Season 3, Episode 11: Free

In the first 2026 edition of Climate Action Figures, host John Whidden interviews Free Borsey. They discuss the YUKA app for assessing health impacts of food and cosmetics, Free's podcast series on indigenous and western sciences, the Land Back movement, and the importance of inclusive climate action.

00:00 Introduction and Welcome

00:34 QuickFix: Eco-Friendly App Recommendation

01:18 Interview with Free: YUKA App Insights

02:45 Cultural Survival Program and Indigenous Knowledge

05:12 Understanding Indigenous Terminology and Borders

11:01 Land Back Movement and Environmental Stewardship

14:45 Indigenous Wisdom in Climate Crisis

23:32 Personal Connection to Environmental Activism

25:22 Free's Climate Action and Final Thoughts

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Transcript

Free 0:05

You are here on Climate Action Figures. Welcome.

John 0:18

Hello, and welcome to the very first 2026 edition of Climate Action Figures. My name is John Whidden, and this week on the show you get to meet Free. But first, this week's QuickFix, and if you do something simple in your life that's a win for the environment, please send it in and we will use it on a future episode. This time it was Linda from Buffalo Lake who said: download the free YUKA app on your smartphone. Scan the barcode of any food or cosmetic, and get an analysis of whether it is good or bad and why. This company out of France is not sponsored in any way, Linda says, so they only profit if you upgrade the app, which is only necessary if you wish to support them. Very people and environmentally friendly. So thank you very much for that interesting tip on an app, Linda, and welcome Free.

Free 1:19

Thank you. Thank you for having me. thank you so much, Linda, for sharing that wonderful resource

John 1:24

Have you heard of it? Free? You know about it.

Free 1:26

Yeah, I've actually used YUKA for years now. I got invested in what I was. Uh, putting in my body, and came across the YUKA app and not only is it really helpful and beneficial for your health, but it's really fun to just go in and scan a barcode and see what additives and stuff are in there and gives high level descriptions on, these things that you're putting in your body and how they affect your body. It's amazing.

John 1:52

That sounds great. Okay, so I go into the, let's say the grocery store, and I see my item, I scan its barcode on YUKA, and then it'll pop up and give me like a rating on it. How does it, what does it look like?

Free 2:03

Yeah. So it scores from zero to a hundred. Uh, in health, a hundred being the healthiest, zero being, uh, the most unhealthy. And it, it grades on sugar, sodium, but also like the additives, preservatives, and other, things that are put into your food.

John 2:19

Linda mentioned cosmetics as well. Is it mostly, in your life, used for food?

Free 2:24

Yeah, I, actually had a hard time finding anything healthy at the supermarket, or not the supermarket, at a gas station.

John 2:31

Okay, that makes sense.

Free 2:33

app, and I'm like trying to find stuff to eat and drink, and there's just, it's like 0, 0, 0,

John 2:40

So hot tip from Free: don't buy your groceries at the gas station.

Free 2:44

Yeah.

John 2:45

Well shout out here to Byron Tenesaca who connected us and, uh, he mentioned that you were involved in the Cultural Survival Program. If you don't mind, tell us a bit about that.

Free 2:55

Yeah. So I had dreamed up doing this plant podcast series for, uh, several years now, and when I joined the Young and Indigenous Podcast team. we needed funding to support the vision for the Plants Podcast series and the survival cultural survival youth fellowship opportunities opened up. I applied, ended up getting a, uh, chunk of money to support the project, and I created a seven episode podcast series, uh, bridging indigenous knowledge keepers and non-indigenous knowledge keepers, in a way to show that native science and western sciences can work together, so I worked with local organizations like Nooksack Salmon Enhancement Association, who plants 80,000 to a hundred thousand plants a year; massive restoration projects. And then really grassroot, Indigenous, community members who go out and harvest medicines. And, uh, they do it in a very ceremonial way. And I ask questions about spirit and spirit and science and bridging that and it came really natural to, to all of them because when you're spending time in nature and you're spending time out in the real world and you're learning from from nature, it's hard to not feel that spiritual presence. The whole podcast series came together really well. And, uh, I got really lucky actually. I reached out to Robin Wall Kimmerer the author of Braiding Sweetgrass. I reached out to her in fan mail, told her I'm a big fan, told her I'm working on on this series, and she ended up getting back to me and we got to record the final episode. And so she's actually the cherry on top. And

John 4:43

Wow.

Free 4:43

better to talk about bridging indigenous and western sciences than her? Right.

John 4:50

Yet another plug for Robin Wall Kimmerer. This is amazing. If you haven't read Braiding Sweetgrass, it needs to be on your to-do list for sure. It is brilliant stuff. Wouldn't you agree?

Free 5:01

Absolutely. I go back to it all the time.

John 5:04

Especially for settlers, I have to say, because it really helped me to understand the First Nations way of seeing the world. Now I have so many questions for you. The first one is, I always say First Nations, I have yet to hear you use those words in our conversation. So is that, is that, uh, not a way you would refer to yourself?

Free 5:25

Yeah, so I would actually refer to myself as, uh, first and foremost, uh, Lummi. that is the nation I come from, I come from the Lummi Nation here in the Pacific Northwest, but Lummi Nation is Native American. So Native American is a politically correct term for referring to Indigenous people here in the Lower 48. Then when talking about. Um, First Nation, what I usually think of is, uh, Canadian or Indigenous Canadians. So it's

John 5:57

its just a politically

Free 5:58

correct way of saying it. Uh,

John 6:00

So First Nations is a, is a Canadian thing, and we didn't realize it, eh?

Free 6:04

Eh, but I also do have First Nation Descendancy from, uh, We Wai Kai First Nation up in Campbell River, uh, British Columbia.

John 6:15

You have a real interest. We talked before the program about borders and how fake how false. I don't know what the right word is, uh, contrived these lines are that we've drawn on a map, and so, you know, you say, well, my heritage is north of the border and south of the border, but really, who cares about the border? Right?

Free 6:34

I've started learning this term recently. It's called Trans Boundary Governance. And for me, it hits really close to home because Lummi Nation is right on the border. We're considered a borderlands tribe. And so when that arbitrary boundary was, uh, put in place, it cut us in half. It cut us our lineage in half our heritage, in half our relatives from the north, you know, couldn't come down here and we couldn't go up there for a long time. And there's still a lot of difficulty traveling, there's people in our communities that can't cross that border and practice ceremony or access traditional territories up there and vice versa. There's another term that I, uh, learned recently and it's called Upstream Neighbour. So when talking about like political decisions that are made right across that boundary, they still impact us. You know, the salmon don't know the borders and the water doesn't recognize these borders. And so whatever pollutants that, um, are released, expelled down here or up there, we're going to affect each other and impact each other. Or the fish farms are another great example of a negative impact on, on our natural, our native salmon species here. Back in 2018, I believe there was a huge. Oh, don't quote me on the date, but there was a huge, uh, Atlantic salmon spill from the fish farms up north that actually leaked down into our territories. And thankfully our fishermen were able to respond accordingly and, and catch a lot of that salmon, but that, that spill caused a lot of damage, uh, especially to our, our native species. So those borders, they are arbitrary and they're only recognized in policy. But in the real world, you know, the, the impacts are here and present in our lives.

John 8:26

Right. And in this day and age, uh, we were just talking in the program a few weeks ago about the intense water use of AI and, and so we're gonna be starting to have water shortages, and if we happen to be upstream of our neighbours, then do we take all the water and leave nothing? Of course we shouldn't, but that's gonna be an issue for sure.

Free 8:45

Absolutely.

John 8:46

So just going back to the podcast, uh, you got funding for it through cultural survival, is that right?

Free 8:52

Yeah, so the podcast actually has existed, uh, even before I started working at Children of the Setting Sun Productions, where I presently work as the environmental stewardship specialist. And I joined the podcast team a little bit after I started working here solely so I could produce this series, but there's a bunch of other amazing podcast episodes on there. So I highly recommend it. Young and Indigenous podcast, we interview people like Oren Lyons and other amazing figures doing incredible work out there. We've got salmon people stories from all over the Pacific Northwest and yeah, just an incredible, uh, platform for, for storytelling and from young people, you know, young people just curious, uh, how they can get involved, how we can, find solutions for a better future.

John 9:47

Well, we will definitely put a link to that podcast in the show notes. So if, if someone wanted to give it a listen, where would you suggest we start with Robin Wall Kimmerer in your last episode? Or where, where should we begin to get us hooked into that podcast series?

Free 10:00

When I started listening to it, I just went right to the beginning. Uh, and I loved hearing and seeing the growth of the podcast. Um, but if you're really intentional about environmental work, or, uh, maybe you're a salmon champion, the podcast episodes are titled pretty adequately and appropriately. So you can actually just go through and kind of see what you're interested in. Um, I was the first one to ever do a series on the podcast, so I'm one of two series on the podcast. So for me I would hope that you would start with episode one of plants and then go through to episode seven. and for me, that's the way I, I produced it, uh, was meant to kind of have episode seven, be the cherry on top or like it, the, the conclusion,

John 10:53

So save that for dessert.

Free 10:55

Yes. Yes.

John 10:57

That link will definitely be in the show notes and I will be giving that a listen for sure. Now, another topic we talked about, uh, before we started recording that is close to your heart, is"Land Back". And I know that several of our audience members are interested in this because they've shared that with me. Uh, can you define that for us and just fill us in on how that is so important to you?

Free 11:17

Yeah, I've wrestled with this term Land Back for a long time you always hear, you know, the first response to Land Back is: Oh, the Natives want their Land Back and the White people have to leave. That's impossible. Um, and while that might be ideal for Indigenous communities, it it, it is actually not possible and it's not what we're asking for. You know, Land Back is a movement and it's returning stewardship to Indigenous communities, and healing our histories, the rough histories that Indigenous communities have endured since, uh, first contact. and for me, the history of domination, from colonization, is directly correlated to the condition our, our climate is in today. You've eliminated the people, you've dominated the people, but you've also dominated the land. You've exploited the land for profit, you've exploited the people for profit and oppression, and you've fabricated lies and continue to push false narratives, both on Indigenous people in our history and on the land today. And so you can kind of see how this, this culture of domination directly relates to the, the domination of the Indigenous people and the domination of the land. And how by not acknowledging that history and not acknowledging all the pain and hurt and suffering, we are continuing to keep that cycle going today with the land, we're continuing to exploit it. for profit. It's very shortsighted and a narrow way of thinking. Without acknowledging that history, without acknowledging the Indigenous people and our values that we've learned through thousands of years of stewardship of these lands. Without acknowledging, uh, what we lost, the sheer amount of biodiversity that we've lost, since colonization began. It doesn't allow us to acknowledge the healing that needs to be done, the reparations that need to happen and, and what steps we actually need to, uh, take to move forward in this, in this crisis right now. that, that's concerning, you know? So, uh, when we're talking about Land Back, we're talking about reclamation, reclaiming our health and wellness, reclaiming, um, our identity, uh, because our identity is directly tied to the health of the land. And with that being said, our very livelihoods are in the hands of the general public. And so it's up to you to make that decision, every single day to acknowledge and, and stand up and fight for, for Land Back, returning land to indigenous stewardship.

John 14:15

Well, thanks for defining that for us. And another shout out to Robin Wall Kimmerer because, uh, many of the things you've just said tie in so beautifully to what she says, so I can see why you like her, her writing so much. And I, I just throw another little thought in about this. When I, uh, read that book, I actually listened to it via audiobook and she actually reads it and it's so wonderful to hear her voice and her inflection and the way she describes things. So a suggestion there for our listeners and viewers. Now, uh, this whole topic makes me wonder, free: do we need to look more to Indigenous peoples to help us figure out what to do about the climate crisis? And is that even a fair question to ask? You know, we've, we've, uh. Trod upon your rights and everything for hundreds of years, and oh, now we need you. So can you come and help us fix this?

Free 15:06

Yeah, I think both of those questions are very excellent questions and, uh, they're very intertwined with one another. You shouldn't ask one without the other, uh, in my opinion. So thank you for, thank you for that acknowledgement. I heard a fact a couple of years ago that was quite astounding to me, and I, I wanted to share that with you all today. Indigenous people steward less than 20% of the land on earth, but in that they contain 80% of the planet's remaining biodiversity. quite staggering to me if you. Indigenous people know how to take care of their territories. We, we have our, our livelihoods intertwined with the land. We're, we are not separate from nature. We're with nature. Uh, everything that we do, we have to think about how we're impacting everything around us, not just the humans, but the animals, the water, the air, the land, the, the plants. And there's a, a reciprocal relationship with everything and with, with our health. And we understand that. So yeah, Indigenous people know how to steward our, our, our territories. We're not incapable. And we've, we've proven that through thousands of years of existence. And you think about this culture of domination existing here, we've driven ourselves into, uh, a planetary extinction. It's quite concerning and quite daunting, but there's hope here because Indigenous people are, are standing up, Indigenous people are starting to be heard and to be acknowledged. To your question of is it fair? I love this question because when you turn to Indigenous communities, after everything that was done, after all of the damages that have been done you can't just turn to them and say, Hey! Fix this, or give us the answers and we'll fix it. And that's just not the way it, it works. When you go and work in Indigenous communities, you have to be mindful, you have to come with respect, and you have to come with intentionality and be willing to learn. You can't be so prescriptive and you shouldn't expect to just receive help just because you're wanting to help. Uh, knowledge is privilege. Uh, and when you're working with Indigenous communities, what knowledge you're granted from that community, should be treated as such. You know, it should be treated as, as a privilege. I love that question and I appreciate you asking that.

John 17:39

You know, we've become so disconnected these days from the environment. What would be your top suggestions to me or us to get reconnected?

Free 17:51

Hmm. I think spending time out in nature is, is a very straightforward one for me. When I feel I'm too far into this urban lifestyle, around too much technology, feeling depressed, which, you know, to note depression is a natural feeling and you should acknowledge it as such. It's a sign that your body isn't doing something that it's normally supposed to be doing. We're animals. Humans are animals. We need to be out in nature. You need to be feeling the grass. You need to be breathing in the air from the forest. You need to feel the wind, you need to feel the water. Everything around you is inside of you and it's a part of you. So, uh, the best thing you can do, in my opinion is, is going out and grounding yourself in, in nature. Uh, go for a hike, slow down. Be observant. Listen to the birds. Go lay on the forest floor and just look at all of the tiny little organisms that are around you. The world is so big. Even the smallest things in the world, uh, means so much to, to our day-to-day lives. That just helps you grow a greater appreciation for everything that is working hard to ensure that our, our environment is, is healthy and that our, our biomes are, are successful.

John 19:15

That's great advice, especially for me, that last bit about lying on the floor.'cause I love getting out into nature. I love hiking in back country, whether it's just in the local woods or grasslands, or whether it's in the mountains. But I still tend to have that. Like, this is where I'm going and I have this much time to get there, and yeah, I should stop, lie down and just look at the stuff that's around me, right? I don't have to be going somewhere.

Free 19:39

absolutely.

John 19:39

I hope, uh, I hope this isn't a, a, a bad question, but, as I think about, uh, Indigenous people, and like I said, I, I really wonder sometimes if that's where we're going to find the key to the climate crisis and to just go and say, well, they're the best stewards of the environment, and they'll look after things far better than I will. Uh, is that a, a bad kind of reversed stereotype that I, I might have in my, in my brain?

Free 20:08

It's a good question to, to ask, it's going to take all of us pulling together, uh, in order for these problems to be resolved. It can't just fall on the backs of Indigenous people. Linda Mapes a huge icon and idol of mine she just wrote the book the Trees Are Speaking, she's worked alongside Indigenous communities. She's Non-Indigenous, but she's worked alongside and inside of Indigenous communities for the last 20 30 years. Following dam removal, following forestry practices, forestry management, old growth protection, you name it, she's done it. She's just a total ally and she's somebody who epitomizes that we gotta pull together'cause Indigenous people, we're punching way above our weight class when we're talking about climate action and especially in policy. The tribes here in Washington State, we're investing hundreds of millions of dollars into climate restoration, into habitat restoration and into hatcheries, in the policy and the court cases, uh, trying to protect our, our homelands, trying to ensure that the next seven generations will have a home here well beyond our own.

John 21:23

I have to ask you Free, several times you've mentioned hatcheries or salmon and habitat. obviously this is very interesting and important to you. Uh, is that kind of protection of natural habitats a stretch to try to tie into climate change? What do you think?

Free 21:39

Absolutely not. When, when you're talking about salmon, salmon are, are a keystone species and all of our, all of our regions have those keystone species. Maybe it's buffalo out in the Midwest there. But for us it's salmon. And what salmon do, uh, from the start of their lifecycle to the very end of their lifecycle and beyond their own lives, they contribute to their ecosystem and the health of our ecosystems. When salmon return back home and they spawn and lay their eggs, their carcasses float down river and they actually feed the plants and the vegetation in the river bed. And the animals drag the carcasses out into the forest. And then the, the carcasses then nourish like the old growth forest. So you can actually find DNA from salmon in the old growth trees, like in the ring linings of the trees. When you're talking about climate change and climate resiliency and it's a holistic image. There's no linear way of looking at any of these issues, and that's something that I learned from Robin Wall Kimmerer and Tyson Yunkaporta, an aboriginal author. He authored the book Sand Talk, How Indigenous Ways of Thinking Can Save Our Planet. And they they both just so eloquently put it, when you're talking about climate change, when you're talking about these solutions, you have to look at it in a holistic sense. You can't just look at it as you can fix one problem, and that's it. When talking about climate change, you're talking about climate mitigation, mitigating these impacts. You have to talk about healthy forests, you have to talk about healthy water, you have to talk about carbon retention, all of that is very holistic.

John 23:25

Big picture thinking. Now you've got so much wisdom that you have shared with us. I feel like we could talk for hours. What got you started in this, uh, environmental way of thinking, this holistic way of thinking, or has it always been part of your life?

Free 23:40

I think it's always been a part of my life. I grew up, culturally active on the Lummi Reservation, fisherman, hunter in ceremony, learning from elders. I don't like being called a climate activist because it's just my identity, it's who I am, uh, standing up for the, the environment. When you see something wrong, when you see the environment getting sick, and you know the direct cause of it is because of the oil refinery right there, you have to say something, you know, as an Indigenous person because the things that are being impacted around you, the eel grass, the salmon, the shellfish, the killer whale, orca. Those are our relatives, and that's the way I was taught. They're not just animals, they're not just beings, they're not just something that's out there that's cool and beautiful to look at. No, those are our literal relatives. They, they are citizens of the Salish sea. They're citizens of, of my people and, and we are of their people. Our people have lived here. And when I say our people, I mean all of those relatives, we've all lived here for a long time. Those relationships go back generations since time immemorial. And so standing up for them is like standing up for a grandmother. like standing up for a brother, sister, cousin. You know, it, it's really that deep for, for us.

John 25:08

Wow. We've talked about Robin Wall Kimmerer. Well, someday I'm gonna read your book and I'm gonna say: make sure you read Free Borsey's book because it's amazing stuff too.

Free 25:18

Thank you.

John 25:18

before we let you go today, Free, we have to ask about your climate action. What have you chosen to share with us today?

Free 25:24

People think like solving the climate crisis, like, oh, it's too hard for me, it's too big of an issue, but really it does come down to every little, little ounce of, of effort that you put into this cause is going to result in, a change for the better. One small thing that you can do is just develop a stronger consumer conscience. And for me that means shopping eco-friendly. It means working towards better standards in producing consumer goods. So shop less from fast fashion sites. Try not to buy plastics, you know, buy, uh, products that are made from wood, uh, wood phone cases, for example, instead of plastic phone cases. And for me, this, um, overall will help shift the mindset away from, the need to consume these, these products that, um, you think will be permanent. You know, so like when you buy a plastic phone case, you're really buying something that will eventually break and be useless to you, but it'll in the world for a thousand years. When you buy a wood phone case, it will do the same thing, but when you dispose of it, it will break down in the environment and degrade. And that little simple change goes a long way.

John 26:56

Great advice. Last question for you Free: what gives you hope?

Free 27:01

I'm really hopeful because the world today is generally more invested in the future and in the conditions of our climate and the health of our planet. The younger generations are more willing to challenge authority, and challenge the status quo. And we want to seek solutions. The younger generation just seems more adept seeing through lies and deceit. I think just because we're in the age of information and it's so accessible to us that we can actually fact check and dig into things, do more research. What I hope to see is more growth in the environmental movements and more challenging these systems of domination. And us working towards a world that is more just and more ethical, uh, and honors impermanence and honors the ephemeralness of life.

John 27:56

You've given us a huge amount to think about today, and I sure thank you for doing that, Free.

Free 28:02

Thank you. Thank you for having me. It was an honour.

John 28:05

It was for us as well. And thank you dear listener and viewer. Uh, we will be back again next week, same time, same place to hear from another climate action figure. Until then,

Free 28:17

Go figures!