Local Partner: Na’ah Illahee Fund
Pacific Northwest Indigenous food champions will come together in mutual respect and support to establish the Pacific Northwest Indigenous Food Sovereignty Collaborative to advance food sovereignty in the region. Members will share their special skills and knowledge with each other as they plan and create a strong foundation to build an Indigenous Food System network.
The Pacific Northwest Indigenous Food Sovereignty Collaborative will bring together (in-person or virtually) traditional food gatherers, growers, fishers and other allied Indigenous groups from Western Washington, Oregon and beyond. Project staff will lead an estimated 30 Collaborative project participants in collective skill sharing and capacity-building as they assemble weekend activities throughout 2021. Project staff have designated and will coordinate: nine gatherers to arrange harvesting trips on public, tribal, and private lands to sustainably gather traditional foods, six fisher folk to share fishing, harvesting, and smoking techniques, and offer information around treaty rights/tribal usual and accustomed places, and when to sustainably harvest which animals, two Indigenous hunters with hunting rights on tribal lands will provide skill sharing with associated hunters.
The Pacific Northwest is a region of profound biocultural diversity with many different Indigenous nations and tribal communities speaking dozens of different languages that hold diverse worldviews and lifeways. This project will be “intertribal” – focused on sharing and celebrating different systems of learning and knowing about food, health, and economies of well-being.
The initiative honors the traditional self-sufficiency of Indigenous economies of hunting, gathering, and fishing to feed and nourish local Native communities. It honors Elder’s knowledge and skills and provides spaces to teach and build capacities of youth and others to gain these valuable skills in economic well-being
Grant back into Indigenous community-led food sovereignty initiatives, the container gardens, community gardens, and urban garden spaces and initiatives that have been cultivated over the past year.
Local Partner:
Na‘ah Illahee Fund (NIF) is a galvanizing force within Indigenous communities, to amplify self-determination and activism. The mission is to support and promote the leadership of Indigenous women in the ongoing regeneration of Indigenous communities in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States.
