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Latest news about the Safe Drinking Water Team
The Everyone Together: Water Gathering Statement was created by a group of 22 participants representing 14 different First Nation and Inuit communities and organizations. The protocol outlined in the document was initially discussed over three days in April 2023 during the University of Saskatchewan (USask)-led Global Water Futures (GWF) - Mistawasis Nêhiyawak Water Gathering, and is now available publicly.
Talks on a plan to protect land and water globally are underway at the COP15 meeting in Montreal, with the host nation Canada among a legion of countries pushing for a “30×30” deal to protect 30% of the world’s land and ocean by 2030. Agreements on the targets, approaches and language in the post-2020 global biodiversity framework have been especially slow, with ministers from around the world set to arrive tomorrow to approve on the text. Indigenous delegates and analysts are calling for the integration of Indigenous land rights, knowledge and financing to resolve the 30×30 conservation target, citing Canada’s guardians program as a successful way to meet area-based conservation goals.
The research these youth snorkelers are partaking in is part of an Indigenous-led project to map the coastal waters of Átl’ḵa7tsem, once polluted by industry, but now teeming with fish. For centuries, Indigenous communities have had their traditional knowledge and cultural traditions overlooked, if not erased. That’s reflected in the conventional maps of Canada.
First Nations, scientists and climate change experts are sharing how the Yukon's landscape — shaped by permafrost — is thawing and what that means for adaptation, land use, industry and wildlife. The issue is the main theme of the North Yukon Permafrost Conference, a collaboration between the Tr'ondëk Hwëchin and Vuntut Gwitchin governments, the First Nation of Na-Cho Nyak Dun and the Canadian Permafrost Association. The conference runs all week. The permafrost shift is especially noticeable in Dawson City, said Jackie Olson, a Tr'ondëk Hwëchin citizen who has lived in the community her whole life.
North Bay's Canadore College has received $750,000 from FedNor to build an Indigenous clean water learning lodge. The lodge will be a testing ground for water treatment technology, and will also apply Indigenous knowledge around conservation. The funding announcement was part of a $2.8-million investment to support four initiatives at the northern Ontario college.
