TEK Elders Teachings on forests and waters

TEK Elders

TEK ELDERS POSITION PAPER ON GLYPHOSATE

The TEK (Traditional Ecological Knowledge) Elders of the North Shore of Lake Huron and Other Concerned Citizens released the following in 2017:

Our Position on the Proposed Re-evaluation Decision for Glyphosate

As the TEK (Traditional Ecological Knowledge) Elders of the North Shore of Lake Huron, we hold expert Indigenous scientific knowledge of our traditional territories. Indigenous science focuses on ecological relationships and includes a sophisticated understanding of the behaviour of environmental contaminants. We believe that glyphosate and the additives that enhance its potency are harming the health and well-being of the water, soil, birds, plants, fish, amphibians, invertebrates, humans and other mammals.

Infringement of Treaty rights by aerial spraying of glyphosate, and the role of oral evidence

We are dependent socially, economically, spiritually, and culturally on the health of the forest, including the wildlife, plants, water, and soil. In many areas, we cannot trust that the medicines and foods we harvest are clean and uncontaminated. The aerial spraying of glyphosate violates our Treaty rights to the water and to hunt, fish, and gather berries and plant medicines in our traditional territories. Treaty rights are recognized and affirmed in section 35(1) of the Constitution Act, 1982. We are the caretakers of the lands and waters that were given to us by the Creator so that we may continue to live as Anishinabek people for generations to come. We have never relinquished these sacred responsibilities.

The Robinson-Huron Treaties were concluded on the basis of Anishinaabek law and diplomatic protocols which are embedded in spiritual traditions and the oral testimonies flowing from these traditions. Indigenous science is part of an oral tradition. In numerous cases, the courts have affirmed that oral traditions are part of the Treaty relationship that the Crown is legally obligated to honour and uphold. Furthermore, in Delgamuukw [1997], the Supreme Court of Canada found that rules of evidence must be adapted so that oral testimonies can be placed on equal footing with other kinds of evidence.

The duty to consult with Treaty First Nations cannot be satisfied by public consultation.

The duty to consult is a constitutional obligation owed only to First Nations people. It cannot be satisfied by public consultation of the sort being carried out by Health Canada in its ongoing reevaluation of glyphosate safety. Following the Supreme Court of Canada, consultation must aim to substantially address our concerns and minimize adverse effects on Aboriginal rights. Any infringements of our Treaty rights must be necessary for achieving compelling and substantial objectives that further the goal of reconciliation. Aerial spraying with glyphosate may be less expensive than its non-chemical alternatives, but it is unnecessary, and it violates our Treaty rights. The forestry industry is currently not required to internalize the costs of environmental damage and loss of Treaty rights.

The risks of glyphosate-based herbicides are known to Indigenous science (traditional ecological knowledge).

Health Canada’s proposed re-evaluation decision for glyphosate is based on dietary and occupational exposures that do not correspond with Anishinaabek use of the territories for food, medicine, and water. Furthermore, laboratory toxicology studies are based on reference values that do not conform to our own standards of risk, and that do not take into account the cumulative effects of the environmental contaminants to which we are exposed. We are concerned about the combined toxicity of glyphosate and the surfactants, solvents, and other additives designed to increase the chemical potency of the active ingredient glyphosate. In the weeks and months that they persist in the environment, glyphosate-containing herbicides and their derivatives can do significant damage to humans and non-humans. We know this from firsthand knowledge of our territories and the ecological relationships of which we are a part.

In the spirit of renewing the Treaty relationship, we respectfully request to meet with the Crown – in the matter at hand, represented by Health Canada -- in a forum that will allow for meaningful dialogue and a complete and thorough hearing of our concerns.

White Ribbon Campaign

TEK Elders

The TEK (Traditional Ecological Knowledge) Elders of the Robinson Huron Treaty (RHT) territory hold expert Indigenous scientific knowledge of our traditional territories. This is our knowledge. Anishnaabekgiikendaasowin.  Indigenous science focuses on ecological relationships and includes a sophisticated understanding of the behaviour of environmental contaminants.  The TEK Elders are calling for a ban on herbicide spraying (glyphosate) in forestry operations in the RHT territory. This chemical kills broad leaf plants such as birch and maple trees. It is sprayed on areas that have been clear cut or selective cut. The TEK Elders know that glyphosate and the additives that enhance its potency are harming the health and well-being of the water, soil, birds, plants, fish, amphibians, invertebrates, humans and other mammals. It is killing the Anishinaabek way of life.  

The White Ribbon Campaign was launched in the summer of 2022 as a result of information Elder Ray Owl received during aShake Tent ceremony.He was instructed totie white ribbons on trees across the RHT territory. The TEK Elders is inviting everyone to participate in this ceremony,making an offering of tobacco and putting the white ribbons on trees while being present with the tree as the ribbon is tied. The trees are Beings with a life force, they are our Relatives, our Kin.Engaging in the White Ribbon Campaign is one way people can uplift our calls to respect the forest, to end the herbicide spraying, and ensure future generations continue to live the Anishinaabek way of life. 

This Campaign was made possible by the generous support of the NDN Collective. During 2022 and 2023, the TEK Elders held several gatherings, hosted teachings at five cultural events across the Robinson Huron Treaty Territory, and engaged in solidarity work with the Land Alliance and Stop the Spray Ontario in Toronto and Ottawa. We were able to support two of our Elders' land based education work and involvement of Youth in our White Ribbon Campaign.

The Robinson Huron Waawiindemaagewin welcomed TEK Elders to present at various events to educate Anishinaabek on the TEK Elders. In addition to introducing the White Ribbon Campaign, Elders spoke of our work on Anishinaabe environmental governance, the glyphosate issue, and the impact of cumulative effects on Anishinaabe lands and waters.

Research

The Problem of Glyphosate

Understanding what GlyBH are, why they are being used in forestry, and why this raises alarm bells for the TEK Elders. Compiled by Jodi Koberinski. 

Elders Raymond Owl (Sagamok) and Willie Pine (Mississauga) tell us to listen.

Bziindaan.

There is silence in the forests.

Gone are the rustling sounds of our relatives, the songs of the birds, and the buzzing of the insects. Replaced with pine plantations stretching for kilometres in every direction where diverse, abundant mixed forests recently stood.

The problem with glyphosate is the kind of thinking that goes into deciding its use is a good idea. That is colonial thinking. It is short term and it is to use the words of a young Anishinaabe educator, "inelegant" in its crude calculation that stripping the lands and the waters is "efficient".

TEK Elders recall the days when brushing was good work for local Anishinaabek. Hydro lines and cut blocks tended by hand. As young people TEK Elders did this work, as did many of their children.  Anishinaabek youth learned growing up in the forest working alongside Elders and the grown ups throughout the year. While the work was difficult and where speed drives decisions, dangerous, the work provided livelihoods and helped many of the Anishinaabek to get through school.

With a shift in thinking and a focus on the price (but not the cost), Ontario forestry companies stopped hiring people and began spraying herbicides.

In this shift in thinking, leafy deciduous trees are "weeds" and "problems", with Jack Pine and other conifers preferred by forestry companies. The sheer pace with which the forests along the North Shore have been replaced with plantations astounds.

The problem with Glyphosate is that it is yet another industrial scale intervention that speeds up the pace with which clearcutting -- an ecocide -- can take place. This practice is not a stand-alone activity. Herbicide use goes hand in hand with large clearings and with replacing diverse, mixed forest systems with monocultures or reduced diversity conifer forests with some very obvious downsides:

• Conifer forests are less resistant to fire

• Diseases and pests prefer plantations

• Soil microbiome and the underground mycelium network are altered by Conifer dominance

• The plantations do not offer the foods and medicines for our Relations

• Specifically, deer and moose populations are harmed as their food sources disappear

• Waterways, wetlands, and those who live within the affected regions are damaged

Elder Willie Pine, a cofounder of the TEK Elders, invites folks to consider what relationships have been lost when we replace the forests with plantations. Elder Willie spoke on the sad condition of younger, single aged pine plantation near his childhood Blueberry harvesting area along the Mississaugi River. After having been clear cut some years prior, these trees were struggling to grow -- the crown exhibiting unbalanced growth compared to the rest of the tree.

Elder Willie asked:

 "How can the trees be healthy when they don't have any parents around to teach them?"

The lack of understanding of what actually makes a forest healthy exhibited by forest company "experts" can be traced to the problems with the limited view afforded by a commodity perspective on forests. For Anishinaabek, the trees are not simply "standing board feet" waiting to be turned into money. Trees are relatives with their own instructions and obligations in the web of life. The interconnectedness of the waters, the trees, the soils and rocks, and all the creatures reliant on their right relationships is ever-present for the Elders.

Glyphosate is not our only problem when it comes to herbicide use in our forests.

Forest companies are applying several novel uses of herbicides. These practices are speeding up the conversion of our diverse forests -- filled with medicines, foods, and clean waters that all our relations share -- into pine plantations devoid of life. Please see the links to the various Stop the Spray groups who've been compiling western science and evidence on glyphosate and forestry.

TEK Elders: A decade of Action

TEK Elders

The following is a collection of news articles, blog posts, press releases, statements from the TEK Elders over the past decade:

Cumulative Effects

Characterizing Cumulative Effects

Cumulative effects in across the Anishinaabek Nation

We will be updating this section with some teachings from the TEK Elders, links to journal articles, and updates on TEK Elders efforts to characterize the impacts of cumulative effects across Anishinaabek lands. 

TEK Elders delegation attends the ICCE Conference in Ottawa in May of 2023.

We will be updating this section in Spring 2024. Your patience welcome Miigwech.

Blueberry River First Nation wins historic cumulative impacts court case: implications for TEK Elders Campaign

compiled by Jodi Koberinski, MES

The Blueberry River First Nation in Treaty 8 (BRFN) won a precedent-setting case in which the cumulative effects of industrial development on their treaty rights has been recognized, changing the legal landscape for Indigenous peoples’ treaty rights across so-called Canada. In Yahey v. British Columbia, BC’s Supreme Court breaks from convention in which treaty rights have historically been viewed in the most narrow, transactional, and industry-serving regard possible (McIvor 2021; Mills 2019; Borrows 2019: Manuel and Derrickson 2014). Osle, Hoskin and Harcourth in on online communication summarized the case succinctly:

“This precedent-setting decision represents the first time a Canadian court has found an infringement of Indigenous treaty rights based on the cumulative impacts of policies and permitted development over decades, rather than based on a specific action or regulatory regime… the BCSC concluded that B.C. had taken up lands in BRFN’s traditional territory to such an extent that there were no longer sufficient and appropriate lands to allow BRFN’s members to meaningfully exercise their treaty rights” (Osle et al. 2021). This judgement calls into question the practice of treating project approvals – and contestations—in a discrete project-by-project basis, according to McIvor’s interpretation. To date, BRFN estimates two thirds of their territory covered by Treaty 8 has been “developed” or is within 250m of “development”. The courts heard the argument that should the pace BRFN lands have been developed continue unabated, by 2060 the entire territory would be either “developed” or within 250m of “development”. For McIvor, the “piecemeal limitation of treaty rights” represents “one of the greatest challenges Fist Nations face in their ongoing struggle to defend their treaty rights” (McIvor 2021:49 -51). Morally and ethically, this clearly is an infringement, yet moral and ethical clarity has not in the past stopped courts from ignoring Indigenous “rights” regarding “resource management” within FN’s territories prior to this judgement.

A third implication from Yahey v BC is the court’s determination the province failed in its fiduciary duty and its obligations under the treaty, “failing to uphold the honour of the Crown” (Osle et al. 2021). The Blueberry First Nation was able to demonstrate the concerns regarding inability to practice Treaty Rights had been raised and the BC Government chose to ignore these concerns, a crucial step in the decision. The Robinson Huron Treaty Nations can also make this argument based not only on the various efforts individual FNs have made over the years (Serpent River, Batchawa, as citable cases), but based on the efforts of the TEK Elders since 2008 and in particular in their efforts to meet with Ministers, staff and industry.

As Metis lawyer and educator Bruce McIvor details in his essay “Negotiate or Litigate” (McIvor 2021:20), 

“As a result of these failures, the BCSC declared that (1) B.C. cannot continue to authorize activities in BRFN’s traditional territory that infringe BRFN’s exercise of treaty rights; and (2) B.C. and BRFN must negotiate timely enforcement mechanisms to assess and manage the cumulative effects of industrial development. The BCSC suspended the first declaration for six months to provide B.C. and BRFN time to negotiate a new regulatory framework.” (Osle et al. 2021).

Since the case was won, BC and the Blueberry River First Nation entered into a negotiation to determine a path forward for enterprises operating in the area, and for ongoing development.

Implications of the decision for TEK Elders efforts to protect forests:

Ray Owl, Willie Pine, and the TEK Elders’ communicated their concerns for the ongoing mismanagement in the RHTT forests. Decade upon decade of extractive industry operating across the Robinson Huron Treaty Territory -- Eacom is simply the latest license holder in a now centuries-long mis-application of the hospitality first and then after 1850 the negotiated Treaty that saw the Anishnaabe Nations as a whole have their territories protected from encroachment.

This judgement significantly lowered the bar for burden of proof from Indigenous peoples’ perspectives in granting it sufficient the “taking up of lands significantly infringed the First Nation’s treaty rights” rather than requiring proof a tipping point had been reached or surpassed beyond which treaty rights could no longer be exercised by the First Nation (McIvor 2021:51):

“The effects of Yahey are not likely to be confined to northeast B.C. The Yahey decision demonstrates a viable path to establishing an infringement of treaty rights on the basis of cumulative effects. Many parts of Canada have seen material population growth, as well as infrastructure and/or resource development since the time of historic treaties with Indigenous groups.” (Osle et al. 2021)

“We expect Yahey will lead to similar cumulative effects claims across Canada, particularly across the Prairies and northern Ontario under the historic numbered treaties similar to Treaty 8. Such claims could inject further uncertainty into Canada’s regulatory approval processes, and, if successful, could significantly change the future of resource and infrastructure development in Canada.” (Osle et al. 2021)

Since Ford’s government scrapped the 1994 Sustainable Forests Act, companies have taken the opportunity to begin to operate as if the Robinson Huron Treaty never existed. This is yet another assault on the Anishinaabe whose collective governance over the non-reserve territories continues to be undermined to the detriment of all.