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:

An amazing lecture by Maude Barlow on the Global Water Crisis.

Maude Barlow is the National Chairperson of the Council of Canadians and chairs the board of Washington-based Food and Water Watch. She also served as Senior Advisor on Water to the 63rd President of the United Nations General Assembly.

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.

Harvest Mccampbell is dedicated to food and culture.

Author Jacks, Terry.
Title The warmth of love [videorecording] : the four seasons of Sophie Thomas / written by Terry Jacks.
Imprint [Vanderhoof, B.C.] : Sophie Thomas Foundation, 2000.

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.