One River, Ethics Matters gathers leaders

 

The 12th and final One River, Ethics Matter Conference (OREM-12) will be an international gathering of Indigenous and faith leaders, scholars and environmental ethicists, policymakers and scientists, gathering to address the impacts of climate change on the Columbia River watershed as communities adjust to changing national policies.

It will be held from 8:30 a.m. to noon, Thursday and Friday, Nov. 12 and 13, on Zoom so it is accessible for Canadians reluctant to come south of the border and co-sponsors at Yale University.

Hosts are the Upper Columbia United Tribes (UCUT) and Washington State University (WSU), and sponsors include Yale University's Forum on Religion and Ecology, the Sierra Club and the Columbia Institute.

Gathering after the midterm elections, participants will determine how to work in challenging times and what are next steps in moving forward to protect and restore the international Columbia River and the river's life.

Beginning in 2014, the OREM conference series has facilitated international ethics consultations each year on the "critically ill" Columbia River. Speakers have shared about the multi-generational trauma resulting from dams flooding their traditional lands, blocking the journey of salmon between spawning grounds and the ocean and ending many Indigenous spiritual and cultural traditions.

The inspiration for OREM came from the work to modernize the 1964 international Columbia River Treaty after 50 years of damming the river for flood control, irrigation and power. Indigenous, faith, academic, environmental and other community voices sought to include Indigenous sovereigns at the treaty-negotiating table for restoring salmon runs and the health of the damaged Columbia River as co-equal with power and flood control.

The focus has been on Indigenous Tribes and First Nations related to individual and communal trauma that resulted in international PTSD, flooded sacred lands, boarding schools, missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, and the loss of and threat to the Tribes' first foods.

Collaborating with faith leaders, academic scholars and Indigenous people, John Osborn, a physician 41 years on staff at the Spokane and Seattle Veterans Administration Medical Center, recruited a team who brought together three processes in ethics.

Those are 1) the 2001 Catholic Bishops Pastoral Letter on the Columbia River Watershed: Caring for Creation and the Common Good, which set the frame for a spiritual, social, ecological transformative process; 2) medical ethics as a consultative process, and 3) the Truth and Reconciliation healing process from South Africa.

Catholic Bishop Emeritus William Skylstad was at Gonzaga University to open the first conference and will give the opening prayer for the Nov. 12 session.

"We have used the OREM efforts to encourage that decisions about the river be based on ethical principles," said John. "That work is ongoing.

"We will not have enduring solutions to conflicts over the Columbia River until decisions are grounded in ethical principles of justice, righting historic wrongs and fair allocation of limited resources, stewardship and self-determination," John explained.

"In the ER, when caring for patients incapable of making decisions, we seek surrogates who know their values. For fisheries and the river who have no voice, who best speaks for them? The answer is Indigenous people who have lived with salmon and the river from time immemorial," John emphasized.

Conference participants continually have called for Indigenous surrogate decisionmakers for the river and fisheries to be at the treaty negotiation table to avoid further river destruction and salmon extinction.

While the conference series will end Nov. 13, the efforts will continue because the Columbia River Pastoral Letter is a living document and the people who live along the Columbia River will continue to advocate for stewardship of the land and water.

Although the series is ending, John said its scope has been significant as it has met in Spokane 2014, Portland 2015, Boise 2016, Revelstoke 2017, Missoula 2018, Castlegar 2019, the Estuary 2020, Okanagan 2021 and Spokane 2022. OREM joined with the Universities Consortium on Columbia River Governance for regional water and ethics conferences virtually in 2023 and at Gonzaga University in 2024. The 2026 conference will be virtual. There are short documentary films from most of the OREM gatherings.

With treaty negotiations on the shelf and the U.S.-Canadian relationship "a mess," John said it's time to discuss "how to do good work in hard times, which is a question Indigenous people have been struggling with for a long time."

Negotiators had reached an imperfect agreement in principle before the 2024 election, but negotiations are no longer happening. In addition, with recent changes in the cross-border relationship, including tariffs, border economies are hurting.

The Columbia, as an international river, compels both the U.S. and Canada to work together to address threats to its life and the people who live on the river. The risks of salmon extinction and climate change compel stewardship, responsibility and the ethical duty to work together, John believes.

"That's not happening now," he said, but "the question is, given climate change and changes in national policies, how do we move forward with what needs to be done?

"On the personal level, I have met many wonderful people," said John, who was inspired by meeting Bishop Skylstad in 2001 and Indigenous and academic leaders at a 2012 conference by the Universities Consortium on Columbia River Governance in Polson, Mont.

He learned about the Tribes' interest in working with NGOs on the Columbia River Treaty.

From there, John and his wife, Rachel, worked with Eileen Delehanty Pearkes, Gerry Nellestijn, Pat Ford, Martin Carver and many others to create the Columbia River Roundtable that convened in November 2013 in Nelson, B.C. It still meets monthly. They connect with civil organizations and Indigenous sovereigns interested in environmental concerns and restoring salmon.

Out of his interest in the pastoral letter and medical ethics, John had asked whether the Indigenous sovereign nations would support an ethics conference. Their answer was yes.

John met with Lutheran pastor Tom Soeldner, who had done pastoral work in South Africa as the apartheid government was dying and in Namibia during the first years of independence, giving him first-hand experience with the Truth and Reconciliation Process.

The first conference, hosted by UCUT and Gonzaga University, brought together the pastoral letter's process for transformation, the consultation process used in medical ethics and the truth and reconciliation process for healing and dialogue.

The programs have followed the sections of the Catholic Bishops' Pastoral Letter: "Rivers of Our Moment," "Rivers through Our Memory," "Rivers of Our Vision" and "Rivers as Our Responsibility."

"It has been an incredible life journey to meet so many committed Indigenous, faith and academic leaders throughout the region and beyond," said John.

"I have learned to see the world through the eyes of people who have lived with the river from time immemorial, to learn of the impact of the Oregon Treaty in 1846 that drew an international boundary across a river watershed on traditional lands of Indigenous people," he said.

"When it comes to the river and salmon, both are sacred. People will put aside differences to bring home the salmon," he said. "It is always hard to put aside entrenched differences, but that is what the salmon and river need to survive and flourish."

John has compiled a summary web page to access all the films at ethicsmatters.org/orem-summary.

"Now we need to bring together all of what we have learned to inform those who come after us of the ongoing challenges and decisions," he said, considering whether that might be in a documentary film, scholarly paper or book.

"The work is not done," he concluded. "We will continue to encourage dialogue across the border to restore our special relationship with our neighbors, the land and waters."

As part of that, John is involved with the Peace Arch Dialogues to restore civil dialogue between Canada and the U.S., focusing on transboundary waters.

For information on the conference, visit ethicsmatters.org/orem-12.