Indigenous Food Strategies in Vancouver and Bioregion

Prepared by: Dawn Morrison July 10, 2013

Deepen cross cultural understanding of Indigenous

history and present day issues, concerns , situations and

strategies as they relate to food systems in SWBC.

To explore how the VFPC and WGIFS , along with other allies, can work together in solidarity towards supporting Indigenous

food sovereignty in the Vancouver area.

Image taken from Georgia Strait article by Douglas Aitken on Dec 14, 2009 titled: Faces of Vancouver , Coast Salish Plank Houses.

Non exhaustive – doesn’t reflect all views

Highlighting complexities and social and political sensitivities

Exploring potential collaborations for reconciling with Indigenous food sovereignty strategies within the Vancouver Food Strategy

1. Cultural & Political Profiles

2. What is Indigenous food sovereignty and who is the WGIFS?

3. Social and economic situation – food insecurity

4. History of Indigenous land, water and food

5. Significant and notable – laws and policies

6. Community Engagement – special considerations

7. Some ideas Indigenous food strategies in Vancouver

Tsamosan (Coast Salish)

Interior Salish

Bella Coola

Tillamook.

Coast Salish hən ̓q̓əmin ̓əm̓ (downriver)

Halkomelem (upriver – from Matsqui on up)

Hul’q’umi’num’ (Vancouver Island)

Sḵwx ̱wú7mesh snichim (North & West Van to Gibsons & Whistler Village)

Shashishalhem (Sunshine Coast & southern half of Texada)

Ay-Ay-Ju-Thum (upper Sunshine Coast)

Tli’ammon

Homalco Klahoose

Dr. Evan Adams, Tli’ammon Ta’Kaiya Blaney, Tli’ammon

North & West Van to Gibson’s & Whistler Village

Largest Indigenous population in the bioregion

16 Squamish speaking tribes

Place based context

Examples

Sto’lo “People of the River”

Musqueam “People of the River Grass”

Tsawwassen (Squama) “Land Facing the Sea”

“the words that mainstream society uses to describe Indigenous peoples, and the words that Indigenous peoples use to describe themselves, are significant in creating the context in which these struggles occur. Whenever possible I will employ the term “Indigenous” (Tomkins, 2008)

Tomkins, E. (2008). Filling up the land with Pilalt: Countering the British Columbia Referrals Process and Reclaiming Sto’lo Ways of Being on the Land. Master of the Arts Thesis. Retrieved on April 4, 2013 from website address: http://web.uvic.ca/igov/uploads/pdf/Tomkins_598_2010.pdf

It is most appropriate to identify Indigenous peoples by their specific tribe or cultural group i.e. Sto’lo, St’at’imx, Nlaka’pamux, Coast Salish etc…

The term Indigenous places us back in an ecological context as the original inhabitants of respective traditional territories – all inclusive

The terms First Nations or Aboriginal are politically loaded (divisive and subjugable) and may or may not be used to self identify.

With the arrival of the Europeans (Xwelitems or "Hungry People") many of our traditions have been challenged and threatened. Ultimately, our spirituality was declared immoral and illegal, our right to sell and trade salmon was taken away, our children were placed in foreign residential schools and taught to reject their Elders' teachings. We were forbidden to move about freely among our villages. We became registered members of individual Bands governed by protocols and regulations that were not of our own making.“

Excerpt taken from Kwikwetlem First Nations website

Some bands within Sto’lo territory have chosen to become independent and do not affiliate themselves with tribal political organizations.

Intertribal conflict has arisen due divisive approach taken by the BC Treaty Commission i.e. entering negotiations with only one band on treaty issues that impact the traditional territory of the whole nation

Sto’lo – Semiamhoo, Skwah, Chehalis, Yale,

Go beyond neo-colonialist approach applied within divisive colonial structures and processes

Indigenous Peoples in or around the Metro Vancouver area are not new populations…their presence pre-dates the urban centre

While the concept of food sovereignty has only recently been introduced - food sovereignty has been a living reality for thousands of years

Law of the locale,

Sto’lo Tribal Council Food Security Study - An Atlas Identifying sensitive spawning and rearing habitat for Chum and Pink salmon on the Fraser River from Mission to Hope

Sto’lo chief - Grand Chief Doug Kelly embraces and champions healthy eating as an important strategy to prepare First Nations Health Authority (provincial political body) for taking over health governance on October 1, 2013

Salmon Feedlot Boycott – Sto’lo Tribal Council speaks out on how the Cohen Report falls short in protecting wild salmon harmful effects of fish farms/aquaculture and recognizing Indigenous knowledge in fisheries governance

Ts’leil wa-tuuth (aka Burrard) – Aboriginal youth culinary arts, Professional Cooks Training Level 1 & 2

Capilano – Harmony Gardens & Wetland Restoration on Capilano River

High population of Indigenous peoples from communities across BC

High population of Plains (Cree & Nishnawbe) peoples from across Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba

Aboriginal Peoples over-represented in most poverty stricken neighbourhood in Canada (DTES)

According to the most recent Statistics Canada Census information (2006), nearly 1.2 million people living in Canada today report themselves to be Aboriginal (i.e., First Nations, Métis or Inuit).

Estimates range from 40,000 – 100,000 in Greater Vancouver area

Approximately 56% of all Indigenous peoples have migrated to urban areas across Canada

Vancouver has the third largest Aboriginal population in Canada

Vancouver Native Health Society – Tuwusht Project @ UBC Farm

Annual Blessing of the Land Ceremony

Public gathering and design workshop to develop programs with Aboriginal participants at the farm and increase opportunities for community-based learning. Photo: Eduardo Jovel, UBC Faculty of Land and Food Systems

Sacred

Participatory

Self-determination

Policy

Relationship to BC Food Systems Network

Purpose, goals objectives

Notable projects and activities

Representation and responsibilities

Hunting, fishing and gathering culturally important foods - selective harvesting and cultivation of forests, fields and waterways

Horticulture on a broad ecological and temporal scale - pre and post contact

Landscape level – watershed planning and conservation methods

Permaculture -traditional management

Adopted colonial model of agriculture

Revitalizing Grease Trails

Fishing is primary Indigenous food harvesting strategy for all Salishan speaking peoples.

“Traditional diets, based on a combination of salmon and other fish, shellfish, marine and land mammals, gamebirds and birds’ eggs, and a range of plant foods, from berries and other fruits to green vegetables, root vegetables, and the inner bark of trees, as well as some mushrooms, have nourished and sustained people over generations”. Nancy J. Turner, Professor, School of Environmental Studies,University of Victoria September 2007 Written for the Biodiversity Technical Subcommittee for The Status of Biodiversity in BC

Food species = 100 animal species + 150 plant species

Material or technology species = at least 100

Medicinal species = 300 or more across the different nations and regions of the province.

Thus a total of about 400-500 species (some are used for more than one purpose) are named and utilized or have had specific cultural importance for First Peoples of the province.

Sto’lo Tribal Council Food Security Study - An Atlas Identifying sensitive spawning and rearing habitat for Chum and Pink

salmon on the Fraser River from Mission to Hope

Sto’lo chief - Grand Chief Doug Kelly embraces and champions healthy eating as an important strategy to prepare First Nations Health Authority (provincial political body) for taking over health governance on October 1, 2013

Salmon Feedlot Boycott – Sto’lo Tribal Council speaks out on how the Cohen Report falls short in protecting wild salmon harmful effects of fish farms/aquaculture and recognizing Indigenous knowledge in fisheries governance

Ts’leil wa-tuuth (aka Burrard) – Aboriginal youth culinary arts, Professional Cooks Training Level 1 & 2

Capilano – Harmony Gardens & Wetland Restoration on Capilano River

Seabird Island – Excellence in Centre for Diabetes, rich arable lands

Katzie Band – revitalization of Wapato potato harvesting and cultivation

Cheam– resurgence in the area of governance and traditional wild salmon fishery – formal partnership with UVIC – IGOV program

Musqueam Indian Band – community gardens

Seabird Island includes policies in their land use plan advocating for the protection of agricultural land

Seabird Island operates a hazelnut orchard, eco-tourism, forestry, and leases of cultivated land

Special Designated status within the CHRMS

Entire basin drains one third of the area of the province and is home to 2.4 million people – 63% of British Columbia’s population

Most productive salmon fishery in the world

Used for transporting other resources

Support for agriculture and community life

All things are connected

Strong sense of place and identity in relation to the land

Humans are a part of the ecosystems – not separate

Work with and adapt to natural systems rather than try to control or work against

Adaptive management – policy driven by practice

Deconstructing the reductionist mindset that has dispossessed us (humans) from the land and food system

Broadening the ecological and temporal scale

Participatory

Non-linear

Precautionary vs. restorationist

Local control

“In the `scientific' system which splits forestry from agriculture and reduces forestry to timber and wood supply, food is no longer a category related to forestry. The cognitive space that relates forestry to food production, either directly, or through fertility links, is therefore erased with the split. Knowledge systems which have emerged from the food giving capacities of the forest are

therefore eclipsed and finally destroyed, both through neglect and aggression”. Dr. Vandana Shiva, Monocultures of the Mind

Non – static

Non- exhaustive

Avoiding pan Indian approach

Indigenous peoples are at varying places along the continuum of influences from mainstream society

“In local knowledge systems, the plant world is not artificially separated between a forest supplying commercial wood and agricultural land supplying food commodities. The forest and the field are in ecological continuum, and activities in the forest contribute to the food needs of the local community, while agriculture itself is modelled on the ecology of the tropical forest. Some forest dwellers gather food directly from the forest, while many communities practise agriculture outside the forest, but depend on the fertility of the forest for the fertility of agricultural land”. Dr. Vandana Shiva in Monocultures of the Mind (1999)

Breakdown of sophisticated traditional social structures – potlatch governance, tribal economies, intergenerational learning etc…

Displacement from traditional land and food system

High levels of stress and uncertainty associated – effects of PTSD

Social issues and declining health (mental, emotional, physical and spiritual)

Comparable to the holocaust

United Nations Human Development Index

Socio - economic marginalization

Lack of access and control over decision making matters impacting land and food systems

Imposed decision making structures and processes

Contradicting epistemologies in education system

Lack of awareness of impacts of residential schools in families and communities

Informal economy

Cooperative tribal values of giving & sharing

Trading surplus only after all families and community has enough food

SWBC central part of traditional trade routes

Small scale subsistence harvesting – sustainable practices developed over thousands of years

Concern over commodification and export of Indigenous foods – overexploitation, privatization, and individual property rights

Displacement from Indigenous communities across Canada

Estimate 50 – 60% of all Indigenous Peoples have migrated to urban areas for education, employment and housing

On reserve programs and services are limited in their ability to service off reserve

On and off reserve

Sto’lo People – Original inhabitants

Cedar and salmon

Indigenous Ranches being managed “Just Like a Garden”

1808 Simon Fraser – First Explorer

1858 – James Douglas formed colony of BC

1870 – Dominion of Canada

Prior appropriation

Establishment of legal doctrines and property rights

Doctrine of discovery

Terra nullus

Civilization Act

Gradual Enfranchisement Act

Indian Act

1827 – Hudson’s Bay established post in Langley

Sto’lo refused to trade fir because their life was based on salmon and fishing

Farming began to feed Hudson’s Bay traders

1850’s – Gold Rush

1860’s -farming and cattle raising operations began in the western sections of the Valley

By 1877, the valley had been surveyed into six-square-mile townships.

Much clearing, draining and dyking was necessary before the land could be worked.

1830’s Langley became the first major agricultural centre in British Columbia

Mixed company farm producing dairy products, root crops and grain

1859 Chilliwack farmers began to drive cattle to Hope and Yale for slaughter. About the same time farms were being established in Delta.

1862 farms in Maple Ridge, Pitt Meadows and Surrey were catering to the markets in New Westminster and Vancouver to the west.

“In the 1910 Memorial to Sir Wilfrid Laurier, our Chiefs reiterated their memories of the first seme7 (guests) who respected our lands and boundaries; however, as settlers took over our land and established laws aimed at keeping us off our “ranches,” they denied not only our ownership of lands and resources, but also our ancient laws of trespass and jurisdiction. They thus defied the honour of being guests that we had bestowed upon them”.

Redesigning food system – a strategy and framework for reconciling past injustices

Reclaiming Indigenous space within the land and food system

Indigenous foods are not treated as a commodity

Food is a spiritual relationships not just a “product”

Indigenous hunters, fishers and gatherers do not identify themselves with the neoclassic economic classification of “producers”

Concern of over exploitation of Indigenous foods for global market (case in point – decline of commercial sockeye fisheries).

Constitutional Rights

Section 35 (1) Canadian Constitution

Coast Salish Carver, Dale James by Jens

Identification of key points for entering into discussions on food security, poverty alleviation and gender equality.

Identify key entry points for having Indigenous land, food and cultural strategies implemented within the land and food system design.

Reconciling past social and environmental injustices – ending apartheid in Canada

Infrastructure needs in neighbourhoods where Indigenous peoples are over represented in Vancouver area

Feasting halls and social gathering places in culturally inviting spaces – cultural responsive visual spaces (buildings and native gardens)

Adequate food processing, storage and distribution facilities

Secure land in close proximity as well as within more natural park spaces

Urban forests – putting Indigenous individuals and organizations back in the land and food systems

Applying Indigenous harvesting techniques as a strategy for enhancing biodiversity in the parks

Land Designation

Wild Salmon Fisheries Governance

Water Rights & Watershed Management and Planning

Indigenous species buffer zones on agricultural land

Supporting subsistence economies at the household level - giving, sharing, trading, working together, healthy relationships

Deur, D. & Turner, N. (2005). Keeping it living. Traditions of plant use and cultivation on the Northwest coast of North America. University of British Columbia Press.

Swift, J. (2011). Si:ya:m Governance, Colonial Interference and Contemporary Challenges Facing Cheam Leadership. A Community Governance Project Report http://web.uvic.ca/igov/uploads/pdf/MA-FINAL%20PAPER%20-%20John%20Swift.pdf

Tomkins, E. (2008). Filling up the land with Pilalt: Countering the British Columbia Referrals Process and Reclaiming Sto’lo Ways of Being on the Land. Master of the Arts Thesis. Retrieved on April 4, 2013 from website address: http://web.uvic.ca/igov/uploads/pdf/Tomkins_598_2010.pdf

Toleda, V. (n.d.). Indigenous Peoples and biodiversity. http://www.michelfirstnation.net/uploads/2/7/7/5/2775849/indigenous_peoples_and_biodiversity_v.toledo_unam._unk._yr..pdf

Turner, N. (2007). Importance of biodiversity for First Peoples of British Columbia. Biodiversity BC Technical Sub-Committee for the report of the status of biodiversity in BC. Retrieved on March 8, 2013 on website address: http://www.biodiversitybc.org/assets/Default/BBC%20Importance%20of%20Biodiversity%20to%20First%20Peoples.pdf

“It is humbling to remember that our species is perhaps been around 600,000 years. The Neolithic revolution which gave us agriculture, at which time we succumbed to the cult of the seed, the poetry of the shaman was displaced by the prose of the priesthood, we created hierarchy, specialization, surplus, is only 10,000 years ago. The modern industrial world as we know is barely 300 years old. Now that shallow history doesn’t suggest [to] me we have all the answers for all the challenges that will confront us in the ensuing millennia”.

http://intercontinentalcry.org/wade-davis-on-cultural-diversity/

Ta’Kaiya recorded her latest song, Earth Revolution in the studio in fall, 2011. The first time she sang it in public was at Occupy in Vancouver, BC in October 2011. Earth Revolution calls on the “Children of the Future,” which Ta’Kaiya has named “Generation Now” to act now to save the earth “I’ll do my part to fix what is broken, give back what we’ve taken…” before it is too late: “..because there won’t be a tomorrow, if we don’t change today.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GP9ZFgNQckg

Ta’kaiya’s bio: http://www.takaiyablaney.com/bio/