 |
| "The Creator has given us the responsibility to protect the lands on which we were placed. We are to take care of and nurture everything that the Creator has given as a trust and duty to future generations of Pikangikum people.” - From Pikangikum People Sustaining Our Livelihood on the Land" |
|
|
Introduction
Partnerships are central to our strategy of economic renewal in the Whitefeather Forest Initiative. Recently, Elder George M. Suggashie spoke to representatives from environmental organizations: “We are happy when people come to us and ask how we can work together. We are very upset when things are done to our land without our participation.” This gets at the essence of our view of partnerships.
We are developing partnerships in education, environmental stewardship and business that build on our community strengths. We know the strength of our knowledge of our ancestral lands. We know the value of our Indigenous Knowledge in everything from bio-medicines to resource management practice. We know the strength of our culture in our indigenous language use. We want to match our strengths with the best partners from the larger educational, environmental and business communities.
In 1998 Pikangikum began to initiate dialogue with potential partners and parties with an interest in the Whitefeather Forest Planning Area. The objectives of these ongoing dialogues are to seek consensus for partnerships that will be led by Pikangikum for education, resource management and business development that will be internationally recognized. Through these partnerships, we will continue in our role as keepers of the forest. At the same time, we will recognize other interests and harmonize them with the interests of our First Nation.
The Whitefeather Forest Initiative is being planned in the spirit of cooperation and mutual respect. Our process to develop the Whitefeather Forest Initiative in general, and to develop partnerships in particular, is centered on consensus-building and dialogue-based decision-making. This is how we make decisions in our community and we are bringing our decision-making ways into the initiative.
If you are interested in entering into a dialogue with us, please contact us at enquiries@whitefeatherforest.com.
We want to highlight the following relationships:
|
|
|
|
|
Slide Shows
