Shoal Lake Band J8o. 39 2£Ejick, Ontario $Ox Ieo

Shoal Lake Band j8o. 39 2£ejick, Ontario $ox ieo ŒetepfjoiU (807) 733-2560 733-2342 ADDRESS BY: EU MANDAMIN CHIEF OF THE SHOAL LAKE 39 FIRST NATION NORTHERN ONTARIO, CANADA TO: THE UNrTED NATION WORKING GROUP ON INDIGENOUS POPULATIONS GENEVA, 1991 Madam Chairman, members of the Working Group, representatives of all indigenous peoples here today, supporters of indigenous peoples and to representatives of all governments attending this session of the Working Group we say welcome. My English name is Eli Mandamin. My Anishinaabe name is Nee-Shoo-Be-Tung. In English it means '/ ¿ - « - S ' two little bears standing. I am a young Chief and I am here to represent the concerns of the people of the Shoal Lake 39 Ojibway First Nation. Our struggle to retain our customary way of life and our culture has reached a crisis point. We live in a region of Canada which has been noted for its resource abundance. It is also noted for its relative ecological good health compared to other areas of Canada which are facing a more severe environmental crisis. Yet given our relative isolation, for more than a century^ we have focused on the on-going suppression of our culture. Non-aboriginal governments have been unable to understand the importance of our lands and our waters as the source of our way of life. You could say thaf|he waters of Shoal Lake are the blood of our culture!^ Since the early part of this century the Province of Manijaba and the Province of Ontario have^xploited our waters and suppressed our peopleT^ln the early part of this century the Province of Manitoba constructed an aqueduct from Shoal Lake to the City of Winnipeg and a railway to maintain this aqueduct. This aqueduct has supplied the City of Winnipeg with its drinking water for almost a century ndwTWeTwere never consulted in this exploitation of our water. We were never consulted in the destruction of our hunting territories which took place in order to bring this water to the City of Winnipeg. 2. We were never consulted when a channel was blasted to open Shoal Lake to a large neighbouring lake called Lake of the Woods and allow in its waters into Shoal Lake. We were never consulted about the pollutants which were dumped into the Lake of the Woods system and which are now making their way into Shoal Lake. We were never asked permission when lands vital to the maintenance of our customary way of life were turned into private property and sold off to non-aboriginal people. No one in non-aboriginal governments in Canada has understood our ways of maintaining resource abundance in our lands. Instead we have been treated as savages and as though we are irrelevantj Indeed, in the past, when Anishinaabe people have attempted to make their concerns and their laws known to governments in Canada regarding indigenous resource management, they have actually been charged with being “law makers1'. We have prepared extensive presentation for you attempting to explain our ways of living in our lands and our ways of maintaining resource abundance. We have attempted to explain how we have held onto our social, cultural, political and economic system and how we have adapted technology to our way of life in the 20th century. We have also tried to show how our ways of living in our land have ensured the abundance of resources and the protection of the environmental quality of Shoal Lake since time immemorial. Yet now non-aboriginal governments in Canada are attempting to further increase their control and domination over our society. In particular, the Province of Manitoba is attempting to limit ail development on its portion of Shoal Lake watershed lands without reference to our ways of living on these lands. They are attempting to impose land and resource management patterns which are completely at odds with our own culture and laws. The result of this can only be the further suppression of our indigenous ecological knowledge, our practice and our resource management systems. This will inevitably lead to increasing conflict between our First Nation people and non-aboriginal people in our region. It is essential that the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations take pains to understand the dynamic, sophisticated and complex systems that we as indigenous peoples have utilized to maintain resource abundance in our ancestral lands. We believe that it is also extremely important for the United Nations to make special provisions for this in the Draft Universal Declaration on Indigenous Rights. To this end we are proposing that certain provisions of Part 3 in the Draft Universal Declaration on Indigenous Rights be strengthened. In particular, we suggest that Clause 13 in part 3 of the Draft Declaration be amended to read as follows: "Indigenous peoples possess the right to recognition of their own land tenure systems and systems for managing and maintaining abundance and diversity of resources within their ancestral lands in order to promote their use, enjoyment and occupancy of their ancestral lands and waters/ 4. Madam Chairwoman and Members of the Working Group, we urge that you review the documentation we have enclosed for you so that you can understand why we make these proposed amendments to the Draft Universal Declaration. We also urge that all members present here representing indigenous peoples and indigenous support organizations, work with us to articulate a greater awareness of our own systems for maintaining resource abundance in our indigenous lands. The United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development has recognized the importance of indigenous ecological knowledge in securing the future abundance of resources throughout the world. We also are all aware that the United Nations is planning a major conference on environment and development in 1992. Significantly, this conference is taking place on the 500th Anniversary of the Columbus event. ^W e know that the situation of indigenous peoples and the global environmental crisis are intimately linked. We urge that the United Nations Draft Declaration of Human Rights give specific reference to this and create provisions which will protect the sophisticated, complex and dynamic systems which indigenous peoples have developed to preserve the ecological integrity and biological diversity of their ancestral lands. I Meegwetch! Thank youl.

Load more