Since the historic Held v. State of Montana trial began on June 12, 2023, in the Lewis and Clark County District Court in Helena, MT, Judge Kathy Seeley presiding, we recorded and are archiving the audio to preserve the record to inform and allow listeners to hear for themselves what transpired.

In this edition we share the unedited recording of the testimony of Badge, named after the Badger-Two Medicine Forest, beloved to him and his family, from which they derive sustenance. 12 years old when the case was filed in March, 2020, he is now 15 years old. He gave powerful testimony of his family’s living off the land lifestyle – intrinsic to families, Indigenous or of other descent, for millennia – being disrupted and terminated by accelerating climate change, which he has observed in his own, short lifetime.

He became emotional testifying about the destruction of the Badger-Two Medicine ecosystem by wildfire, but noted in the photograph below that life can still return, in the form of this bird nest, even from the charred remains of the former ecosystem.

For the first time in the United States, youth plaintiffs were able to present their case in a court of law, that their inalienable constitutional rights under Article II Section 3 of the Montana State Constitution “to a clean and healthful environment and the rights of pursuing life’s basic necessities, enjoying and defending their lives and liberties, acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and seeking their safety, health and happiness in all lawful ways.” ….. were being denied and violated by the policies and actions of their government. Further, that The State was in violation of their responsibilities as required under Article IX, Environment and Natural Resources, Section 1. Protection and Improvement that “The state and each person shall maintain and improve a clean and healthful environment in Montana for present and future generations. Section 2. The legislature shall provide for the administration and enforcement of this duty. and Section 3. The legislature shall provide adequate remedies for the protection of the environmental life support system from degradation and provide adequate remedies to prevent unreasonable depletion and degradation of natural resources.”