Canadian Boreal Initiative – Traditional knowledge held by Canada’s Aboriginal people about the Boreal Forest offers western scientists a vitally important information source, according to a report published by the David Suzuki Foundation, the Canadian Boreal Initiative, and the Boreal Songbird Initiative. With the Boreal Forest facing increasing threats from climate change, habitat loss and fragmentation, and invasive species, this knowledge is more important than ever.
The report, Conservation Value of the North American Boreal Forest from an Ethnobotanical Perspective, describes the deep botanical and ecological knowledge that Canada’s Aboriginal peoples have gained over thousands of years of using the Boreal Forest as grocery, pharmacy, school, and spiritual centre. The report notes that the value of the Canada’s Boreal Forest to Aboriginal people in terms of subsistence (plant and animal) foods alone could reach up to $575.1 million. Many other values have yet to be quantified. “The deeply rooted knowledge of indigenous communities remains an essential but often overlooked element in conservation planning,” said Larry Innes, executive director of CBI. “This report contributes to building a better awareness among Canadians about the richness and diversity of plant use and knowledge among indigenous peoples.”
Download report: “Conservation Value of the North American Boreal Forest from an Ethnobotanical Perspective” (PDF). In addition, report highlights (DOC) and website.
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PEW Environmental Group – The Pew Environment Group today released a report that for the first time quantifies the global cost of the Arctic’s declining ability to cool the climate, indicating that the rapid melting of the region could carry a minimum price tag of $2.4 trillion U.S. by 2050. The report, issued as G7 finance ministers began a two‐day meeting in this southeast Baffin Island town, estimates that this year alone the climate cooling value lost by retreating Arctic sea ice and snow and thawing permafrost could be an estimated $61 billion U.S. to $371 billion U.S. On the low end of its projections, the report estimates that these costs could accumulate to almost $5 trillion U.S. by the end of the century if climate change is not abated …
The report calculates that this year alone, Arctic melting may warm the Earth an amount equivalent to pumping three billion metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. “That’s equal to forty percent of all U.S. industrial emissions this year or bringing on line more than 500 large coal‐burning power plants,” said Dr. Eugenie Euskirchen, co‐author of the report and a scientist from the University of Alaska at Fairbanks’ Institute of Arctic Biology.
Downloads (PDF): “An Initial Estimate of the Cost of Lost Climate Regulation Services Due to Changes in the Arctic Cryosphere” (full report). “Arctic Treasure: Global Assets Melting Away” (summary report).
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Parks Canada – The Honourable Jim Prentice, Canada’s Environment Minister and Minister Responsible for Parks Canada and the Honourable Charlene Johnson, Newfoundland and Labrador’s Minister of Environment and Conservation, today announced that they have agreed to take the necessary steps to establish a new national park reserve in the Mealy Mountains [Akamiuapishkua] area of Labrador. The park reserve will protect roughly 10,700 sq km, which will make it the largest national park in eastern Canada. The provincial government also announced its intent to establish a waterway provincial park to protect the Eagle River, adjacent to the proposed national park reserve. Together these areas will protect over 13,000 sq km. “As we enter into the International Year of Biodiversity, it is fitting that we are working to establish a national park reserve to protect this spectacular boreal landscape for all time, for all Canadians,” said Minister Prentice. “This part of Labrador is not only of ecological significance, it is also of great cultural importance and we are committed to moving forward in a way that recognizes and respects the traditional connections people have with the land.”
View backgrounders: park values, feasibility study process, traditional land use within proposed park.
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- Protected Areas Association of Newfoundland and Labrador: Mealy Mountains.
- CPAWS Photo Gallery: Mealy Mountains (by Dr. John Jacobs, Memorial University).
- CPAWS: “CPAWS welcomes today’s announcement of new parks for Mealy Mountains, Labrador” (Feb. 05, 2010).
- BSI Blog: “New National Park a Boost for Boreal Species” (Feb. 05, 2010).
- CBC: “Labrador gets new national park” (Feb. 05, 2010).
- The Globe and Mail: “Ottawa creates massive new park in Labrador” (Feb. 05, 2010).
- Nature Canada: “Nature Canada Hails Establishment of National, Provincial Parks in Labrador” (Feb. 05, 2010).
- Canwest News Service: “Huge new national park announced for Labrador” (Feb. 05, 2010).
- Canadian Boreal Initiative: “The Canadian Boreal Initiative Applauds Announcement of Mealy Mountains National Park and the provincial Eagle River waterway park” (Feb. 05, 2010).
All Things Considered (NPR) – It’s estimated that there were hundreds of different languages spoken by American Indians before Europeans arrived; most of those languages became extinct. But many tribes are trying to revive their dead or “sleeping” languages. The Chitimacha tribe, which has just over 1,000 members living on the bayou south of Lafayette, La., has been trying to resuscitate its language for several years. The last native speaker died in 1940. Their language has been a sleeping language for about 60 years,” says Marion Bittinger, manager of the endangered language program at Rosetta Stone. The company has worked with other tribes trying to save dying languages, but those tribes have all been able to turn to elderly native speakers.”In the Chitimacha project, that hasn’t been the case,” says Bittinger, “so it’s been a very challenging project, but also very inspiring.”
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MarketWatch – Jim Bell, the editor of the Iqaluit’s weekly newspaper, Nunatsiaq News, said he was surprised when his home of 30 years was chosen, because of the logistical problems it poses. “It’s not a kind of place that has the resources to completely support a gathering like this,” Bell says. “Even in the best of times the telecommunications services can be dicey.” NorthwesTel, the major telecommunications company in the area, warned residents to expect dropped calls and spotty Internet connections.
Thanks to its one-runway airport, Iqaluit is considered the major gateway to the Eastern Arctic. The city is a three-hour plane ride away from Montreal and Ottawa, the nearest large cities. “It’s as far away as you can go in three hours from a cultural perspective,” says David Scott, the director of the Northern Canada division of the Geological Survey of Canada. “It’s exotic, and the landscape is unlike anything else in the south.” Ministers and their entourages could also be stranded if the weather doesn’t cooperate, and Iqaluit’s newspaper editor said it hasn’t been great lately.
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Hamilton Spectator – Six Nations has inked a deal with Korean corporate giant Samsung to develop a $40-million solar power farm on reserve lands. The Six Nations project with Samsung C&T Corporation — part of the $7-billion renewable energy initiative Ontario signed with Samsung and Korea Electric Power Corp. earlier this week — will cover 40.5 hectares and generate 10 megawatts. That’s enough to power 2,100 homes. “Including construction, operations and maintenance, we would employ about 100 people,” Cheolwoo Lee, Samsung’s senior executive vice-president, said yesterday. The reserve would create a utility company to distribute the solar-generated electricity to Six Nations customers and sell excess capacity to the province’s electricity grid, said Chief Bill Montour of the elected band council. Six Nations will take an active role in developing, running and maintaining the solar farm instead of just leasing land and receiving royalty payments, he said.
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BBC – Research shows wolverine numbers are falling across North America. Their decline has been linked to less snow settling as a result of climate change. The study is the first to show a decline in the abundance of any land species due to vanishing snowpack. Details of the wolverine’s decline are published in Population Ecology. The wolverine lives in boreal forest across Scandinavia, northern Russia, northern China, Mongolia and North America, where it ranges mostly across six provinces of western Canada. This largest member of the weasel family eats carrion and food it hunts itself, including hares, marmots, smaller rodents and young or weakened ungulates. It has evolved for life on the snowpack, having thick fur and outsized feet that help it move across and hunt on snow.
Abstract: “Nonlinear responses of wolverine populations to declining winter snowpack” (Population Ecology, 25 December 2009).
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Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency – A new study to determine the potential for an all-season road connecting Wrigley to the Dempster Highway in the Northwest Territories will receive support thanks to investments by the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency (CanNor) and the Government of the Northwest Territories (GNWT). The federal contribution was made possible through Canada’s Economic Action Plan. The territorial contribution reflected support given by Members of the 16th Legislative Assembly on February 25, 2009 for the building of the Mackenzie Valley Highway to the Arctic Coast … The joint contributions will support a project by the GNWT’s Department of Transportation (DOT) that will help determine the feasibility of constructing an all-weather road through the Mackenzie Valley from Wrigley to the Dempster Highway near Inuvik. The project is expected to take three years to complete.
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Yale Environment 360 – A ranking of 163 nations based on environmental public health and the vitality of their ecosystems places Iceland, Switzerland, Costa Rica, Sweden, and Norway in the top five, with the U.S. trailing in 61st place and China and India ranking 121st and 123rd respectively. The Environmental Performance Index, compiled by researchers at Yale and Columbia universities, ranks countries based on 10 main categories such as environmental health, air quality, water management, biodiversity and habitat, forestry, and climate change. Iceland ranked at the top because of its excellent environmental public health and reliance on renewable sources of energy such as geothermal and hydropower. Although the U.S. placed high in categories such as safe drinking water and forest sustainability, it ranked 61st overall because of its massive greenhouse gas emissions and local air pollution problems.
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If we don’t say it, who will? As keepers of the knowledge, it is our responsibility to share what has been passed on to us. Lessons learned are gifts and we have the responsibility to share these in order to teach about living in harmony, balance and respect with each other and with nature and its biodiversity.
- Hilistis, Pauline Waterfall (p. xiii)
Biodiversity BC – The idea for this book was inspired by Frank Brown’s experience as an advisor to the Biodiversity BC Steering Committee during its preparation of Taking Nature’s Pulse: The Status of Biodiversity in British Columbia (PDF), published in 2008. After hearing Biodiversity BC’s (BBC) science reviewers discuss the significance of various threats to biodiversity in BC, Frank asked the BBC Steering Committee to fund a project to help articulate the connection between the scientific assessment of biodiversity and the traditional knowledge and practices handed down through multiple generations among Pacific Northwest Coastal First Nations.
Download report: “Staying the Course, Staying Alive — Coastal First Nations Fundamental Truths: Biodiversity, Stewardship and Sustainability” (PDF).
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