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:

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.

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.

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.

The Sir Wilfred Laurier Memorial outlines the history of the relationship between the Secwepemc (original inhabitants of the Shuswap geographic region in the southern interior of B.C.) and the European settlers up to the period of 1910.

Follow this link to visit 91.1 Secwepemc Radio website for a podcast that includes background information on colonization and how it relates to what the food sovereignty guru - Vandana Shiva says at her talk in Kelowna in 2009. Background information and recording done by Rebecca Kneen and Illona Trogub.