Pine Ridge, SD – On the evening of Sunday, October 6, the Lakota People’s Law Project hosted a climate change forum including a youth panel with Tokata Iron Eyes, who is a local Indigenous rights advocate and youth climate activist, as well as Swedish youth climate activist Greta Thunberg.

Watch highlights from the panel conversation below:

In August 2018, Thunberg started protesting in front of the Swedish parliament every school day for three weeks while holding up a sign saying (in Swedish) “School strike for climate.” Other students joined in and they organized a school climate strike movement called #FridayForFuture. Since then, Thunberg’s strides toward calling for world leaders to take action on climate change have inspired international action.

On September 20, 2019, youth from around the world including Thunberg led a massive coordinated strike from school to protest government and business inaction on climate change. Throughout the following week, international climate strike actions took place.

Topics discussed during the panel with Thunberg and Iron Eyes included the Dakota Access Pipeline, the Keystone XL Pipeline and their negative impacts on the climate.

Both Iron Eyes and Thunberg also did a second panel at Standing Rock High School on the reservation in Fort Yates, North Dakota.

Watch Unicorn Riot’s full HD recording of the panel conversation below:

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