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.

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.

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.

Are drug-resistant sea lice from Nootka Sound fish farms being introduced to Discovery Passage, posing an enormous threat to wild salmon and farmed fish throughout the Inside Passage?

That's a concern being raised by Alexandra Morton but rejected this week by the province and Grieg Seafoods.

The provincial government must be pressured through the courts and through direct action to put a stop to the very serious situation that is causing sea lice to drive the most important source of protein in Indigenous diets to near extinction.

First Nations chiefs are planning a 29-hour hunger strike leading up to the Olympic hockey game between Canada and Norway Tuesday, to protest Norwegian-owned fish farms.

Members of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs are fasting to support the Musgamagw Tsawataineuk Tribal Council's opposition to fish-farm tenures in the Broughton Archipelago.