Daily News Digest – August 19, 2020
Involving indigenous people in environmental governance — the Sixth Schedule way
The success story of Mawphlang necessitates replication and serves as an apt model for showing the benefits accrued from involving indigenous people in environmental governance through incentivised programmes.
Active community engagement in forest management, however, is still missing from certain district council legislations. These laws need amendments to increase participation of indigenous populations and legislations need to be adopted immediately in areas where they are missing.
Mural painting project to showcase Indigenous resiliency, beauty
“I really think that art can be a very powerful vehicle for expression of messaging — sometimes in ways that we can’t say through words,” she says. “There’s so much art that’s been made by Indigenous artists… On issues that impact our communities whether its Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, climate change, police brutality.”
The mural painting project will bring eight to 12 Indigenous artists as well as 12 youth to collaborate on six murals across Yellowknife, Ndilǫ and Dettah — all artists and participants will be paid.
Roundtable: How Indigenous communities respond to disasters
Nunavut, the vast Arctic territory in Canada’s north where more than 80 percent of the population identifies as Inuit, holds a key distinction: It’s the only province or territory in the country without a single confirmed coronavirus case.
Even though deaths have been avoided, the pandemic response has been burdened with a problem familiar to Indigenous communities across the globe – not enough Inuit people are involved at the decision-making level, according to Madeleine Redfern, the former mayor of Nunavut’s capital, Iqaluit.
Brazil indigenous tribe ordered to end protest blocking key grains export route
Members of the Kayapó indigenous tribe had blocked the route in center-west Brazil on Monday, protesting against a lack of government protection from the coronavirus pandemic that has killed several of their elders.
Kayapó wearing warrior body paint and headdresses used tires and wood to block trucks carrying corn on the BR-163 highway, a Reuters witness said.
https://news.trust.org/item/20200817220255-fmc47/
Circuit court sittings resume after consultation between provincial court, First Nations leadership
Circuit courts in Manitoba First Nations have resumed after being suspended this spring as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Manitoba’s provincial court consulted First Nations that host circuit court sittings prior to their resumption to ensure that bringing judges and other members of the court into the communities would not increase their members’ risk of exposure to the novel coronavirus.
Bureau of Indian Education: BIE pushes for in-person classes
“These “Dear tribal leader” letters sent out by the BIE don’t acknowledge the authority of tribal nations and our elected officials,” said Daniel Tso, Navajo Nation council delegate and chairman of Navajo Nation Health, Education and Human Services Committee.Nearly half of the Navajo Nation’s 65 BIE schools are operated directly by the bureau. Only about a third of all BIE-funded schools are operated by the agency. Most are tribally-controlled schools.
https://www.nhonews.com/news/2020/aug/18/bureau-indian-education-bie-pushes-person-classes/
Why were police in Thunder Bay, Ont. so curious about your COVID-19 status? Civil rights groups want to know
Thunder Bay police must answer for their surprisingly high rate of searches in a database that revealed the name, date of birth and address of people who tested positive for COVID-19, said the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA).
Information released during that legal process revealed Thunder Bay police had searched the database more than 150 times per day, on average, between April 17 and July 22, according to the CCLA. That amounts to 14,800 searches, or a rate ten times the average number of searches by other police forces across the province.
“Keeping the culture alive’: Native dance goes digital during pandemic
Native performers employ various styles to tell stories, relay messages, promote healing and celebrate milestones.
“We dance for the ones who can’t dance – we dance for the sick, we dance for the elderly, we dance for our ancestors,” she said. “It really helps us with our mental health, our physical health. And … other people get joy off of our dancing.”
B.C. Indigenous leaders call for closure of all Fraser River sockeye fisheries
A joint news release three groups that make up the First Nations Leadership Council says Bernadette Jordan should also declare the stock collapsed while their groups come together to create a strategy to save the fish.
Fisheries and Oceans Canada has estimated returning sockeye would hit a record low this year, with about 283,000 fish or fewer making it from the ocean to their Fraser River spawning grounds.
Five Nuu-Chah-Nulth First Nations on Vancouver Island have also accused federal fisheries officials of systemic racism after the government decided to exclude them in the allocation of 15,000 extra salmon this year — a surplus that arose because fewer people were fishing recreationally during the COVID-19 pandemic
Indigenous researcher to study effect of COVID-19 policies on Aboriginal peoples
“A lot of data is collected about us, but we don’t show up in the data,” said Bonshor. “First Nations people have the right to their own data, and academia has not effectively been able to analyze Indigenous data because there is a lack of understanding of what kind of data they’ve collected — researchers might call it Inuit, Métis, on reserve, off reserve and not even understand the colonial terminology they are using. Brittany and our Aboriginal research teams can bring that Indigenous lens and, as health leaders, we can help them interpret and understand the data.”