Indigenous Food Systems Network

Wild Salmon People,

The Disease Hearings at the Cohen Inquiry have been riveting. Finally, we are getting a look behind the scenes at how much consideration the wild sockeye have been given by DFO. Dr. Kristi Miller has shown up daily in the audience shadowed by a very large government security guard wearing an earpiece. Salmon farm executives are there, Chief Bob Chamberlin, Dan Cody DFO, Policy Advisor and lots of wild salmon people are also witnessing this.

Our program to advocate for indigenous peoples affected by multilateral development banks is a cornerstone of the work at the Indian Law Resource Center. This project began in the late 1970s when the Center represented the Yanomami people of Brazil. The Yanomami lived a peaceful and self-sufficient life, with no ties to the global economy, until Brazil received money from the World Bank to build a road through their territory. The road unleashed chaos within the Yanomami communities. Road workers brought malaria and many Yanomami died because they had no resistance to the disease.

The American Public Health Association has a definition and links for food system sustainability, fyi.

SalmonAreSacred.org

I am writing to let you know we are gathering digitally to protect wild salmon.

Five thousand years ago the Broughton Archipelago generously supported thousands of people. Its natural contours create the perfect conditions for clams, salmon, herring and seaweeds. As long as their culture protected the fish, the people thrived building communities, a society, Nations.

See a complied list of some great food, land and culture books. Please contact Fiona Devereaux if you have others you would like to share.

Many thanks

Fiona.devereaux@viha.ca
250-886-2122

File: 

The following file is a 555 KB pdf document you many need to download Adobe Reader to open the file.

FFC Resources Basket.pdf

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.

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.

I am sending out a link about Sea Urchins that is definitely research and may be very boring to some of you, but I’m totally fascinated and thought I would share. The article describes the feeding habits of the urchin as well as talking about their anatomy. The research does not seem to be the most humane to the urchin but at the same time, it was 1954. Lots of technical information in the article (I skipped over quite a bit) but still quite interesting, seeing as we eat these guys, it would be great to know a bit more about them!