The State Of Northwest Territories Country Food Systems: Planning For Long-Term Sustainability - Youth OTL Project

Regions: Dehcho Region, South Slave Region

Tags: social sciences, traditional food, traditional knowledge, food security, youth

Principal Investigator: Fresque-Baxter, Jennifer (3)
Licence Number: 16387
Organization: GNWT Department of Environment and Natural Resources
Licensed Year(s): 2018
Issued: Aug 16, 2018
Project Team: Tim Heron, Brad Bird, Chris Heron

Objective(s): NWTMN will be research partners on the project to collect baseline data about key country food issues as identified by the people and communities that harvest country foods.

Project Description: The Aurora Research Institute (ARI) and Government of the Northwest Territories Department of Environment and Natural Resources (ENR) have joined with research partners in communities, Canadian universities, and throughout the NWT, including the Northwest Territories Métis Nation (NWTMN), to conduct research on the state of country food systems in the Northwest Territories (NWT). Jennifer Fresque-Baxter (ENR) and Jessica Dutton (ARI) will manage and administer the project as co-principal investigators. The purpose of the overall study is to collect baseline data about key country food issues as identified by the people and communities that harvest country foods. The overall Country foods research project is guided by the following objectives: (1) identify community priority areas for country food research; (2) assess the social and ecological factors that influence country food systems in priority areas using both scientific and indigenous knowledge; (3) develop evidence-based recommendations to support long-term sustainability of country food systems. In addition to fulfilling the objectives of the overall research project (as identified above), the purpose of this regional project is to support NWTMN youth on-the-land programming. This regional sub-project is part of NWTMN's on-the-land programming and is only open to NWTMN members. The data collection occurs as part of existing NWTMN programming. All programming decisions, including recruitment, activities, safety protocols, and more, will be decided by NWTMN in accordance with internal policies and procedures. Youth will be provided with tablets and drones to allow them to collect traditional knowledge teachings, scientific data, and land-based observations as they learn about traditional foods on the paddling trip. The tablets contain TrailMark software, which facilitates the collection and categorization of the data. Additionally, studetnsstudents will be asked to record, write, or otherwise document responses to reflection questions such as: What's the most important thing to do to make sure future generations will have access to healthy fish for food? What's the most important things you learned from your Elders? How can we tell if fish are healthy or unhealthy? Have the fish changed from the way they were in the past? If so, how? NWTMN is collecting this information for the purposes of educating youth and future land-use planning. NWTMN will have full control over all information collected on the trip. NWTMN will first review the observations and responses, then decide what information should be shared with the researchers – this ensures that NWTMN has control over any traditional knowledge or confidential information shared during the trip. The research team from ENR and ARI will include the findings reported by NWTMN in their analysis of priorities and indicators for the NWT-wide State of the Northwest Territories Country Food Systems project. Intellectual property rights of the community/regional governments and/or community members for any information including traditional knowledge shared with the “STATE OF NORTHWEST TERRITORIES COUNTRY FOOD SYSTEMS: PLANNING FOR LONG-TERM SUSTAINABILITY” (‘the project’) will continue to be owned by the community/regional governments and/or community members. Notwithstanding the above, information including traditional knowledge shared with the project leads and project partners for the purposes of this project via 1) the Regional Project Data Management Plan and 2) the Regional Project Community Results Report may become public and may be used by the researchers, the GNWT or Polar Knowledge Canada in accordance with the Data Management Plan and may be used by others for secondary purposes if public. Authorship and intellectual property rights of 1) the Regional Project Data Management Plan and 2) the Regional Project Community Results Report will rest with the people who write them. The information shared by NWTMN with the researchers at ENR and ARI will be used in research reporting and made publicly available via the Polar Knowledge Canada knowledge repository, and may be made available on the ENR and ARI websites as well as made available by NWTMN. The fieldwork for this study will be conducted from August 16, 2018 to December 31, 2018.