Indigenous Food Systems Network

As people throughout the Western world are increasingly seeking to reconnect with their food, there's a lot to be learned from the many peoples who have long maintained these dynamic relationships between their sustenance and the earth. Ethnobiologists research these very relationships through a scientific lens and it's a field of study bringing together many disciplines like anthropology, ecology and conservation to name just a few.

By Patrick Oppmann, CNN
June 1, 2010 11:44 a.m. EDT

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Gulf oil spill threatens sacred burial ground of Louisiana's Point Aux Chenes Indian Tribe
* Most of the tribe's 700 members also rely on fishing and fear the spill could end their way of life
* Members say no federal or state officials have advised them on dealing with the disaster
* Native Americans from Alaska told the tribe how they dealt with the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill

The spill could have been so much worse, and at least it didn't happen in the remote Arctic. Maybe it will spur Americans to get serious about cutting consumption

Tuesday, 1 June 2010

Hollywood loves a villain with an English accent. After the Deepwater Horizon disaster, it was inevitable American commentators would deride BP as British Petroleum and its CEO as Tony Wayward. But even as residents of the Gulf Coast despair and BP fumbles from one seat-of-the-pants engineering "solution" to another, Americans should realise the company has done them a huge favour.

In recent decades Indigenous Peoples globally have experienced rapid and dramatic shifts in lifestyle that are unprecedented in history. Moving away from their own self-sustaining, local food systems into industrially derived food supplies, these changes have adverse effects on dietary quality and health.

We the undersigned citizens of Canada stand against the biological and social threat and commerce of industrial marine net-cage feedlots using our global oceans. The science is clear: these operations risk wild salmon populations by intensifying disease and deplete world fishery resources to make the feed. They privatize ocean spaces and threaten our sovereign rights to food security.

We call on the Government of Canada to take the appropriate measures to get open-net aquaculture out of our federal waters:

RAVEN is a charitable organization that provides financial resources to assist Aboriginal Nations within Canada in lawfully forcing industrial development to be reconciled with their traditional ways of life, and in a manner that addresses global warming or other ecological sustainability challenges.

In the film Our Land, My People, the Lubicon people tell the story of their 30 year struggle for justice. It's a story of environmental destruction and shocking discrimination. It's also a story of determination and hope.

The concept of food sovereignty was developed by Via Campesina and brought to the public debate during the World Food Summit in 1996 and represents an alternative to neoliberal policies. Since then, that concept has become a major issue of the international agricultural debate, even within the United Nations bodies. It was the main theme of the NGO forum held in parallel to the FAO World Food Summit of June 2002.

Local lab to test for sea lice drug resistance. Published Feb 25, 2010

Testing to determine if sea lice are becoming resistant to a chemical product used by fish farmers is expected to begin this spring in Campbell River.

“We hope to begin in April. Some people may say that’s already too late, but you have to start some place,” said Dr. Sonja Saksida of the B.C. Centre for Aquatic Health Sciences.

Dozens of protesters held up signs on Highway 97 between McLeese Lake and MacAllister Thursday afternoon to show their opposition to the destruction of Fish Lake should Prosperity mine be built.

Among those protesting were Xeni Gwet’in Chief Marilyn Baptiste, ?Esdilagh Chief Bernie Elkins, Tl’esqox Chief Francis Laceese, Ulkatcho First Nation Chief Allen Louie, and Lhtako Dene Nation Chief Geronimo Squinas.