A new series, “Tokala,” spotlights BIPOC youth climate activists
At just seven years old, Hoopa activist and water protector Danielle Rey Frank attended her first protest on the Hoopa Valley Reservation in Northern California where she grew up. “I went to my first in-person water dam protest with my father,” says Frank, now 18. “It’s been an intergenerational fight to get these dams taken down. My great uncle was the one who actually proposed it—and the fight is still happening right now.” Since that first rally, Frank has been heavily involved in the fight to restore water levels in her community. “If these rivers dry up, the salmon will die, and we’re not going to be able to make baskets or do our traditional boat dances,” she says.