EDAI

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT FOR AMERINDIANS

Continued from frontpage

Creative steps
towards sustainable forestry
in Ontario, Canada:

THE PIKANGIKUM EXAMPLE -
COMBINING A FIRST NATIONS’ TRADITIONAL EXPERTISE WITH MODERN DEVELOPMENT

Ontario`s Mines and Forestry Minister Michael Gravelle:
“We are moving into a time when innovation in the forestry sector is so important,” Gravelle said.
“What could be more innovative and more significant than having our young First Nations youth being trained with the help and assistance of the Elders from their communities, teaching them from an indigenous point of view about forest stewardship.”
Gravelle said the program will provide the youth with the opportunity to  work with the Whitefeather Forest Initiative and other forest companies in the future.
“This could be the start of what really should be the trend all across the country,” Gravelle said.
Published in Wawatay Online, February 18, 2010, Volume 37, No. 4

The Pikangikum First Nation wants
Local Knowledge and Local Training
for Local Forestry Jobs

“As we develop new opportunities in the Whitefeather Forest and develop and adopt new tools to support these opportunities, the effective training of our youth will become critical. We intend to ensure that our Ojibway training and teaching customs will be harmonized with Western methods to nurture the best possible learning contexts for Pikangikum youth. Our tradition of applied experiential learning will be harmonized with the contemporary use of the classroom. Our Elders and land experts will continue to teach young apprentices our knowledge of the land through going out on the land. This will include passing on our tradition of Keeping the Land. Through these efforts, our youth will continue to be able to have the opportunity to gain deep understandings of the land rooted in our Ojibway way of life.”
http://www.whitefeatherforest.com/training/our-teaching-and-training-vision/

With the help from the Ontario Trillium Foundation

With the help of a $465,000 three year Future Fund Grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation, PIkangikum First Nation elders will work with Confederation College and other partners to – for the first time – develop and incorporate indigenous knowledge and forest stewardship into the Forest Eco-System Management Technician program. This will substantially change the way resource management is taught and carried out in northern Ontario.
The first of its kind, the “Whitefeather Forest Generative Curriculum Project” will train and qualify First Nation youth to work as forestry technicians in the Whitefeather Forest and in local forest products industry businesses. They could also choose to go beyond their diploma program to for a university forestry degree.
The initiative will provide qualified people to take on as many as to 300 forestry related jobs for PIkangikum and surrounding communities – much needed in an area where unemployment rates run around 70 per cent.

“We had been looking for someone to stand alongside us for this project, and we found Confederation College,” recalls Alex Peters, President of the Whitefeather Forest Management Corporation.

Area youth – or anyone from the south who wants to take the course in Pikangikum – will learn western science and indigenous teachings about forestry management in classes held in both English and Ojibwe, says Peters.

It’s a big project, one that will have a huge impact on local youth.
“Through out the years we’ve had maybe two or three of our youth go on to university. But elders wanted our youth want to stay in the community. We plan to bring the college to the community and Con College obliged.”

http://www.trilliumfoundation.org/cms/en/pikangikum.aspx

Soon:
Pikangikum’s Elders teaching indigenous knowledge
alongside Confederation College professors

The Whitefeather Forest Research Cooperative agreement
The WFRC Agreement embodies the bringing together of different knowledge traditions to support research that in turn supports sustaining the land and the development of new knowledge for the benefit of humanity. Membership in the Whitefeather Forest Research Co-operative is based on agreement on protocols for research in the Whitefeather Forest.
Signatories to the agreement who have recently undertaken or are actively involved in research in the Whitefeather Forest include:

The Natural Resources Institute, University of Manitoba
– various projects

Department of Anthropology, Lakehead University
– heritage research

Ontario Parks

In addition to heritage research, members of the Co-operative have been involved in research on a variety of topics including species at risk, traditional fire and forest management.
http://www.whitefeatherforest.com/research/whitefeather-forest-research-co-operative/