Youth & Climate: First Foods and the Fight to Protect Indigenous Lands

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ps3Bd4vc6jU&feature=youtu.be
“These lands have been here longer than humans have. They need a voice – and to share my voice on behalf of the mountains, the forests and the rivers is an honor and a privilege.”

Meet Katherine, an indigenous (Nimiipuu, Liksiyu, Numu) young person from Oregon who is using her voice to to raise awareness around the protection of First Foods and indigenous lands from the impacts of climate change.

Climate change could alter the growing conditions for First Foods, traditional roots and berries. Scientists project that air temperatures in the Pacific Northwest will increase 3°F by the 2040s, and even relatively small increases in temperature can alter conditions that sustain life. With temperatures changing too quickly for native plants to adapt, their range may shift north or to higher elevations for cooler temperatures. Some may become extinct.

Katherine currently works with the Women’s Earth & Climate Action Network – International to help lift and empower women’s voices in the climate movement.

How Corporations Ruined Food

When we walk into a supermarket, we assume that we have the widest possible choice of healthy foods. But in fact, over the course of the 20th century, our food system was co-opted by corporate forces whose interests do not lie in providing the public with fresh, healthy, sustainably-produced food.

Fortunately for America, an alternative emerged from the counter-culture of California in the late 1960s and early 1970s, where a group of political anti-corporate protesters–led by Alice Waters–voiced their dissent by creating a food chain outside of the conventional system. The unintended result was the birth of a vital local-sustainable-organic food movement which has brought back taste and variety to our tables.

FOOD FIGHT is a fascinating look at how American agricultural policy and food culture developed in the 20th century, and how the California food movement has created a counter-revolution against big agribusiness.