With Plenty Canada’s assistance the Niagara Escarpment Biosphere Network recently completed the 2024 Niagara Escarpment Biosphere Self Study, a significant milestone in the periodic review process and in the Network’s ongoing conservation efforts. Every ten years, UNESCO designated biospheres undergo a comprehensive review of the biosphere, ensuring they meet the criteria for conservation, development, and logistical support. This process involves detailed reporting on the biosphere's ecological health, community involvement, and sustainable development initiatives. Following the format provided by UNESCO, the 2024 Self-Study Report shares research findings, case studies and insights from our network partners to describe ecological, cultural, and developmental changes and significant moments in our biosphere over the past ten years. The 2024 Self-Study Report is now available on both the Network and Plenty Canada websites. The review provided the Network with a reflective process to understand how conservation, sustainability, and stewardship looks within our biosphere, and provides a stepping stone to guide our future.
 
As part of the periodic review, representatives from the Canadian Commission for UNESCO were given an extensive tour of the biosphere, highlighting the unique ecological and historical features of the escarpment. From our start in Neyaashiinigmiing until the end at the Landscape of Nations Memorial, we showcased the beauty of the escarpment and the extensive work of our network partners. During the tour, reviewers interacted with political leaders, local government staff, Indigenous youth, research institutions, parks and conservation agencies, business, advocacy organizations, educators and students and Indigenous cultural educators who shared their insights and experiences in stewarding and preserving the biosphere. The representation present throughout the tour demonstrated how a powerful network might accelerate collaboration to achieve the shared goals for the conservation of the Niagara Escarpment and the communities that are linked by it.
 
With the contributions of our partners, we were able to demonstrate the diversity and the unique long term commitment of people and organizations working within our biosphere. The tour provided the NEBN with the opportunity to speak to the representatives from the Canadian Commission for UNESCO about our co-governance structure, and the importance of Two-Eyed Seeing and Ethical Space in the work of a biosphere. We heard from the representatives from the Canadian Commission for UNESCO that they were impressed, at times moved, and essentially grateful for all they learned from our community.
 
The successful completion of the periodic review and the positive feedback from the CCUNESCO tour highlight the Niagara Escarpment Biosphere’s exemplary status as a model for sustainable development, and Two-Eyed Seeing conservation in action. Moving forward, the network aims to continue its efforts in protecting its natural and cultural heritage while fostering sustainable economic activities. The insights gained from the review and tour will guide future initiatives, ensuring that the biosphere remains a vital part of Canada’s natural legacy and a leader in reconciliation. As the NEBN looks to the future, it remains committed to maintaining the delicate balance between human activity and nature, ensuring that this precious landscape thrives for generations to come. Plenty Canada and the Network always welcome and invite our partners to provide us with their insights and input on the future initiatives of the biosphere. Please use the “Contact Us” page on our website to let us know your thoughts!
 
— Tasha Gunasinghe (Photos © MarkZelinski.com)​

​Every now and then along comes a moment, an experience, that reaffirms your confidence that people can be mindful, considerate, and even beautiful in dealing with difficult issues. Such was the example set by the recent Two-Eyed Seeing and Ethical Space Training: Indigenous Climate Change Action conference that Plenty Canada produced in partnership with Mohawk College and the Niagara Escarpment Biosphere Network. Held, appropriately, at The Gathering Place in Six Nations of the Grand River on March 14 and 15, the conference planners, speakers, and presenters, along with an energetic and engaged audience all came together to create a remarkable atmosphere founded upon knowledge, respect, and empathy.The team that pulled this conference together is to be commended on every level. From fundraising to logistics, speaker cultivation and booking, agenda scheduling and food service planning, to time management and youth engagement, the event played out like a well-crafted symphony of coordinated intent. At its core the conference explored “the ways in which Indigenous principles can be used to develop a response to the impacts of climate change.”
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Launching the session were esteemed elders who set the tone and provided knowledge-based cultural context for the presentations. Kevin Deer, from Kahnawake Mohawk Territory provided a fulsome explanation of the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address. Rick Hill, Tuscarora, Indigenous Innovations Specialist with Mohawk College, spoke about how climate change is adversely impacting Indigenous food security, biodiversity, human health, ways of life, and other factors that are determining the future for the next seven generations. Tim Johnson, Mohawk from Six Nations of the Grand River, senior advisor to Plenty Canada and Niagara Parks, provided an orientation that outlined the long history of Indigenous concerns about the state of the earth and particularly, climate change. And revered Mi’kmaw Elder Albert Marshall, who with his wife Murdena developed the philosophy of Two-Eyed Seeing, was present for a video conferencing session over which myself and Trent University Professor Dan Longboat presided. In addition, Oren Lyons, Haudenosaunee faithkeeper and a principal figure in the development of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, spoke about the consequences of not respecting natural law.

Along with a presentation by Dr. Sarah Burch, executive director of the Waterloo Climate Institute and lead author of the United Nations’ Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and Katherine Flynn from the Mohawk College Centre for Climate Change Management, this formulated the remarkable lineup that launched the conference. From there a series of additional fascinating and engaging presentations, driven to a large extent by youthful scientific and cultural energy, embraced and supported by experienced and compassionate elders, generated a power I’ve rarely experienced at such events.

Our challenge going forward is to continue the momentum generated at this conference. Stay tuned forinformation provided by Plenty Canada, Mohawk College, and the Niagara Escarpment Biosphere Network for the next steps in this process. We all agreed that this initiative requires not only constant, but amplified attention and action.

I thank everyone who was involved in making this essential program happen, including, of course, our sponsors Environment and Climate Change Canada, Mohawk College, and the Department of Canadian Heritage. What you have all done is give this elder confidence — not faith but confidence — that good minds, empowered with evidence-based knowledge and empathic traditions, can arrive at wise decisions based upon the principles of Two-Eyed Seeing. For the sake of our children and those who follow, this is not an option, but a responsibility and obligation.

Chi Miigwech. Niá:wen. Merci. Thank you.​



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​Larry McDermott
Executive Director
Plenty Canada

Over two hundred and ninety attendees from numerous conservation, environmental, and Indigenous organizations packed The Gathering Place conference centre in Six Nations of the Grand River to gain training insights into Two-Eyed Seeing and Ethical Space in relation to the challenges presented by climate change. The event, organized by the Niagara Escarpment Biosphere Network, Mohawk College, and Plenty Canada featured a stellar line-up of Indigenous elders and scientists (not mutually exclusive), and technical specialists who worked in a number of fields to mitigate and reverse the impacts of climate change.

This gathering explored the ways in which Indigenous principles can and are being used to develop responses to the impacts of climate change including environmental shifts in seasons and cycles, extreme weather events, physical and mental health, food production, and more. The conference goal was to create Ethical Space for the engagement of ideas and inspiration as we begin to face the new ecological scenario created by Climate Change. Topics featured included Two-Eyed Seeing and Ethical Space, Natural Law and Cultural Prophecy, Wampum Law, Governance, and Reconciliation, Indigenous Food Security, Net-Zero Energy Building, Honouring Water, and Two-Eyed Seeing Bird Knowledge among many other approaches.

Present among the Indigenous leaders headlining sessions were Mi’kmaw Elder Albert Marshall (the Co-founder of the Two-Eyed Seeing philosophy), Shabot Obaadjiwan Elder Larry McDermott (Executive Director of Plenty Canada), Mohawk Elder Roronhiakewen Dr. Dan Longboat (Trent University Director of Indigenous Environmental Studies), Tuscarora Elder Rick Hill (Indigenous Innovations Specialist at Mohawk College), Onondaga Elder Oren Lyons (Faithkeeper and a principal figure in the development of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples), Shawanaga First Nation Elder Marilyn Capreol, and Charlene Winger-Jones (Hereditary Council member, Water Walker, and Co-chair of the Niagara Escarpment Biosphere Network). In addition, Mohawk Elder Tim Johnson (Senior Advisor to Plenty Canada, Niagara Parks, and the Royal Ontario Museum) and Seneca Elder Scientist Henry Lickers (Environmental Science Officer for the Mohawk Council and International Joint Commission) provided an orientation on the history of Indigenous engagement with climate change and science-based actions underway on both sides of the international border, respectively. 
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A variety of fascinating sessions offered a broad range of information and perspectives on how to assess and deal with the crucial, and some would say existential, crisis of climate change impacting the health and well-being of future generations. A conversation between Dr. Sarah Burch, Executive Director, Waterloo Climate Institute and Lead Author of the United Nations’ Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and Katherine Flynn from the Mohawk College Centre for Climate Change Management, examined the scientific evidence and projected impacts of Climate Change. 

There were other exciting sessions that approached the topic through unique approaches that adhered to the conference’s main concept. For example, the leaders from four different bird-related research projects spoke about their progress, challenges, and experiences while incorporating Two-Eyed Seeing into their methodologies. The panel included Joseph Pitawanakwat (Founder & Director of Creators Garden, Leader of Anishinaabe Aki project), Andrés Jiménez (Anishinaabe Aki project, author of best-selling online course The Beginners Guide to Birdwatching: Finding Birds and Happiness), Mike Burrell (Ontario Breeding Bird Atlas Coordinator, member of the Birds Species Specialist Subcommittee for COSEWIC), and Lauren Jones (Wildlife and Stewardship Manager for Six Nations Lands and Resources.)

In a highly engaging and entertaining session that included youth participation, entitled United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and Food Security, Jessica McLaughlin (Anishinaabe from Long Lake #58 First Nation) and Rosie Kerr (Post-doctoral fellow in the Sustainable Food System’s Lab, Lakehead University) reviewed how food sovereignty is the right of people to have access to healthy culturally appropriate foods, to grow and harvest foods produced through sustainable and ecologically sound methods, and for communities to define their own food systems. The purpose of their effort seeks to Identify, develop, and share civil society and Indigenous food system best practices along with policy analysis to address gaps in knowledge and data to advance a number of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The manner in which Jessica and Rosie applied Indigenous perspectives to each of the SDG’s, including the introduction of new associated graphics, offered clear and indelibleexamples of how Two-Eyed Seeing is being utilized.

A practical demonstration on what individuals and organizations can do to greatly reduce or even eliminate their carbon emissions was featured in the session dealing with Net-Zero Energy Building and Honouring the Water. Garrett Johnson (Researcher with IDEAWORKS at Mohawk College) and Tony Cupido (Professional Engineer and Ph.D. with 37 years of experience in engineering, facilities management and capital development) conducted a program opened by  Charlene Winger-Jones that detailed Plenty Canada’s rehabilitation of its Lanark, Ontario offices using innovative technologies that make efficient use of rain water while reducing and treating waste water through natural systems, and the application of solar energy applications that have made the organization’s CampUs energy negative.

Capping off the event was a moving session involving a significant and substantial group of youth who served as respondents to the conference program. Led by Mohawk Doctoral Candidate Abraham Francis, whose work specializes in the intersections between Indigenous and scientific knowledge, each of the youth presented their observations and experiences on what they saw as a way forward. The substance, tone, and tenor of their remarks had a tremendous impact upon those attending the conference.

Each day began with cultural presentations designed to focus minds and hearts on the work. Elder Kevin Deer, from Kahnawake Mohawk Territory and the Director of Indigenous Knowledge Quality Learning and Teaching Excellence at First Nations Technical Institute, opened Day One delivering an explanation of the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address, followed by Craig Abotossaway giving a short reflection on the Seven Sacred Gifts. On Day Two Elder Josh Eshkawkogan, a pipe carrier, sweat lodge conductor, and orator from the Wikwemikoong Unceded Indian Reserve, conducted a Pipe Ceremony.

During the evening of the first day of the conference a special concert event entitled TREATY: A Reconciliation Revelry, featured an ensemble of award-winning musicians including Joshua Arden Miller and the Pappy Johns Band, along with The Ollivanders and Rob Lamothe. They took audience members on a journey of varied experiences that led Canadians through stories of encounter and conflict to resolution, landing on uplifting notes of recognition, understanding, and respect. The program’s stories and messages, conveyed through video, narrative, and of course music, provided attendees with historical context for understanding Indigenous experiences and Indigenous realities today. Brief film segments featuring Indigenous and Canadian leaders in civil society, education, culture, and the arts, who speak to the themes identified by a list of definitions of select words, were followed by curated musical performances thereby building a story that paved the way forward for Truth and Reconciliation.

Event sponsors were Environment and Climate Change Canada, Mohawk College, and the Department of Canadian Heritage.

The conference was documented by photographer Mark Zelinski and Audio-Visual services provided by Thru The Red Door.​

—  Staff report

​On February 8th and 9th, 2024, Plenty Canada Executive Director Larry McDermott, and Operations and Environment Programs Manager Emily Morris, attended the American Eel Symposium hosted by the Mohawk Nation at Akwesasne. The symposium brought together representatives from First Nations, including Mohawk and Algonquin communities, environmental non-profits, and government regulators such as the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. The goals of the symposium included achieving a common understanding of the past and current conservation efforts for American Eel, increasing understanding of Indigenous relationships to the American Eel, identifying actions that will be taken over the short and long term to increase eel passage and reduce eel mortality throughout Algonquin and Mohawk territories, and promoting Indigenous co-management, decision-making, and participation in mitigation activities and capacity building.
 
The American Eel has always been an extremely important species for many Indigenous communities, including both Anishinaabek and Haudenosaunee peoples, and is used for a variety of different things including food, clothing, medicine, and offerings (learn more about the eel here). Eels often provided a lifeline for many communities during hard times as preserved eel lasts longer than any other protein source. American Eels used to be abundant in the St. Lawrence River watershed, including the Ottawa River watershed, but have experienced a 99percent decline, mainly due to the construction of hydropower dams. 
 
The American Eel is classified as endangered in Ontario and was classified as threatened by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada in 2012. However, the species has never been included in the Species at Risk Act and therefore receives no legal protection. The decision on whether or not to list the American Eel under the Act has been underway since 2015 and continues to be delayed. Additionally, although the American Eel is classified as endangered in Ontario and a recovery strategy was published in 2013, a government response statement is needed to actually commit Ontario to action. The government response statement was legally due in August of 2014 ... but we are still waiting. 
 
We will continue to engage in this issue and demand action on behalf of our relative, Pimizì, the American Eel.
 
— Special thanks to Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, CPAWS-OV, for the event summary and photo.

​Youth Circle for Mother Earth activities are supported by four partnering organizations: the Indigenous Environmental Institute at Trent University, Plenty Canada, Walpole Island Land Trust, and Ontario Nature.

​Early in 1976, a horrendous overnight earthquake killed 20,000 people in Guatemala. While the catastrophe affected much of the country, the devastation was deadliest in Maya communities.
 
In North America, alongside and beyond governmental pledges, American Indian communities and counter-cultural relief organizations responded. Among the Mohawks of Akwesasne, their national Native newspaper organized an overland relief mission, composed of nurses, carpenters, agriculturalists, and others who volunteered in various projects for several weeks at a time. This author was invited to help lead the mission. Plenty Canada, then incipient as a Non-Governmental Organization with Larry McDermott among its crew, fielded a mission as well that summer, one that coincided with the same valley of the Akwesasne mission.
 
It was a meeting of mutual commitments and kindred spirits that would launch life-long collaborations for now elder colleagues. We converged on numerous projects over the years and convened conferences and cultural gatherings that would contribute and sometimes lead the conception of Canadian international development approaches with Indigenous peoples.
 
The experience of 1976 marked a time of response to a serious catastrophe, the development of sound project commitments, and deep personal friendships with Maya people. Initially there were projects with traditional farming families among Caqchiquel and Qhiche, later and most profoundly and long term among the Maya-Q’eqchi people of Alta Verapaz.
 
The nearly five decades since the earthquake of 1976 have witnessed an equally seismic -- and horrendous -- political history, including a long and bloody civil war that unleashed hundreds of military massacres and brutal torture against peaceful and materially humble, yet highly cultured, Maya communities. Over time, the war subsided, peace accords were reached, and the communities launched intro long, painstaking journeys of recovery and revitalization, which are ongoing.
 
With Plenty Canada Executive Director McDermott, we have sustained many collaborations, always weaving close ties with Maya elders, while marking hundreds of events among dozens of small and large projects. The approach has always been to engage with elders, as well as with young activists and always working from within community, privileging the orientations of those who live it.
 
Guatemala’s violent contemporary history upturned a largely traditional Central American society, one lacking in social justice yet still strong in familial ties and decent social values. The present era nationally is one of ongoing social insecurity. Much organized crime and regressive evangelical preaching penetrates political life as people cope with the pandemic’s residual economic stress, worsened by the accelerating effects of climate change.
 
Indigenous community development requires long-terms strategies. The struggle to sustain social unity and cultural cohesion is paramount. The reuniting by Indigenous people after times of major stress and violence deserves attention and support. It is a natural response, and a re-foundational effort.
 
In the Q’eqchi country, as in much of the Guatemalan highlands, the strength of traditional culture and consciousness of ancestral teachings has helped clusters of Maya people, including whole communities to sustain social proximity and maintain daily living relations among large extended families grounded in particular places.
 
Presently, Plenty Canada’s work in Guatemala supports the leadership of young women engaged in the important work of assisting and uplifting the lives and profiles of culture bearing women elders. The new generation women leaders currently work with several Q’eqchi-speaking communities, some 200 families, mostly led or guided by women elders.
 
Women elders are most often the central culture carriers of valores y saberes ancestrales, “ancestral values and knowledge.” The elders in the project are traditional knowledge keepers in Maya weavings, including many beautiful and intriguing cloth designs as well as some of the most ancient patterns and stitches of the traditional huipil (top garment) worn by the women. The community groupings of women elders include also traditional midwives, as well as keepers of healing methods around a large repertoire of medicinal herbs, around the interpretation of healing dreams and about the Maya medicine of time, the Sacred Calendar. Some if not most are also master gardeners, carriers and holders of many types of seeds and expert at family-sustaining culinary traditions.
 
Among ongoing work and activities: support for training of new apprentices; documentation of practices, histories and approaches on weaving and the other main themes; introduction of new and appropriate water capture and drainage systems and other needed repairs for elders’ homes; sponsorship of travel to training events and hosting events.
 
The project has developed an efficient, well-trained working crew, charged with fixing elder housing. Its first year, 2019, impacted by the exploding pandemic, needing a major medical response. The project distributed emergency foods and medicines, and developed needed information in Q’eqchi language for the communities.
 
—  Jose Barreiro

At Plenty Canada we’ve done our best to place our collective intelligence and human values at the forefront of our work. By collective intelligence, we refer to evidence-based knowledge and the philosophy of Two-Eyed Seeing as developed by our board member Albert Marshall. We believe that societies should make sound decisions based upon factual information devoid of special interest influences, which remain the primary cultural and political factors negating progressive work to stop global warming, as but one example.
 
Our community, however, is one with which we are proud to be associated. It is a community that seeks lifelong learning and the application of determined — Indigenous and scientific — knowledge. We understand that adherence to greedy, negative, and destructive ideologies and practices are harmful not only to ourselves as humans, but to all living creatures on the planet. Our community possesses humility and healthy self-worth, balanced with empathy, so that wise decisions can be made for ourselves and future generations.
 
As we near the holidays, we reflect upon all of the wonderful people with whom we’ve been active on a wide variety of projects over the past year, and say thank you. In particular, I want to state that at Plenty Canada we see our projects as manifestations, expressions of our knowledge, values, and intentions, which we share with our partners and funders.
 
Our value of living with minimal impact upon the environment resulted in our renovated and recently unveiled office complex, the Plenty Canada CampUs in Lanark, which has achieved energy negative status. In addition, our Six Nations Bureau office has done much the same, adding solar panels to become fully energized by the Earth’s natural power plant, that nuclear fusion reactor in the sky, the sun. As a result, Plenty Canada facilities have become demonstration sites for sustainable living and working practices. We encourage all of our partner organizations to also work toward carbon neutral status and visit our Lanark offices for demonstration tours.
 
Another long-term project Plenty Canada is wrapping up involved more than three years of work to establish what we are calling the Greenbelt Indigenous Botanical Survey. With funding provided by the Greenbelt Foundation, our team of Indigenous ethnobotanists and scientists from the University of Guelph, guided by the vision and energy of Dr. Jessica Dolan and Senior Advisor Tim Johnson, will be launching a new and exciting web platform containing detailed information on Indigenous plant species located within 23 Indigenous heritage locations throughout the Greenbelt. Knowledge of the existence of these plants combined with advocacy to protect and preserve Ontario’s Greenbelt, as is done through partner organizations like the Niagara Escarpment Biosphere Network, have gone hand-in-hand in ensuring these precious life forms, our living relatives, are valued and survive on protected lands.
 
Therefore, we take this moment to express our gratitude to all those who embrace empirical knowledge and who align with us, not as ideologues, but as informed and loving human beings desiring to do good in the world.
 
Chi Miigwech. Niá:wen. Merci. Thank you.​
 

 


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Larry McDermott
Executive Director
Plenty Canada