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Protection and Direct Action

Indigenous Food Systems Network Website Launch

ork – Working Group on Indigenous Food Sovereignty

On February 1, 2010, the Indigenous Food Systems Network Website was launched! The IFSN Website Project is a web-based centre for increasing awareness of issues, concerns and strategies related to protecting, conserving and restoring the myriad of Indigenous food based cultures across Canada.

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Indigenous Food Coooperatives - Indigenous Diet Challenge

The Indigenous food cooperatives initiative was suggested by 3 Indigenous women at the 2009 BC Food Systems Gathering, as a mutual challenge to revitalize bioregional or local Indigenous food systems, security and sovereignty, by supporting, revitalizing or recreating Indigenous hunting, fishing, gathering, farming and trade practices in our local areas.

File: 

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Hunting the Elusive Wapato

Women are leading a revival of First Nations' staple foods. To get lucky, you have to get mucky. With my feet twisting in the mud of a frigid river, I have already lost the festive socks that were a Christmas gift from my mom. Now the river bottom is turning to quicksand beneath my bare feet. I sink slowly at first, then slip swiftly from waist-deep until the water is nearly at my neck. The water is so cold that it is crusted with ice along the shore, and I know I can't last much longer.

Stop the Global Land Grab

At GRAIN, we are extremely concerned that today's global land grab is only going to make the food crisis worse. For it pushes an agriculture geared toward large scale monocultures, GMOs, throwing farmers off the land in favour of machines, and lots of chemicals and fossil fuels. This is not an agriculture that will feed everyone. It's an agriculture that feeds speculative profits for a few and more poverty for the rest. Of course we need investment.

Avatar and the True Defenders of the Land

After seeing the film Avatar, the recent release by James Cameron dealing with allegorical Indigenous Peoples on an alien planet that humans seek to colonize, displace and finally eliminate in order to access the rich resources in their territories, a few reflections emerge. The first is a more than passing resemblance to the actual reality of Indigenous Peoples in Canada and beyond, the bounty of whose land and resources have cost them great suffering at the hands of colonizers and would-be-saviours.

Citation / Reference: 
Powless, B. (2010). Avatar and the True Defenders of the Land.

Asserting Tribal Sovereignty over Cultural Property: Moving Towards Protection of Genetic Material and Indigenous Knowledge

Indigenous cultural property of all forms, tangible and intangible, oral and written, ancient and contemporary, is under constant threat from exploitation, theft, misrepresentation, misuse, and commodification. Current domestic law, including federal Indian law, does not sufficiently protect cultural property. [FN3] Internationally, although the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), United Nations

B.C. Food Systems Network Working Group on Indigenous Food Sovereignty Final Report

The purpose of this project was to engage Aboriginal communities in discussions that would enable individuals and groups involved with food related action to explore and identify ways that the B.C. Food Systems Network (BCFSN) - Working Group on Indigenous Food Sovereignty (WGIFS) can support their work on increasing food security.

File: 

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1st Annual Interior of B.C. Indigenous Food Sovereignty Conference Final Report

Since the time of contact with non Indigenous settlers in the southern interior of B.C. many traditional Indigenous harvesters including hunters, fishermen, and gatherers from the Ktunaxa, Nlaka’pamux, Secwepemc, St’at’imc, Syilx, and Ts’ilqotin nations have repeatedly expressed concern about the declining health and abundance of culturally important foods in our respective traditional territories. Therefore, the Interior of B.C.

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Nakazdli News Release - Judicial review of proposed gold and copper mine

NAK’AZDLI BAND COUNCIL
P.O. Box 1329, Fort St. James, B.C. V0J 1P0
Telephone (250) 996 – 7171
Fax (250) 996 – 8010
For Immediate Release
January 7, 2010: Nak’azdli will be filing a Notice of Application today with the Federal Court of Canada requesting a judicial review of recent decisions made by the federal Minister of Environment and federal agencies regarding a proposed low grade gold and copper mine at Mt. Milligan/Shus Nadloh, which, is located 90 km north of Fort St. James.

Save B.C.'s Wild Salmon

Join 20,000 people on the letter to the Fisheries Minister asking that the laws of Canada be applied to fish farms and to protect the eastern Pacific from Infectious Salmon Anemia Virus. When you look at all the legal work we are doing you have to ask is this SALMONGATE? Follow the news at Alexandra Morton’s blog: