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Anchor: Antonia Gonzales
The Inuit Circumpolar Council is holding its general assembly this week. On Wednesday, delegates from the ICC’s four member nations heard a report on how the organization has addressed food security among Inuit communities over the last four years. Emily Schwing reports.
The ICC is a non-governmental organization that represents more than 180,000 Inuit across the Arctic including in Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and Chukotka in the Russian Far East.
Natan Obed is the head of Canada’s Delegation.
Natan Obed
“We have some of the highest rates of food insecurity in the world – between 60 and 70 percent in each of our Inuit regions and we know that we need to do much more to ensure that Inuit have enough food to eat.”
The delegations from Alaska and Canada developed the Food Sovereignty and Self Governance Project to examine and better understand food sovereignty issues.
The Alaskan delegation’s cultural sustainability advisor Vernae Angnaboogok presented findings from the project to the ICC.
“The food sovereignty and self governance project builds upon the recommendation from the food security report where authors noted that a key threat to our food security is the lack of decision making power and management.”
Vivien Korthuis is the head of Alaska’s ICC delegation; she noted that a changing climate has a heavy impact on food systems security.
“We are seeing immense changes in the ocean and on the rivers and in our land and weather. Our animals are moving around differently. We have experienced salmon crashes in our region and the impact of that is not just one or two years, it’s going to be for generations.”
The ICC holds a General assembly every four years.
Because this year’s meeting format is a hybrid in-person and virtual meeting, due to the ongoing covid-19 pandemic, leadership has opted to report on the progress made since its last meeting in 2018.
Alaska will hand over its chairmanship to Greenland at the close of this year’s meeting.
This story is supported by the Climate Justice Resilience Fund.
Native American businesses and Indigenous artists recently showcased their work in Billings, MT.
Yellowstone Public Radio’s Kayla Desroches visited the first Big Sky Indigifest where one business owner talked about Native American-made products.
Chippewa Cree tribal member Luanne Belcourt holds up a c-shaped braid of dried grass tied at each end.
Courtesy: Western Native Voice
“We grow it and we use sweet grass to pray. This is my favorite.”
Belcourt and her daughters run Cree-Ations, selling items like healing boxes that include sweetgrass for smudging, jewelry, and tea.
“We only sell products made by Native Americans.”
Belcourt says her daughters are artists, like her mother was. She recalls growing up and seeing items manufactured abroad and meant to look “Native American.”
“That’s not Native American. We have our own way of making things and we have our own philosophy behind some of the things we make.”
Belcourt says it’s critical for Native American creators and businesses to support and promote each other.
The organizers of Big Sky IndigiFest hope to make it an annual event.
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