For my weblog this module I started looking at different aspects of Indigenous identity in relation to ecological issues.

The Six Faces of Traditional Ecological Knowledge: Challenges and Opportunities for Canadian Co-Management Arrangements

This website is about natural resource co-management. It discusses First Nation involvement in making decisisons and incorporating the values and worldviews of First Nation’s groups. Also discussed is the idea that there are 6 faces of TEK that need to be considered when negotiating co-management arrangements.

First Nations Land Rights and Environmentalism in British Columbia

This is a very different sort of website than the others I came across. The website opens with “We were never conquered and we have never surrendered the right to govern or be stewards of our traditional territories.” The website also states “Disclaimer: strategies of dispossession of First Nations have included representing them in degrading ways. This website promotes a re-iconization of some of these illustrations by placing them in a new context to serve indigenous peoples.” The author of the website is a German woman, Dr. Karen Wonders and the site is very political in nature and continues on with the very clear standpoint taken on the first page. There are links to the websites of different First Nations groups as well as all kinds of lectures, symposiums, exhibitions, articles and media that relate to these topics.

LASA 2003 Meeting Article

The focus in this article from the Latin American Studies Association is on Indigenous people in Columbia. The author looks at how “representations of indigenous peoples have changed from ‘the savage colonial subject’ to ‘the political-ecological agent.'” This is a point that I think is important with respect to our discussions this module and also when I am doing my research and writing my paper. Even positive steretypes must be examined. In addition, the political aspect of environmental issues and resource management is an important consideration. The main website of LASA provides links to a variety of articles, some of which involve Indigenous issues.

First Nations Environmental Network

Incorporating traditional values, this network of individuals and groups encourages and supports others who are trying to protect traiditonally important areas. There is an area where members can post news updates and links and a link to the forum Turning Point,which offers up a place for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal individuals to egnage in discourse. Even though the site does not appear to have been active since 2009/2010, the way the site, and particularly the forum, is set up and the guiding principles are interesting and useful when considering how Indigenous communities could network and share their experiences.

Assembly of First Nations: Environmental Stewardship

This is a fantastic resource with respect to First Nations’ environmental conerns and current stewardship examples. The areas of Earth, Air, Water and Fire each have a variety of link to videos, factsheets, First Nations funding, articles and other resources to do with environmental stewardship within an Aboriginal context.

Environmental Progress for Indigenous Groups

I would like to investigate what positive impacts technology can have on Indigenous culture, particularly in an ecological sense. Can the internet be used effectively to spread information about specific ecological concerns that Indigenous groups have? Will it help give a voice to groups that have often been marginalized or silenced? Often there are environmental issues that arise within the traditional territories of Indigenous groups. These issues often have a direct and lasting impact on the health of the land and the people that live on it. Indigenous groups may be able to use the internet to voice their opinion in meaningful ways, but there needs to be more than that. Real change needs to be affected and this can be hard to attain, even with the best online presence. Internet and other new media might be the way to create this change, but how effective are they really? To distill it down to one main question, I would like to know: In relation to making a positive ecological change, including revitalization, what is the most effective way for an Indigenous group to use technology to make improvements within either their territory, or an area that has specific traditional importance?

#4 The Centre for Indigenous Environmental Resources

The CIER is an organisation which is established by Canadian First Nations groups. Their website is easy to navigate and has four major focusses: taking action on climate change, building sustainable communities, protecting lands and waters, and conserving biodiversity. Basically this is a gathering point for initiatives, partnerships, issues and anything else concerning First Nations environmental concerns.

The website provides links to their library collection, reports on initiatives and also encourages partnerships with different communities. If any FN group is wanting to partner with CIER they will either help them address a topic area through project funding that they already have, will help them find funding to work on a community project, or will provide workshops.

Aside from the obvious good that the site provides, what struck me, after our readings so far, was how much this site looks like a typical government or company site. Also, even though the individuals on the board are FN members (and the majority have had some role in the leadership of their own community) they are also all people who have lots of credentials in the western sense; they have signed major financial deals, have degrees, headed up different societies, etc.. I’m not sure if this is an important observation or not, but I wonder what message this website sends, and whether it is also set up in a way that would be appealing for those who provide the funding for the projects the CIER carries out.

http://www.cier.ca/

#5 Indigenous Food First

While on the CIER site I followed a link to find out more about a program called IFF (Indigenous Food First). This is a new website with a focus on Indigenous Youth exploring food and what it means to them. The launch is in October 2012, so at this time there is only a section with some articles, an about page and a sign-up section for the newsletter that they put out. One interesting link is to the Dreamcatcher Youth Conference, which supports positive projects by Aboriginal youth who are making a difference in their community.

http://iffculture.ca/

#1 Fisheries and Oceans for the Future

While searching for another link to the video “Return to Gitxaała” I came across the website Forests and Oceans for the Future. This website has a wealth of information about the Gitxaała Nation and their resource management strategies.

The website includes information on how the Gitxaała are combining their TEK with “western science” resource management strategies to meet the needs of their community. The process is undertaken by faculty and students at UBC and community members. They are focussed on resource management strategies in Northern BC with but they include research from parts of America, Western Europe and New Zealand. One of their underlying goals is fostering mutual respect and effective communication between stakeholders.

The focus of the website is on public education, policy research and ecological research with regards to resource management. To this end they include links to publications that are related to research with Indigenous groups, podcasts on the topic, and links to blogs where issues relating to TEK and resource management are being discussed.

In addition, the website provides links to public access lesson plans, which, although they are more suitable to secondary students could be altered for an elementary classroom. I found it to be a very interesting site with a lot of options for further research.

http://www.ecoknow.ca/