News of Note 1/3/25: Boarding School Deaths Triple, Membertou Enterprise, Indigenous Knowledge and Biodiversity
December 22, 2024–January 3, 2025
In the News
More than 3,100 students died at schools built to crush Native American cultures (The Washington Post)
“A year-long investigation by The Washington Post has documented that 3,104 students died at boarding schools between 1828 and 1970, three times as many deaths as reported by the U.S. Interior Department earlier this year. The Post found that more than 800 of those students are buried in cemeteries at or near the schools they attended, underscoring how, in many cases, children’s bodies were never sent home to their families or tribes.”
Playing to Win: How a First Nation [Membertou] Turned Around Its Fortunes (The New York Times)
[Membertou First Nation Chief] Terry Paul, led a coalition of First Nation groups to make the largest-ever investment by Indigenous people in Canada’s seafood industry in 2021. The coalition acquired 50 percent of Clearwater Seafoods, a company in Nova Scotia, in a deal valued at 1 billion Canadian dollars. [...] The First Nation is eying future land acquisition and increasing revenue streams to support the community’s young population…"
IPBES report highlights Indigenous & local knowledge as key to ‘transformative change’ (Mongabay)
“The report identifies three underlying causes of the biodiversity crisis: the disconnection from nature, inequitable power and wealth distribution, and the prioritization of short-term gains. [...] Many knowledge systems, including Indigenous and local knowledge, often ‘provide complementary insights into how [transformative change] occurs and how to promote, accelerate and navigate the change needed for a just and sustainable world…’” Full report.
More News
Amazon communities reap the smallest share of bioeconomy profits (Mongabay)
Carbon: Safeguards needed for the indigenous people (The Edge Malaysia)
Ecological concerns loom as new legal actions filed against Enbridge Line 5 (Wisconsin Examiner/ICT News)
Anishinabek First Nations assert their rights to mineral wealth on their own lands (National Indigenous Times)
A Native American tribe [Hopi] is closer to acquiring more land in Arizona after decades of delay (Associated Press)
Drowning Out Voices: The Harmful Impact of Marine Protection Privatization on Indigenous Peoples (European Journal of International Law)
Investors Lease Act to sideline local landowners, says advocacy group [Philippines] (Inquierer.net)