and empower one another to promote justice and shared flourishing? How can we work for equity and justice in ways that are humanizing, build connection, and promote healing and transformation? 

What wisdom, knowledge, and spiritual resources do we need to do this? Please join us in creating a courageous, respectful, and forgiving space conducive to deep sharing, deep listening, and mutual learning. Let's practice sharing questions and comments, as well as concerns and difference of view while maintaining a validating environment across difference. We are interdependent and we need one another to expand our vision and help us consider our blind spots. So let's seek deeper understanding where we see things differently, draw upon our spiritual resources, and support one another in constantly improving our approach to each other and to what we do. 

NICK: Thanks O'Dallas. We acknowledge that conversation of this kind can be challenging. Listening to other perspectives and sharing our own makes us vulnerable and can be uncomfortable. It can be hard to process in the moment and to find words. At the same time, few things are more essential for our growth in collaboration towards sustainable peace. So we thank you all in advance. 

To give you an overview of tonight's session, we'll begin and end with a moment of silence. After the introductions, our speakers Margarita Mora and Indira Raimberdieva will present, followed by some conversation among our speakers and Professor McKanan. After that we'll give you all five minutes to discuss your thoughts with your neighbors. 

Finally, we'll invite your comments and questions. If you prefer to submit your questions in writing rather than verbally during the Q&A, RPP assistance will collect those before the Q&A begins. At the end of the session, we'll briefly administer the survey that we've given you in your dinner bag, which we thank you all in advance for completing. If there are ideas or concerns that you're not able to raise during the session, feel free to include them in the survey. Additionally, you're always welcome to speak to us at reception or to email us at the RPP website. 

Let's begin now with a moment of silent contemplation or prayer in gratitude, in remembrance of all lives who are suffering here and around the world and to set our intentions for our practice of peace. Thank you. 

DAVID HEMPTON: Thanks so much O'Dallas and Nick for leading us. At the heart of our religions and the practice of peace initiative is the recognition that the big problems confronting our human family today will demand an extraordinary degree of local and global cooperation to surmount, becoming ever more evident and obvious. Our struggles to reduce destructive conflict are closely intertwined with our struggles to address other big problems affecting our societies. 

Urgent among them is environmental degradation, which indeed is now imperiling the survival of all lives on our planet. A crucial topic for our one at Harvard Sustainable Peace Initiative is the connection between peace, practice, and environmental sustainability. Given the multifaceted nature of the challenges, we are especially interested in how more holistic approaches can be of benefit, including those informed by the wisdom and practices of the world's spiritual and cultural traditions. 

We are asking how are these at once ancient and innovative approaches playing out in particular communities, in particular places? Do they offer principles and methods that can be adapted in other settings to generate perhaps a global trend, something scalable? 

We're therefore very grateful for this opportunity to learn from two extremely impressive leaders who have been pioneering local and global efforts in the area of indigenous guardianship, nature and peace, holistic being and living. 

So first of all this evening, I will briefly introduce our moderator who will then introduce our speakers. Professor Dan McKanan, Dan, serves as the Ralph Waldo Emerson Unitarian Universalist senior lecturer at Harvard Divinity School where he has taught since 2008. He studies religious and spiritual movements for social transformation in the United States and beyond, with particular emphasis on environmental activism, intentional communities, and socialism. Much of his research focuses on the Unitarian Universalist tradition and the anthroposophical movement. 

He is the author of five important books, most recently Eco-Alchemy: Anthroposophy and the History and Future of Environmentalism, University of California Press, 2017; Prophetic Encounters Religion and the American Radical Tradition, which won the Frederic Melcher Book Award. 

As Emerson senior lecturer, Professor McKanan is also deeply involved in the formation of Unitarian Universalist ministers and professional leaders at the Divinity School, and a Unitarian Universalist scholars at Harvard, and right across the United States. He serves on many boards, panels, and has many leadership roles within that tradition. At Harvard he has chaired the MTS curriculum committee for many years. This is not an easy task. And participates actively in the American Studies Program of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. He is a wonderful colleague and a distinguished figure on our campus. So Dan, thank you so much for moderating and being with us tonight. Thank you. 

[APPLAUSE] 

DAN MCKANAN: Thank you so much David for that kind introduction, to Liz and all the RPP team for all the hard work you've done making this conversation possible, and to all of you for sharing in the learning that we will do together tonight. 

Tonight's topic combines two social movements that are of great personal importance for me, environmentalism and work for peace. I'm excited to learn from tonight's speakers about how these movements are mutually reinforcing. Active nonviolence is often an important tool in struggles to protect diverse ecosystems. And when those diverse ecosystems are protected, the many forms of life that live in them can become powerful allies with human beings in our quest for peace. Indigenous communities have practiced solidarity with more than human life throughout history, and I'm delighted to have the opportunity tonight to learn from the grounded wisdom that will be brought to us by Margarita Mora and Indira Raimberdieva. 

Before I introduce them I wish to acknowledge that this also is indigenous land the homeland of the Mashpee Wampanoag, the Aquinnah Wampanoag, Nipmuc, and Massachusett people. These communities continue to live among us and to exercise guardianship of tribally controlled lands to our west, south, and Southeast. As we learn about indigenous communities at a greater distance, we honor those who are close at hand. 

I will introduce both speakers in turn and they will each speak subsequently afterward. Margarita Mora is the director of partnerships at Nia Tero, an international nongovernmental organization that promotes indigenous guardianship because it believes that the people who call ecologically diverse places home are the best safeguards of biodiversity in those places, and by extension across the planet. She has dedicated the past 16 years of her life to devising and implementing strategies for supporting the efforts of indigenous communities and people to protect nature. 

Before coming to Nia Tero, she led the Conservation Stewards Programs at Conservation International. She's helped indigenous communities in 19 different countries negotiate conservation agreements that recognize and support their guardianship work. And Nia Tero's partnership model now allows her to build new bridges to additional communities as they strengthen their cultural wisdom and natural connection. 

Margarita is also a conservation fellow at the Mulago Foundation, a director's fellow at the MIT Media Lab, and a Heinrich Boll Stiftung alumnus. In all of her endeavors, she seeks to honor the insight that ecosystems will thrive only if the people who have sustained them and are most knowledgeable about them are also thriving. 

Our second speaker will join us remotely from Kyrgyzstan, and in a moment she'll be up on the screen with us. Indira Raimberdieva is the executive director of the Peace Building Center in Kyrgyzstan, which she founded in 2008. There she is. Welcome. Her work promoting peace in the Ferghana Valley communities in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan began a decade earlier than the founding of the center. 

Initially she worked within mainstream legal and governmental organizations as she sought to build consensus and mediate conflicts among the residents of the valley. Gradually she came to see that the solutions to conflict lie more in the human soul and in the wisdom of traditional cultures than in external institutions and regulations. The Peace Building Center is thus devoted to in-depth exploration, revival, and practical application of the traditional nomadic cultures of Central Asia. Through this revival, she and her colleagues are developing spiritually oriented models of development and conflict transformation that will build a lasting culture of peace. 

She joins us via the magic of technology, giving us a glimpse of her grounded work in the rich soil of Central Asia. And please know that though you will sometimes see here up on the screen, even when you don't see her, she is still connected and participating in our conversation. So welcome, Indira. And now we hear from Margarita Moro. 

MARGARITA MORO: Good evening, everyone. It is a pleasure to be here tonight. Or not tonight yet, but soon tonight. I am Marguerite Mora. My native language is Spanish. I can talk very, very quickly in Spanish and sometimes in English. So if for some reason I am talking too quickly, please raise your hand and I will try to get the hint. 

Most of what remains of nature is in the hands of indigenous peoples and local communities. These are the areas with the highest diversity of plants and animals in the world. The areas with the largest carbon stocks, areas that are crucial and key for freshwater cycles, but also for food security. 

What many times we don't think about because those lines probably you have heard before, right? Yes, this place is important for humanity. What we are not thinking about that often is that these are also the areas that have the highest cultural value to all of us. These are the areas where 95% of all languages are spoken. People living in these areas have the right to determine what kind of future they want. Our job is to stand in solidarity with them, to listen to them, and to ensure that we can support the path that they have chosen. 

Last century, the word conservation was a streamline, and conservationists are very passionate, and conservation was achieved by, in many cases, not recognizing people's rights, not recognizing their knowledge systems, not recognizing their contributions. And even more, like conservation was achieved by pushing people out of their territories, by fencing protected areas, by changing ways of life, even by manipulating people. 

The sad part is that it still happens. The good part is that we are talking way more about this now than before, and it is happening less and less. Indigenous peoples are the ones that hold those places very, very, very deeply. And when we start thinking more broadly, they are the ones that can show us some parts that we are forgetting. 

So I can do this work because I was very lucky to be born in Ecuador and I was very lucky to have parents they took me to the countryside every single weekend throughout all of my childhood. This led me to believe that when I was going to grow up, I wanted to protect nature and I wanted to make sure that any work I do made people better off. 

And when finishing university in Ecuador before I finished university, I had work already, but I was nervous because getting a job in Ecuador is not an easy task, particularly when you know exactly what you want to do. And I was looking for several options, and I got an internship that showed me exactly a model that was being built up. I was very, very lucky to be there at the time that I was there. And I was able to be part of a team that established more equitable relationships. And that was the goal, figuring out a way a model to establish equitable relationships between indigenous peoples and conservation organizations. 

And that was it. I fell in love. But I did not fall for 14 years. Day and night first in Ecuador, then in the region in the Americas, then also working in Africa and in Asia and figuring out and understanding different ways of being, different ways of knowing. And it took me a while to realize that that was not enough. That was great. Amazing things were achieved, but that was not enough. 

It took me some time to realize that we have amazing maps about almost anything. You go to the internet. We can see the world. We can see the moon. We can see the ocean. But what we don't have is one crucial map, and we forget about this crucial map over and over, and that is the map of human identity. And many of the problems that we are facing now, whether those are environmental challenges, whether those are identity crises, not locally but globally, can be seen as problems that are linked to values. And those values that were very, very deep for us, but we lost when we disconnect ourselves from our place. 

There are people that still have those values that have plays anchor values, plays anchor identity. And those peoples are indigenous peoples. And maybe if we are lucky, they can help us reveal some of those values. 

But when thinking about this, the first thing that we need to do is recognize that those places-- that, believe me, my eyes are beautiful that I hold dear. --forests, oceans, grasslands, they are way more than only that. They are not only the places where people gather food or find many scenes or get construction materials, or where we go to walk and enjoy nature. 

They are the places where grandmothers tell epic stories about. They are the places where mothers take their children to learn about their culture, to learn about their food, to learn about their crops. They are their places where daughters and sons belong before they are born. They are the places of their ancestors, and that is huge. They are the places where they find wisdom. They are the places that connects them to the spiritual world. They are all of that and much more. 

And when we start going even deeper, we realize that worldwide there are around four million indigenous people. More or less 5% of the human population, and they hold these places very dear and very close to them, not because of conservation. Conservation is not even a word for them. They hold these places and uphold the values that are super important for others humanity because these places is where they find their identity, and these places are where those value systems were built. 

So, what we need to do, in a way, is recognize rights, recognize knowledge systems, recognize values and traditions, and overall, what we are looking into is thinking about indigenous guardianship. And indigenous guardianship is people, indigenous peoples with very close ties to place that have the rights to be there, have their responsibility to manage those places, and also have the capacity to sustain these vital systems of nature that we all depend on. 

And I want to share with you a couple of broader examples of what this means because it varies greatly from one place to the other. Like when we talk about indigenous peoples, we sometimes forget about dates of people's. Indigenous peoples in different parts of the world are very different, and that is the regionist. 

So when thinking about the Pacific Islands, there we have 17 large ocean nations managed by indigenous peoples. Personally I come from the mountains in the highlands of Ecuador. So for me the ocean is beautiful. But when I used to look at the map of the world, that part of the world, I was like, oh, those tiny islands and how did those people communicate with one another? Impossible. 

Now I see the map and I only see connection. The water is what connects them. It is not a barrier as I used to say. And it is a place where you have these people managing 10% of the surface of the Earth, a place just to give you an idea of a scale where between 60% and 70% of the tuna catch happens, a place where people have been moving around from island to island, way before there were GPS or that longitude and latitude where we figure out by Europeans, a place where they move from place to place because they knew their environment so well. 

They knew the waves. They knew the stars. They knew the animals, whether it's marine or birds. They knew the gardens. They knew reflections of light that come from islands. And it did not that they just move around and luckily they got to island B. They actually did it on purpose. And the beauty of it is that nowadays there are still those navigators. We can still find them. 

And we can find them, yes, in the voices of Maino Thompson that was here recently, but we can also find them in small tiny villages such as in the Solomon Islands where people hold that knowledge very, very deeply. And we can see through them that they are holding large commitments. They are not only still managing some of their customary coastal management systems, but they are upholding really big commitments as it is the case of the Marae Moana Initiative in the Cook Islands. 

The other part, it is closer to me, but it is very big. Like northern Amazonian is the most remote area of the Amazon basin, and it is of the size of six Californias. In this territory, you find 2,003 collective territories managed by indigenous peoples, and 400 indigenous groups that are connected through history, but have very different languages, very different perspectives. 

I had the privilege to be in one of these territories very, very recently. And it was beautiful to talk to people for whom life is and cannot be fulfilled unless you finally connect to the sacred source of the forest. And that is what guys do, and your future depends on that revelation. What you are going to do is based on that. If you don't receive it, you are lost. 

These are the same people that wake up in the morning-- and when I am saying morning, it is before dawn. 3:00 in the morning. --and sit down and share dreams and interpret their dreams. And based on that plan, they are they. They know that if they had a good dream about hunting, they have to go hunting. They know that if they had a bad dream, they shouldn't go hunting. 

It is these deep connections that make these people unique. And in this part of the world, as well as in other parts of the world, these people know the animals, the plants, the rivers, the rain in a way that I will never ever learn about because I am not from there. And I know that people study some of these places very deeply, but we have to acknowledge that none of us, we ever get to know them in their full dimensions. 

Indigenous peoples face big, big, big pressures, and what they are seeking now is for partnership and support and recognition. And partnership, we all hear about partnership. Yeah. And I was going to say, like I am a partnerships director, so I hear a lot about partnerships. But what we don't understand sometimes is that partnership doesn't mean imposing your ways of being, your ways of thinking, your ways of knowing. 

They actually mean something way more simple. They mean respecting people. They mean honoring compromises, and they mean standing with indigenous peoples in the good times and in the bad times. And they also mean that we have to learn how to listen. We are really good at talking, but we are not always so good at listening, and listening careful to these people that know these places better than anyone will ever know these places and who know what they need better than anyone else. 

One of the big challenges is having that capacity to just listen, and listen and wait, and listen and not rush. Just listen and be. And that is something that we have forgotten and that we also need to learn. 

I have a four-year-old boy turning five soon. He is a sweetheart. Of course I am his mom and I am going to think that is the case. And many times I ask myself whether he will have the privilege of learning from people that see the world in a very different way that have value systems and identities that are directly linked to place. For whom the word conservation is not a word. It is a way of being. It is life. And that is when I start asking myself over and over whether I will be the right kind of ancestor. 

And I also ask myself, what kind of ancestor will we collectively be? And this is not an easy question, but this is one of those questions that if we start thinking about it more deeply, maybe it leads us to reconnecting to those values, to revealing those values that are more plays anchored, and maybe it also leads us to think in a different way about the past, recognizing that we come from someone that set up this stage for us to leave now, but also recognizing that we are responsible for the future and that we need to change the way that we think about well-being and we need to stop thinking about well-being in terms of what we get out of the world. 

But we need to start thinking deeply on what we are leaving behind. And maybe we might get out of these environmental challenges that we are facing and we might recover from the identity crises that we are also facing. So that is what I wanted to share with you tonight. Thank you very much. 

[APPLAUSE] 

DAN MCKANAN: Thank you so much Margarita for the wonderful question that you ended with. What kind of ancestors will we be? And now we turn to Indira Raimberdieva. 

INDIRA RAIMBERDIEVA: Thank you. Good evening, dear friends. Do you hear me well? Thank you, dear friends. I'm very glad to be on this very interesting meeting. Thank you to Margarita and RPP for inviting me. I will try to do my best to share what I can. And so adding some more information and knowledge about our region, Central Asia, which is very, I think, important region. And it's a very unstable one. Let me switch screen to presentation. 

So my presentation is called "Traditional or Indigenous Culture in Modern Society." In my presentation, I will try to review briefly some general conclusions which Peace Building Center came to regarding indigenous culture. Indigenous culture as an important source of spiritual worldview and life practice in contemporary society. Also, indigenous culture as a strategic resource for long-term development and peace promotion. 

For the past 10 years, I and my colleagues were involved in a wide spectrum of activities on exploration and practical revival of Kyrgyz indigenous nomadic culture. Also, since 2014, PBC is a part of a very unique experience of consolidation of seven kindred indigenous people of Pamir, Tien-Shan, and Sayan-Altai biocultural region. Some of the nomadic home of indigenous people of Pamir, Tien-Shan, and Sayan-Altai. 

It's quite obvious today that modern society has come to a very complex and critical point of its history. Perhaps as never before, our future depends strongly on how we human beings as individuals and as society use our inborn freedom of will, our positive will to self-perfection, spirituality, and honorable life practice. And as a main step towards better prospects, we will have to decide, or we are already in the process of deciding, which system of worldview we would like to base our further life on. 

Today, we are facing a tough and possibly the last clash of two basic worldview systems. On one side, we have so-called rational consumeristic worldview, based on hard materialism. This kind of worldview, at some point of human history, became dominant. 

And it is a big separate topic for pondering and discussing when, how, and why it has happened. What we know for sure right now is that it has assured the majority of people that human being is a mortal creature, that everybody fights his own battle on this world, and that we must take from life as much as possible, at any price. This life position actually, as we can see already, clearly now brought us to total self-destruction. 

On the other hand, we have so-called spiritual worldview based on profound faith in the Creator and wisdom regarding every aspect of the world of His creation. This kind of worldview guided us towards understanding and experiencing that human being is a spiritual creature which with a great, infinite mission, that we all are interconnected, and that life should be viewed according to the principles of harmony in everything and everybody surrounding us. This spiritual worldview existed always, but today we need it as never before for our survival. 

As we could confirm for ourselves through our own experience, there are two main sources of this worldview today. One is ancient wisdom and faith. The brightest example of it is indigenous culture. 

Another is what we call prophetic faith. The best example of it is Abrahamic religions. Modern multidimensional knowledge represented by some breakthrough sciences and philosophic schools serves as the rational proof for ancient wisdom and prophetic truths, and by doing so, becomes by itself a valuable supporting source, so-called secular source, of spiritual wisdom today. 

Today, we observe that a vast number of people dynamically convert or transform from the camp of hard materialism to the camp of tested soft materialism, acquiring a more spiritual view and understanding of human beings and human life. A vast number of people returned to their indigenous roots, acquire their strong cultural identity, and choose to live according to the precepts or wisdom of their wise ancestors. And vast number of people in the world come to monotheistic faith and choose to follow in the footsteps of the great prophets. 

Some people go through full cycle of spiritual transformation, from being absolute materialists to becoming profoundly faithful persons. All this tendency reflects tectonic shifts in the system of values of modern humanity. In particular, it reflects intuitive understanding of human beings of the fact that ultimate salvation can be sought only in acquiring true spirituality at an individual level and introduction of spiritually oriented models of development at society or collective levels. 

Kyrgyzstan can be taken as a perfect and intensive example of such intuitive movement and transformation in society. Kyrgyzstan today is an area for rapid unfolding of all the possible sources of spirituality. We can observe active revival of nomadic traditions, popularization of very secular or science-based personal growth systems, and incredibly fast dissemination of Islam, as well as other religions, among various layers of population. And with all of this going on, Kyrgyzstan is still a secular state which tries to hold onto democratic values and secular humanism, with its basic human rights and freedoms. 

Each of these resources of spirituality which are indicated on the slide has its own unique place and audience in our country. Unfortunately, we also observed that there are many acute issues or problems within each source of spirituality. On the slides, we tried to present only the main ones. 

Regarding any faith source, there are issues. These issues are bound in this to only human capacity, tacit denial of prophetic truth and homocentrism. If we look at culture-based source, we see such issues as loss of authentic knowledge-- in many cases, irreversible loss of authentic knowledge-- distortions of indigenous traditions, and nationalism. 

And finally, religion-based source today, suffers from distortions of religious traditions and teachings, subsequent discredit and division of Islam, and radicalism. This is actually not only by Islam. All the religions suffer from these problems. Apart from problems within each source, there are also some contradictions between them. I mentioned three sources of spirituality in Kyrgyzstan. Especially this is the case regarding the relations between Kyrgyz indigenous culture and Islam. 

So in general, how things will go further, time will show. But what is quite clear, even at this moment, is that no matter what the map of spirituality of Kyrgyzstan will look like in near future, Kyrgyz indigenous culture should have a vast spiritual niche in our society. In other words, nomadic indigenous culture played and will play in our future a very important role in the country at individual as well as collective levels. Further in my presentation, I would like to focus a bit on this point. 

So what is traditional culture, and what makes it so valuable today? During our exploration and practical activities in the field of modern religion and revival of indigenous culture of Kyrgyz people and kindred indigenous nations from Siberia, we came to the conclusion that indigenous culture is a coherent system or set of mechanisms of survival and development at individual and collective level. These mechanisms are conditioned by nature and operate at all the possible levels of human existence-- transcendental, psycho-energetic, mental, biophysical, and social. 

We called all this a spiritual-cultural core. Comparison of various indigenous peoples of Pamir, Tien-Shan, and Sayan-Altai biocultural region showed that each indigenous nation had this kind of spiritual-cultural core. By the content of this core, the nations differ from each other. But by the dimensions, structure, and functions, they are very similar to each other. 

Now let me very briefly go through the structure and contents of spiritual-cultural core of indigenous people using the example of Kyrgyz culture. I thought it would be quite important to share this information here with you, as it is the structure and contents of the spiritual-cultural core which make indigenous cultures so valuable and usable today. 

Kyrgyz spiritual-cultural core is a system of spiritual self-preservation and development. It is a priceless gift which our ancestors left for their future generations and which help our nation to survive and develop through various times and on best territories. This system has certain structure and is constituted by several levels, each of which corresponds to a particular level of human existence. 

The first one is the culture of maintenance of energetic health or the culture of connection with the ultimate spirit, with the ultimate Creator. Here, we can find all the transcendental or extraordinary cultural phenomenon, the majority of which are not even explored by science by this time, or even cannot be named. For example, land narration of epic heritage, sacred places, transcendental instrumental music, and many other cultural phenomena-- all this can be called energetic codes of Kyrgyz people. 

The second level is a culture of maintenance of psycho-energetic health or the cultural connection with human soul or subconsciousness. This includes all the traditional contemplative practices and sacred techniques aimed at keeping human beings psychologically healthy-- for example, healing practices, meditation, called in Kyrgyzstan [KYRGYZ], prayer, practices called [KYRGYZ], good wishing and the blessing practices, [KYRGYZ], and many other cultural phenomena. All this together can be called psycho-energetic goals of Kyrgyz people. 

The third level in the culture maintains a moral and ethical health or the culture of connection with human mind. Or maybe to say it deeper, the cultural connection with the common sense. This includes all kinds of values and rules which are encoded in rituals, games, dances, languages, and many other cultural phenomena, and which are aimed at regulating relations between human beings and God, human beings and society, human beings and nature. All this is called informational codes of Kyrgyz people. 

And finally, the fourth level is the culture of maintenance of biophysical health, if we talk about individual and social health, if we talk about community. In other words, it is the culture of connection with the material and social realities of human existence. 

This includes all kinds of martial arts and other sports, national cuisine, handicraft production, traditional medicine, and many other cultural practices and phenomena. At the collective level, we can find many positive elements in agricultural management, in the system of upbringing of future generations, young generations, tribal self-organization and management, social security, and many other cultural phenomena. All this can be called physical or social codes of Kyrgyz people. 

This is a small collection of pictures from our regular youth camps. Peace Building Center holds these kind of camps for students, for teenagers, school pupils, to familiarize them in conditions of high urbanization with their spiritual heritage, with their spiritual-cultural core. So here, you can see they're learning traditions, learning national law, handicrafts, martial arts, communication with elders, and many other things. 

So ultimately, we see that spiritual-cultural core of each nation is something very natural and very comprehensive-- something which remains in action, even when all the artificial or built-over life programs-- for example, ideologies-- malfunction. And again, by the example of Kyrgyzstan, we can see that this natural self-preservation and development system returns sooner or later into society, even after many years or centuries of domination of various alien ideologies and lifestyles. 

This is the picture from the archive. It's a Kyrgyz indigenous community in Soviet times. So Kyrgyz women driving agricultural machine. 

Being a nomadic nation who not once in its history managed to build and maintain a strong state based on unity of tribes, Kyrgyz people started losing its nomadic worldview and lifestyle in 19th century after association with Russian Empire. Then there came Communist ideology-- the ideology joined in Russia. In 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union, we became an independent state and welcomed sincerely the rest of the liberal ideology and market economy. 

By 1998, due to economic hardships, people's most popular idea was that things became even worse than during the Soviet times. In the condition of information vacuum and total disappointment, those who did not fail into Muscovite or Soviet power, or did not get completely money-oriented, entered the domain of religions. By 2004, we could observe a rapid rise of religions, especially Christianity and Islam. 

Then two revolutions happened in 2005 and 2010, and that marked the rise of previous indigenous culture. So during the next 10 years, by 2014, indigenous culture got incredible popularity among all the layers of society. Over 40 big organizations emerged to work directly and professionally for a revival of indigenous culture and biocultural diversity in general. 

However, at the same time, tensions between Kyrgyz indigenous culture and Islam grew rapidly. At the end, this process brought a series of open conflicts between Muslim clergy and proponents of the movement for registration of a new Kyrgyz religion called Tengri. Tengri movement demanded from the State Commission on Religious Affairs registration of new Kyrgyz religion, but got official and justified rejection from this state body. After another series of repeated open clashes in mass media between Tengri movement and Muslim clergy, both sides strangely calmed down. 

Since 2015, we think Kyrgyzstan got to the point at which at least key public activists and leaders from both sides understood that Kyrgyz traditional culture and Islam in reality of Kyrgyzstan should be considered only as the comprehensive means for spiritual development, making society more moral, peaceful, and responsible. It was clear for all of us that attempts to use culture and religion for other purposes can have very heavy consequences. 

These are pictures to exemplify quickly this fragile but very needed consensus between religion and indigenous culture in our country. So this is the women wearing hijab but being involved in indigenous kinds of sports. This is very famous [NON-ENGLISH]. It's [NON-ENGLISH] in Islam. And he's wearing traditional Kyrgyz hat. 

This is a traditional female head covering. And it is actually not contradicting to some of the clothes of Islamic tradition. And this is just to give the general idea of the holiday prayers we have in Kyrgyzstan. 

So as I mentioned about the rise or reactivation of Kyrgyz indigenous culture in society became quite visible in 2005. Since that time, indigenous culture in our country served honorably and addressed effectively many urgent and acute needs and issues of the country. In particular, our indigenous culture became a valuable and real resource for emergency management and development. 

Further, I would like to say a couple words on that, too. So this is a picture of first revolution that happened in Kyrgyzstan-- the March revolution which was called Tulip Revolution. This is another revolution-- April, 2010-- which happened only five years after the first revolution. So this is a building, one of the buildings of law enforcement bodies. This is the state building. 

Two revolutions that took place in Kyrgyzstan in 2005 and 2010 were a big test for the country. Each revolution catalyzed and brought to the violent level the foremost dangers and most hidden conflicts in Kyrgyzstan-- government versus people, poor versus rich, ethnic Uzbeks versus ethnic Kyrgyz, south, west and north. All these conflicts together created a vast chaos and real security threat, not only for Kyrgyzstan, but also for the whole region. 

And in this situation, there were three very effective internal third parties who played a crucial role in stopping the violence and restoring peace in the country. They were custodians of indigenous culture, religious leaders, and respected elders of local communities. They all together, in various regions and in various specific situations, contributed much into stopping the chaos and violence through the power of their meditation, mediation, negotiation, consensus building, based on the respect they had from society. 

Total destruction of the governmental buildings and killing people of deposed regime were prevented. Interreligious, inter-regional, and inter-ethnic conflicts were stopped. Volunteer public order squads were organized to deal with marauding. All this was done with participation of outstanding people of local and religious communities. 

Another set of very successful roles that indigenous culture plays currently in Kyrgyzstan is the roles in development. Kyrgyz indigenous culture today helps us in developing strong and positive cultural and spiritual identity, especially among the young population. It also helps to provide economic survival and self-actualization. And it also gives us hope for long-term spiritually oriented models of development. 

A vast number of young people through indigenous networks acquire traditional values, escape problems such as addiction and violence, found self-realization through traditional arts, sports, music, and et cetera. Many community members succeed in turning culture into some business enterprises in the fields of handicraft production, agriculture, tourism, entertainment, and other fields. Some of the activists and leaders quite successfully lobbied application of traditional knowledge in legislation-- for example, in pasture management, and a whole country-scale discussion of spiritually oriented models of development. 

So ultimately, Kyrgyz traditional culture succeeded in firstly, popularization of family values, respect to elders and nature, healthy lifestyles, altruism, and et cetera. Secondly, indigenous culture helped to develop socially oriented and small-scale businesses at the grassroots community level which apply traditional culture, knowledge, and technologies. And finally and most importantly, indigenous culture today helps us to continue elaboration of spiritually oriented conceptions and models of development, culture-based criteria and indicators of development. 

The latter, in our opinion, has a special and great potential, and not only for Kyrgyzstan. Elaboration of spiritual models of development can help us not only to make systemic changes in our country, but also can help us join worldwide movements and platforms striving for alternative vision and practices of development in the conditions of global changes. 

So this is the picture of Bhutan. The picture was taken in Bhutan, and I'll explain why I showed them now. In 2014, I and several other public activists had a chance to visit such an interesting country as Bhutan. I personally was lucky to meet the leaders of National Happiness Council and learn more about the concept and practice of gross national happiness. 

At that time, Bhutan's experience was quite unique and inspiring. During the period of time from 2014 to 2016, BBC joined with the information agency Accupress, one of the biggest internet agencies in Central Asia, organized a series of public discussions on possibilities and prospects of spiritually oriented models of development in Kyrgyzstan based on indigenous culture. As a result, we could come up with a general or initial set of qualitative criteria for evaluation of foreign investment and other projects of national scale. And as you may see, they reflect the structure of the indigenous spiritual-cultural core. 

Later on, holding the Permanent Forum of Indigenous People of Pamir, Tien-Shan, and Sayan-Altai since 2014, and participation in the work of international action group on culture-based indicators of well-being helped us to continue this valuable work. And we continue this work until today. So we continue doing this. This is a collection of pictures of the Permanent Forum of Indigenous People, just to show you the idea. These are the leaders coming from almost seven indigenous people of Siberia, Pamir, and Kyrgyzstan. 

So as it is quite obvious through the experience of Kyrgyzstan, traditional culture has a vast potential today in development and peace promotion, as well as in deeply personal spiritual transformation of ordinary people. Therefore, the activities of modern revision, practical revival, and application of indigenous culture in daily life, and even introduction of principles and values of indigenous culture into existing social systems, are very important and needed today. Traditional culture gives us enormous hope for the better future because wisdom of ancestors never fades away. 

And let me finish my presentation with very wise words of a very wise man, Shaykh al-Tariqat Hazrat Azad Rasool, who wrote around 15 years ago in his book, Search for Truth, these wise words. "Today, philosophers, politicians, scientists, and social reformers are struggling to alleviate human suffering, but they are no closer to the desired goal. 

The materialistic approach divides humankind and sows the seed of mutual hatred and selfishness, leading to conflict and clashes between different interests and classes, and between the planet itself and its inhabitants-- inhabitants who are supposed to be stewards. A deep study of human nature and an exploration and investigation of the inner world of human beings will acquaint us with the true destination of man and the means for reaching it. The different creeds of religion and spirituality are nothing but elaboration of this fundamental truth." Thank you for your attention. 

DAN MCKANAN: Why don't we clap for Indira again? 

[APPLAUSE] 

INDIRA RAIMBERDIEVA: Thank you. 

DAN MCKANAN: So what we will do now is that we'll bring-- there she is, back on the screen. And Marguerite and I will come up here. And first, I'll invite the two of them to be in a little bit of conversation. And in a few minutes, we'll bring all of you into the conversation as well. So I invite either one of you to pose a question to the other or a comment. 

MARGARITA MORO: Indira, I want to ask you a question. It is tricky because we didn't prepare this, but it just came to my mind. The work that you are doing is very, very inspiring. 

And in the setting that you are, it is really creating huge change. And you didn't even talk about the conflicts with the neighboring countries, right? And I am wondering whether the people in Kyrgyzstan and some of the indigenous peoples that you are working with also have these kinds of questions on what kind of ancestors they want to be, and whether that is one of the things that grounds them, or whether they have something similar that allows them to think about the past and the future. 

INDIRA RAIMBERDIEVA: Well, I think that Central Asian indigenous peoples and indigenous peoples of Siberia-- they have much in common. And the biggest reason of that is Soviet past. And of course, I think that we are thinking about the future, but what we noticed during the forum, we noticed that all these indigenous people, all these indigenous nations, they look forward for something bigger than just revival of some separate cultural phenomena or some separate aspects of indigenous culture. They are striving for something bigger and for something with systemic changes. 

For example, those indigenous people who live in Siberia, they live, of course, in the framework of Russia. And their situation is a little bit different. And I don't know how much in the future they can reach some systemic changes maybe which will result in bringing indigenous culture in front light of policymaking. 

But we hope for better, if I understood your question. But we have much in common because we have this Soviet past. If I didn't understand your question, please clarify it if I didn't get it. 

MARGARITA MORO: It is great. Thank you, Indira. 

DAN MCKANAN: Indira, would you like to pose a question for Margarita? 

INDIRA RAIMBERDIEVA: I just would like to make a comment on Margarita's speech that was also very inspiring. And I think it was very sincere, very emotional. And I think that one point which she made is very important-- that indigenous peoples of the world today are seeking for partnership. And they are seeking for positive attention because indigenous nations, they have a lot of things to say. 

Again, this is a very complicated question-- how it happens that indigenous culture or even religious wisdom at some point of human history somehow went to-- not disappear, but somehow lost its position. And we have today this severe, hard materialism and this severe and hard rational consumerism which brought us to where we are now. So I just would like to support Margarita's words, that indigenous nations today need support, they need partnership, and they need respect. And the whole society will not regret about this partnership because this partnership in very near future will bring very good solutions to global issues that we all have. 

DAN MCKANAN: I will pose one question for each of you before we open it up wider. And I'll begin with you, Indira. In the United States, conservation efforts often focus on forested or mountainous landscapes. And so I'm very curious about what care for grasslands landscapes looks like. What are some of the specific traditional practices that are allowing the Kyrgyz people to care for grasslands and perhaps to enrich biodiversity in grasslands that have had lost some of their biodiversity? 

INDIRA RAIMBERDIEVA: Well, in Kyrgyz traditional culture, there are many technologies which allow to preserve the land. For example, you know that Kyrgyzstan is a highland. And the main specialization of our agriculture is pasture agriculture. 

So since we are nomadic, we have this pasture cattle breeding. And I think that Kyrgyz people have lots of very good technologies for pasture management. And some pasture management technologies were already accepted by the government as part of legislation on pastures. 

For example, to come to a very simple example, the nature of aboriginal cattle. Aboriginal cattle is very adapted to local conditions. And that is why we grow that there and being fed there, they are participating in circulation of all the natural materials in nature. So they do not spoil the land. And the land itself is being brought to life and developed further. 

So this cycle-- human beings, cattle, and then cattle, soil, and soil, plants-- this cycle is very important, and it preserves itself. But as soon as we take away from this picture indigenous cattle, for example, and it put another, as it was during Soviet times, another kind of cattle, this very fragile cycle or system breaks down. That what happened during Soviet times. 

Today, we cooperate with one Buryat organization. Buryat is indigenous nation living in Russia. And one of their basic focus is a revival of aboriginal cattle, aboriginal Buryat cow, which is very important because they, at this moment, are dealing with Russian meat cows, which are not good for pastures, for the types of pastures they have in their place. This is one of the examples, just to see. 

DAN MCKANAN: Thank you so much. Yes, it's really wonderful to hear how indigenous people partner with indigenous cattle breeds. Margarita, I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how indigenous guardianship works in places where indigenous communities have lost power over their land because of colonizing powers, and the land has lost much of its biodiversity. What are some of the strategies that communities are using to regain the capacity to practice their guardianship? 

MARGARITA MORO: You know, it is a really good question because the moment that you start losing your place, the moment that, in many of these places, deforestation happens or grasslands are destroyed or oceans are depleted, with those activities, also you start losing the cultural aspect. Usually, both things come together, right? 

And there are many efforts, particularly I have seen in these last couple of years here in North America, in Canada, with the tough history that indigenous peoples have, in figuring out ways on how to reconnect to the land. That is one of the key issues that you hear over and over, that when people lose connection to their land, they lose themselves. And many of us have not got that connection that our ancestors had to the land, coming back to my point that we are facing an identity crisis and a value systems crisis because we are not connected anywhere in the longer period of time. 

While our ancestors at some point, and indigenous peoples that are grounded, they know the place, but not only-- these are the places that great-grandparents shared with the great-grandchildren that they will never meet. It is this type of identity that goes over generations. And we have to be very mindful that when we carry-- there is a way of coming back, but you have to work on it. I have a colleague that is who introduced me to wonderful Indira and always talks about our ancestral memory-- that things are not fully lost. We might think that they are lost, but you have many cases of indigenous peoples where those things are brought back in the most incredible ways. 

DAN MCKANAN: Thank you. What we're going to do now is to begin the process of inviting this whole community into conversation together. But instead of immediately asking each of you to ask a question, we'd like you to take a few minutes to be in conversation with one or two people seated near to you. 

And you can talk about anything that's been stirred up by these very profound presentations. You can begin thinking about questions you might like to ask. If you wish to write a question down on a piece of paper, our staff will-- very good-- come around and take those. And during the actual question time, I will take questions both in the written form and by recognizing hands. But first, just spend a little bit of time hearing the voices of a few other people to see what is stirring in this gathering. 

Sounds like everyone's had a great conversation. I have a few questions down on paper here. And I think a few more will be coming to me. So there's still time if you were writing something, if you want to hand it to one of our folks. But also, I'll start with a question out loud. So who would like to pose the first question to one or both of our speakers? 

AUDIENCE: I'm wondering about the movement around the world to most of the population being drawn to the cities, especially in China. The villages are razed and tossed aside, and people are forced to live in these high rises. And all over the world, cities are where the action is and where the jobs are. And it's going to be harder and harder to bring the indigenous world into affecting that. 

DAN MCKANAN: Thank you. Would one of you like to start? 

MARGARITA MORO: I can start with that question. And that is one of the big questions that we make ourselves at Nia Tero because you have that phenomenon-- people living in indigenous communities that, due to education, many times have to leave, right? Or that sometimes, they need a job. And there are not income opportunities in their places, so they have to leave. 

And they go to the cities. And in the cities, sometimes they have to put aside who they are because they are not treated as they should. Racism is a big issue. And the beauty on the other side is that yes, there is this drive to move to the cities because the cities are where you find everything. 

And the cities is where you get lost, where nobody knows you. When you're coming from an indigenous community, you know everyone. Everybody knows you. You go to the cities, and suddenly, you are no one unless you have a couple of pals that know you from your place. 

And one of the things that we have been discussing more philosophically than anything is that we also live in a time where technology is helping people also stay where you have access to electric panels that you can move from place to place in a very efficient and cheap way. And where you have part of this society, like the wealthiest part of our society, they are nomads. They don't live usually in one place. They live in many places, and they manage to do it. They manage to live in different cities. 

Why not think that that is also something that these people living in places can get to do again? Like, maybe we get to the point where that is feasible again. But you are right. Cities draw people, whether it is for us, or whether it is not for us, young people are drawn to the cities. At the same time, many people want to be back to their place because that's where they belong. 

DAN MCKANAN: Indira, would you like to speak on that question of urbanization? 

INDIRA RAIMBERDIEVA: Well, I think that urbanization is really a big negative factor, actually, in being of indigenous culture. We very often discuss within our country, for example, how are you going to make contemplative meditation in a big city? Because Asian Kyrgyz would meditate in very open areas, maybe on the mountains. 

And how we can do that? I don't know-- to climb the fifth floor of the big buildings. So it's difficult, and it's a very big hit, I think. But again, indigenous culture is a very unique system of survival and development. And there are many possibilities to adapt. And I think that modern society should think about adapting. 

Maybe if some cultural phenomenon cannot exist, that we at least can take their principles-- for example, principles of relations of young generations with elder generations. So it is internal. You don't need, I don't know, some kind of a forest or other places to practice this. And then also prayer practices, for example-- you can practice them. So it doesn't require any kind of external special conditions. 

And if you take epic heritage, epic heritage is always there. The narrators in our country, maybe centuries ago, they traveled from one yurt national housing to another. But today, they came from one apartment to another. 

Or to gather a lot of people in one place-- for example, we had special tours of narrators travel the country. And they would meet in a very modern home sometimes. So that doesn't require. 

So it depends on what kind of things we're talking about from this spiritual-cultural core. But the majority of phenomena, spiritual-cultural core, can be surviving in modern conditions. I think it is not a big factor, but it is a factor. 

DAN MCKANAN: Thank you. I will read one of the questions that came up to me on paper. And the question is, "What is the relationship between religions which were brought in to indigenous communities, such as Christianity and Islam, and the indigenous religions themselves in people's lives?" 

MARGARITA MORO: So we were just talking about that. It is interesting because these big organized religions are almost everywhere. Like probably one of the places where I haven't seen them is where people in voluntary isolation live. But they are trying to reach out to them as well, right? 

And what is interesting is that in many cases, it doesn't end up being one or the other. It ends up being a mix. It ends up people figuring out a way of having both-- the parts of both that are the best for them. 

Within that, there are extremes, right? There are extremes where people are forced to believe in one way because of many, many reasons. But all together, it is beautiful to see that, despite organized religions arriving to many places, if you go a bit deeper, as long as you have certain clear aspects of the values are still there, as long as you have language-- and even when languages are lost. But those things connect you to your culture way deeper than only religion itself. 

DAN MCKANAN: Thank you. 

INDIRA RAIMBERDIEVA: Well, in Kyrgyzstan, you saw in one of my slides and in one of the sections of my presentation, I told a lot about relationships between indigenous culture, Kyrgyz nomadic culture, and Islam. That was a big issue, actually. But today, I think there is a consensus between culture and religion. As well as culture performance and religion performance keep to the basic human values, the basic wisdom that is in religion and in indigenous culture, everything should be OK. 

But the more we try to concentrate and focus on external things or more of our own distortions, then the conflicts come. And this is a very interesting thing to sort out for a society, especially in Kyrgyzstan. And I usually say that those people who are in Islam, and they have very negative attitude to indigenous culture, I tell them that you probably do not know to full extent our culture. To those in indigenous culture who say that Islam is something horrible, we don't need that, I say that you probably don't know Islam to full extent. 

Personally, I, for example, love and even work in the field of indigenous culture, but I am also Muslim. I'm a practicing Muslim. And I think that internal combination of these two systems of spirituality is very important. And the cases of such combination are growing in our country, especially in the north. 

So I think we can combine that, and there should be no complaint. And in Kyrgyzstan's case, it's coming to that, where we have this consensus-- also fragile consensus, but we are soon coming to that. But again, there are some problems, of course, and they come from distortions. And they come from aggressive people who would like to use religion and would like to use indigenous culture for their purposes-- sometimes, purposes which are very far from spirituality, which are very far from bringing common good for society. 

DAN MCKANAN: Thank you. 

AUDIENCE: Margarita, you in particular talked about place-based identity as a strong thing that people should aspire to. And as you were saying that, I have flashing in the back of my mind my sense that in America and in Europe, place-based identity currently is playing out, feels to me, as a very toxic force. And so it makes me try and think through what is the difference between what you mean by that and what people hear when they talk about such things mean by that. 

And I wonder-- maybe if I can articulate it, you could tell me if it's more not so much place-based, but first of all, ecosystem-based, more specifically. And if it isn't even more than that, not like a place where you are or a thing that you have, but a thing that you participate in, i.e., participating in a pattern of relationship to an ecosystem, if that's the thing that you mean by identity? 

MARGARITA MORO: You know that these are really good questions, and thanks for raising that. Yeah, I have seen exactly the thing that you mean. I was not talking in those terms. 

And what I am thinking about when I am talking about these anchored identities that are linked to collective territories, that are not individual identities that do not have a common long-term history in common, that have not developed their joint knowledge systems about their ecosystems, and that the year plays itself throughout thousands of years. I am thinking more of that kind of people that the place is who they are. If that place disappears, they disappear. 

When you think about white nationalism, it really doesn't matter whether they are here or whether they are in New Zealand or whether they are in Australia, right? It is exactly the same thing in terms of how they might relate to that. Well, when I am thinking about place and core identities, I am thinking of the people, as I mentioned, that it is not that their identity was formed recently through colonization, but it is whose identities has been formed for thousands of years and whose identities is so linked to their territory-- so linked to their territory-- that they know exactly what it means when a bird sings. 

I was talking to someone one day, and he was like, oh, I started seeing these ants. So now, I have to go and start planting my plant plot. And if I don't see this right amount of ants, I am not going to start doing it because I know the rains might not come. It is that deep, deep, deep, deep knowledge that it is hard to have when you are just in a place for one, two, three generations. It is the thing that you get when you are in a place for many, many, many, many generations. 

AUDIENCE: Thanks. 

MARGARITA MORO: Yeah. 

AUDIENCE: So Marguerite, you referred to partnerships. And then I didn't hear you say really any more about what kinds of partnerships. What are some positive partnerships that are out there these days that are actually working and helping? 

And then I have a second question that relates a little bit to the others. But the young leave, get educated. How do you get them back? What kind of incentives are there to bring the educated back to help preserve their communities, their cultures? So those are my two questions. 

DAN MCKANAN: And I'm going to repeat every question, even if it's specifically for Margarita, to make sure Indira is hearing. So this question, which was directed to Margarita, had two parts. The first was a request for more specific examples of the kinds of positive partnerships being cultivated. And the second is, how do indigenous communities re-engage those younger members who have traveled to further places for their education? 

MARGARITA MORO: Yeah. So going to the first question, and there are some examples, and there are wonderful organizations that are doing this. In my role at Nia Tero, which is a fairly new organization that was established with the mission to secure indigenous guardianship of vital ecosystems, how we are thinking about partnerships is ensuring that through all of our actions, we are leveling the field because there is always a power dynamic. That is unavoidable. But you have to give part of your power away actively in order for that level field to be better, to level the field. 

The other thing that we are really pushing for is not for us to decide, like, no, we as an organization are not necessarily the ones that are going to be working directly day to day with an indigenous group. But we are going to stand with them in good times and in the difficult times. And that means that we are going to trust them, and we are going to let them choose who they want to work with in order to achieve some of their vision of well-being-- their self-determined vision of their well-being-- based on their priorities. And we are happy to support those organizations that they choose. 

So it moves away from us defining an organization that is here in the US or in other countries that tells you, like, oh, these people are great, to more like, OK, let's meet the people. Let's develop our relationship. And let's see who they want to work with so that we fulfill our mission of relinquish power. 

And they also get stronger in deciding what kind of relationships they want to have with us, but also with the other organizations that are in their environment because it is not that anyone alone can do this. And it is also not that one organization alone can do this. We need a lot of organizations, hundreds of organizations, changing the way they work with indigenous peoples to succeed. And then the second question was? 

AUDIENCE: How can you bring the educated back in? 

MARGARITA MORO: You know, it is such a complex situation. It is such a complex situation. And I don't have an answer. It would be wonderful to have that answer. 

But I was talking with an indigenous leader from Brazil recently. I don't know if you read that Brazil elected their first indigenous person for congress, for the federal congress. And she had been advising us for a while. And we were talking about this. 

And she told us a while, while back, our elders were super eager to send our kids to university. And they made this huge effort to establish those links with local universities and ensure that people got to secondary school and for them to get scholarships. But now, they are questioning themselves whether that was the right strategy because they leave. 

And they would love to come. Not all of them, but many people want to go back because life in the city is nice at some point, but it is super challenging on the other side. But if they then have an option, it is hard for them to return. 

And then I was talking with another leader from another country, actually from Ecuador. And he was telling me that his elders told him it is a bad idea for you to go to university. We don't want this. We don't want this, like, a while back, right? This is not a good idea. 

And they pushed-- the younger generation pushed and was like, yes, we want to do this. We want to do this. And then they went to university. And now, they have a couple of leaders that, through that process, think that the Western perspective is better and that mining should be an option. 

And most of the population is like, what did we do? The others were right. We should have listened to them more widely than we listened to them. So it is hard. 

But it is clear that you need indigenous people that know, well, there are options. And if they want to go to university, that they can have a clear picture of what does it mean for them in the future-- that they have those discussions on, like, OK, with so many people educated, will they come back? Will our villages be afterwards totally empty? 

Or that I have a third case, where an indigenous community is as well paying for the higher education of their kids. But they sign a contract. It's all done internally and with very strict bylaws. They sign a contract that they have to come back. They can only be out for five years. 

And when kids turn 18, they have one year to decide whether they want to belong to the community in the long run or not. They have to decide that before they turn 19. If they decide that they don't want to be part of the community, they lose a lot of the social cohesion that the community has. 

If they want to go to university, I think that they give them like four years or five years. Like, OK, go. They finance that because they have been very successful on the business side. 

But they have to come back. And if they don't come back, they have to pay every single dime that they did. So people now are creative. And indigenous peoples are trying to figure out ways. There is no one solution. 

INDIRA RAIMBERDIEVA: Yeah, I just would like to add a couple of things. I just would like to say a short comment about partnership of international philanthropic organizations with indigenous communities. From 2005 around, a number of big philanthropists entered Central Asia with their programs and support of biocultural diversity and revival of tradition and culture. 

And that was a very good partnership because these organizations came in the conditions when we had no resources because with post-Soviet countries, in economic terms, of course, the situation was very hard. And this partnership, I think, was very effective. But today, for example, if you go back to this partnership from this 14 years' perspective, today we see that this partnership should be with time transformed into something bigger. 

Before, many philanthropists, they supported revival of some separate cultural phenomena, some separate aspects of traditional culture. But today, I think that philanthropists should move forward with that help and maybe to transform to something bigger. And by this, actually, I mean investing into consolidation activities-- all of these indigenous people of the region-- investing into development of more conceptual things, more things related to long-term development models based on indigenous culture, not only this separate phenomena-- for example, epic heritage, or writing the books, and making research on particular cultural phenomena. 

So these are things that are already in the past, at least in Kyrgyzstan. Today, for example, Kyrgyzstan needs maybe to step forward and to see how indigenous cultures can become the basis for something bigger for development, not just being culture itself. Because in my analysis, I showed that indigenous culture today is one of the biggest resources that we can play out, and we can help with, not only our situation, but also the situation in the world. So that's it. 

As for bringing people, young people studying abroad, for example, living in better conditions, to local communities, I think this is about, we all know, a personal choice. And for example, in Kyrgyzstan, maybe we cannot give good incentives anyway. So if the person decides to serve his own nation, and in his or her consciousness, develop at that level, when you understand that you have to live maybe beyond your ego motives, right? You have to serve something better and to help other people. 

If the person comes to that level, he or she will return anyway. And we saw a lot of young people who realized all their ambitions abroad. And then they came back already successful. And they helped in terms of business, for example, or in terms of their expertise, or in terms of just being a member of community and serving his or her nation in a personal way. 

DAN MCKANAN: Thank you. 

AUDIENCE: I actually admire what you two are doing. But what comes to my mind-- OK, I'm a writer-- is I have this impression of terrible poverty and suffering associated with these groups. I hope I'm wrong. That is my impression. What do you have to say about that? And in preserving them, you preserve the terrible suffering or poverty. Is that true? 

DAN MCKANAN: So Indira, I'll just repeat the question. And she said that when she thinks about indigenous communities, she often immediately thinks about the extreme poverty and suffering that many indigenous communities are experiencing in her perception. And she's wondering, is that a correct perception? And if so, how does it fit, then, with efforts to preserve traditional ways of life? 

MARGARITA MORO: Do you want to answer that first, Indira? 

INDIRA RAIMBERDIEVA: No, please go ahead. Yeah, your English is more faster. 

MARGARITA MORO: Yeah. It is such an interesting perspective-- this perspective of-- there has been these quests from the west to save the others and to define that the others must be suffering if they are not as us. And there are places with indigenous communities that suffer deeply, deeply, deeply, deeply. And a lot of that suffering has to do with colonialism and with the history and how they were treated. 

As I told you, I am not from this region. I have mostly worked in the tropics. And when I came here to the US and started learning about the history of Native Americans and the histories of First Nations in Canada, I was appalled. And a lot of what you see in terms of alcohol abuse, domestic abuse, et cetera, it is not because of poverty itself, in terms of money. It is because they lost all connection to land. 

People in this part of the world and in many other parts of the world as well were moved from the place that they knew and loved somewhere else. And not only that, I couldn't believe that in Canada and in the '90s, children were taken, sent to boarding schools. I have a boy. This is why I cry. 

Kids in some places, parents in some other places, up to grandparents and great-grandparents were beaten because they spoke their language. Poverty is not them being poor. It is brought by us by not letting people be who they want. 

And yes, it is a challenge in terms of people wanting better lives. And that is totally their right. If that is what they want, that is their right. But in my experience, I have found some of the most beautiful, the happiest people ever, in those communities, to the point that I wish my son will have the opportunities to explore and sense and be and at least live a bit of that life because that's something that, I assure you, none of us has. 

DAN MCKANAN: Indira? 

INDIRA RAIMBERDIEVA: Well, that's kind of a sad question, I think, in a way. But I think that the notion or the concept of poverty is a quite wide concept. What do you mean by poverty? Do you mean economic poverty? Or do you mean poverty spiritual? 

So if you mean economic poverty, of course, the situation of many indigenous people of the world, I think, is very hard. And I understand Margarita's emotions. But as for the Kyrgyzstan, I can say again that in our country, indigenous culture by itself became a very good source for overcoming this poverty. 

And it depends on how you look at this. If you use indigenous culture as a resource-- maybe in our country. I'm not going and analyzing examples of other faraway countries' indigenous cultures. But in Kyrgyzstan, many people who were left completely with no means of living, they used indigenous culture, and they built very solid businesses. They've become very successful. 

So I think that in Kyrgyzstan, it is not the case of poverty. But also it is the case of gaining dignity and prosperity to your indigenous culture. And I think that in Kyrgyzstan, conditions of this, we cannot do that-- pessimistic about indigenous culture. 

But even in the communities where poverty is very strong, I think if you look at those communities, the majority of indigenous communities there is spiritual richness. I have met a lot of leaders from indigenous communities. And even if they live in poor conditions economically, they are very strong personalities. Maybe God wanted them to live in those tests or conditions, so they become stronger spiritually. So being pitiful about poverty in indigenous cultures-- I think it is a little bit a limited vision of the situation. 

DAN MCKANAN: If I could just add, connecting to what Indira was sharing earlier about the idea of Gross National Happiness as it's been developed in Bhutan and shared with many other places, including Kyrgyzstan, I think that provides a model that helps get a richer sense of this because it's looking at the multiple dimensions that go into well-being of people instead of a sort of one-dimensional model, where you assume a group of people is suffering if their economic activity is low and their market-based economic activity is low, and happy if it's high. It provides a much richer model that doesn't exclude the economic, but sees it in the context of everything else. 

MARGARITA MORO: Just to add-- 

INDIRA RAIMBERDIEVA: Yes, I agree with that, actually. That's a good reminder. So poverty actually in general is not absence of happiness. Economic well-being is not the ultimate indicator of your happiness. And Bhutan and other countries actually proved that. 

If you take all those indicators that are stated in Gross National Happiness concept, you can see that the time that mother can spend with her children, the fresh air that you can breathe, fresh meat, milk that you can eat every day, the time that you have at your disposal-- you don't have to rush, and you don't have to be always busy making money or something like that-- so these are the parameters of happiness that are maybe not covered by the notion of poverty. So it's something different. 

And that is the problem, actually, today. That if you think that indigenous cultures and indigenous people are poor economically, that means again, you say that material stuff is more important than your spirituality. What we are trying to-- not to prove, but to bring up to the whole world that your spiritual condition actually defines your well-being. 

That's very important because that is the basic problem which started with the loss of the spiritual mind's aspiration consciousness. That is why we are in the condition today. We wanted more. We wanted more economies, more money, more things. I don't know-- more possibilities. That's why we are in the condition we are today. 

AUDIENCE: Thank you very much for the wonderful sharing. So there's more questions for Indira. So in one of your slides, you mentioned Kyrgyz spiritual-cultural core. Can you tell us what's the difference between spirit and culture? 

And also, elaborate what does it mean by transcendental phenomena? What's the difference between spiritual health and psycho-spiritual health? And how can we actually incorporate them in our life? 

INDIRA RAIMBERDIEVA: Well, the difference between these four levels are very conditional, actually. And I think, in a way, it is theoretical. But we just wanted-- we divided this spirit and soul level or energetic and psycho-energetic levels just to show different cultural phenomena. 

For example, in Kyrgyz traditional culture, there is such a phenomena as a loud narration of an epos-- Manas. This is the phenomenon when the person is gifted. So the narrator is gifted. And he does not memorize all this epos material. He just knows that because it is gifted through the dreams. And there is a whole difficult process of initiation. 

So in order to divide that kind of phenomena, we made this energetic level. And the difference-- this kind of phenomena, for example, transcendental music, there are special musical instruments which put you into altered state of consciousness. That's a very different state of consciousness than the person really reached the transcendental condition. 

So that's why this is the level where we talk about purely a connection to something transcendental, purely energetic. You don't recognize that. That effect really goes into you. You just have to be in the presence of the epos narrator. You have to be in the presence of the musician. So this is the level. 

The second, psycho-energetic health, here we mean the spiritual practices which you can do by yourself. You can submerge yourself-- so your contemplative practices, meditation, prayers, and things like that. So they are not automatic. Here, you have to do it. 

And it is a kind of a, how do you say, psycho-energetic because it is related also to a less subtle level of your consciousness, to your self-consciousness, which is not your spirit, actually. So in indigenous language, you divide-- there is a spirit. There is something that really shapes when you listen to your music, listen to your narrators. There's something that is not your self-consciousness. 

But self-consciousness is something more materialized form of spirit. And that is why these practices build on this level. So these practices work on activation of this level. So I don't know if maybe because of the language limitations, I cannot really explain that. Can you also clarify again the question? What else would you like to know about this? 

DAN MCKANAN: I think you got exactly what he was looking for. Thank you. We are almost out of time. I have one question that I've been neglecting here on paper for Margarita. Could you say a little bit more about your idea of an identity as map and how you would use colors and what you would try to develop with that map? 

MARGARITA MORO: And that is a tough one, right? In the last months, in the last year and a half, when we started this idea about Nia Tero, one of the first things that they told us was like, oh, you're talking about indigenous peoples. So show us in the map where they are. And there is not yet such a map because it is a very complex issue. 

People think about cultural identity. And what does it mean? Does mean your religion? Does it mean the food that you eat? Does it mean your territory? 

In our case, we have been thinking a lot about territories that are held collectively. And that map does not-- a full map of that does not exist. You find parts of it, but the full map is nonexistent. And it will never be completed in a way. 

What is beautiful is that at least there is the willingness to advance on that, respecting that some people, some indigenous people, do not want their territories to be in that map because that might be a liability for them politically or spiritually or in many different ways. And for others on the other side, having such a map would be such a powerful tool to say, we exist. It lies broadly from one place to the other. 

But yeah, what is clear is that you have these identities that are beautiful and that are linked to those places profoundly. They are not linked to those places just because we are right now, but they have been linked to those places for generations, where people jointly have managed those territories in a way that makes sense to them. They have evolved their spirituality. They have evolved their wisdom. 

They have evolved their relationships with one another and to the place in a way that 95% of us-- sometimes, it is hard for us to grasp or understand what it actually means. And that is the kind of identity that grounds us, that ensures that we have value systems that are attached to those places in that larger perspective of time. Not in the immediate time, I am afraid of outsiders because they are going to take something from me, but it is more like that deep, deep, deep knowledge and connection to that place and that deep identity. 

But it would be beautiful to have to show how incredibly diverse we are as human beings. And that is only the 5%. Imagine how we were before, where it was way more than that 5%. 

If you are interested, one of them to show-- at least there are two items that I know of to show more broadly this global map. One of them came out a few years ago, and it is about the languages. Where are indigenous languages? If you Google that, you are going to find a political map. 

And the other one came out recently, which is where are indigenous peoples-- where they are. And that has been that really difficult map to make. And there's a lot of people not fully agreeing on it. But it shows you how much of the Earth is in their hands, luckily. 

DAN MCKANAN: Thank you. I'd like to invite each speaker to just take a minute or two to share any concluding thoughts, pulling together what is moving on you in this conversation. And Margarita, why don't you go first? 

MARGARITA MORO: What I am feeling is that, yeah, I am grateful-- grateful for you to come, grateful for you to listen, grateful for you to ask questions, grateful for you to think about these issues that sometimes we just don't think about. I personally have learned a lot in the last years. It has been a deep, deep, deep learning experience for me. 

And I think it is so important to share because it is hard for people to understand the context of people that live far away. And yeah, what I want here is to just give you a glimpse and maybe get you interested in learning more about these topics because you are going to get inspired. There are some amazing things that, if you don't get inspired-- you have to keep googling because you will find something that is really going to inspire you. So yeah, what I want to say is thank you for coming. And thank you for listening and bearing with me. 

DAN MCKANAN: Thank you. Indira? 

INDIRA RAIMBERDIEVA: I just wanted to say that in indigenous culture, there is one very particularly important aspect. And I think that this aspect is intrinsic not only to indigenous cultures, but also to all the regions. And this aspect is spiritual practices. And I would recommend to all of us that we pay much attention to this aspect because only through daily spiritual practices, our hearts awaken, and we can perceive reality in true perspective. 

Because the problem with modern society is that we rely too much on our minds. We ask too many questions, and we perceive too many things through mind, and yet really wrong answers. But if you see the majority of real good indigenous leaders or really good religious practitioners, you see the calmness in their eyes. And you see that understanding of things in a true perspective. And maybe that understanding is the most important thing. So that is why I would hope that we pay attention to those kind of aspects, to the tacit assets of our culture and religions. 

And thank you very much for inviting me to join this very interesting meeting. I am sorry that I have that limitation with English because I have not been practicing, although I studied in the US a long, long time ago. But I did not practice English for many years because I was involved in local communities' activities. 

So good luck to all of you, and I think that your community is very important for indigenous culture, for indigenous people in the world, and for general transformation of our understanding of the world, because people like you will go to various aspects, various organizations, to various structures, international organizations. And we all together can make change. Thank you. 

[APPLAUSE] 

DAN MCKANAN: Thank you both so much for such a rich evening, where we were learning new things in every moment. It's just a wonderful gift. 

MARGARITA MORO: Thank you. 

DAN MCKANAN: And now, I'd like to invite Dean David Hempton back up for a few bits of business related to the RPP. 

DAVID HEMPTON: Many thanks to Margarita and Indira again for sharing these wonderful experiences and expertise. And to Dan, thank you so much for moderating so thoughtfully and professionally. And I suppose like you, I left with some big questions that were set out for us. 

What kind of ancestors will we be? is a great question. And what kind of well-being and happiness do we value? What are the connections between place and culture and spirituality and identity and well-being and spiritual practices and perspective? How to bring all of those things together. 

I think someone said that this is a steep learning curve. And it has been a steep learning curve I think for us this evening to encounter indigenous cultures that are not often in the tops of our minds. So thank you both very much. And thank you, Dan also. 

If you can bear with me just for a few minutes just to deal with some important business about the RPP. We'd like to give you just a few minutes to fill out the survey that you have in your dinner bags. So we do this twice a year to receive your input, which is tremendously important for us. 

Great, thank you so much. We have a little bit of extra time after I finish out the announcements. Just as we began with a very short moment of silence, we'd like to have another short moment of silence just to reflect a little bit on what we've heard tonight, either in meditation or prayer or mindfulness. Thank you. 

If you have ideas or concerns that you weren't able to raise at the session or mention in the survey, feel free to tell us afterwards, or drop them in the basket that will be on the table up front, right here. And we are very grateful that you attended our RPP events this year. Thank you for a wonderful year of our colloquium. 

Over the summer, you may wish to check out the resources on the RPP website, which include a brief bibliography, feature articles, videos of RPP colloquium sessions from the past five years, which is a very rich archive, and more. So do please feel free to visit that website. You will also find more information there on the Sustainable Peace Initiative, including a few resources that we welcome you adapt for use in your own institutions and communities, wherever they are. So we hope you will consider doing so and help catalyze a much-needed global trend as you extend your circles of influence. 

Another resource on our website are videos of students and fellows from across the Harvard schools and many countries discussing the impact of RPP programming on their growth as transformative leaders in a wide variety of professional fields. And we'll be adding some more of those over the summer. If you haven't yet done so, please be sure to join the RPP mailing list to receive announcements of all our future activities. 

So since this is our final spring session, I'd like especially once again to give a special thanks to our RPP team for all their work behind the scenes and their graceful hosting of us at our events throughout the year. And I'd like to pay a particular tribute to Liz, who has brought-- 

[APPLAUSE] 

So thank you, all of you, for what you've brought to us. It's been a remarkably rich year. Thank you for all the energy, creativity, intellectual leadership, connections, and spirituality you've brought to our proceedings. So now, please join us for a reception with tea and refreshments in the lobby. 

And the Harvard Coop will have books for sale right outside of Sperry. So we wish you all a good night and a happy and peaceful summer. And we have a gift for Margarita which we'd love to pass on to you as a memento of your time with us. Thank you. 

[APPLAUSE] 

[GUITAR MUSIC PLAYING]