I think there is often a bias that when one hears "tribe" they assume that someone is living as a stone age hunter gatherer. This is not the case. There are a l

I think there is often a bias that when one hears "tribe" they assume that someone is living as a stone age hunter gatherer. This is not the case. There are a lot of people who live within social organizational structures that are referred to as tribes but who live in Los Angeles, are crypto-bros or one's doctor. That members of tribes are part of what we call "modern" society is not to say that they do not have traditions. Everyone has traditions. One only needs to travel a very small amount to realize that they do not live outside of culture. They realize this because they can see that other peoples' cultures are different than what they are used to. One's entire notion of being "nontraditional" may be demonstrably drawn from their own particular cultural traditions. In general, most people I know, all else being equal, feel like people having traditions that they may choose to celebrate without restriction is mostly positive. Like, telling kids from the a quasi-Christian European tradition that they can't have Christmas anymore seems wrong. If the kids complain, it seems weird to say "catch up and adapt". Ok, so in this the case of the article there is a river. So there is a natural resource involved. At some point there were some people living along a river and then other people came in and imposed something on them that was supposedly for the good of society. What is good for society isn't always about the maximum amount of electricity one can produce. Sometimes it is about compassion. Being a more compassionate society seems like a more important goal to me than being the society with the highest energy output, not that energy isn't very very important. Indigenous people often, though not always, feel that changes to their life ways were foisted on them. There are changes that they like (chocolate ice cream) and there are changes they feel it was unfair or cruel to have to make (not being able to speak their own language even at home). Just like a Christian, Italian or Bostonian might have their idiosyncratic ways of doing things that make them feel connected to their family and community, indigenous people do too. That does not make them primitive. It seems reasonable and kinder if a society cares about these traditions and is not dismissive of them. It makes sense that when society decides whether it is good or bad to have a damn that it is not just a question of electrical output but compassion to the people affected.