Science Literacy Week September 20 - 26, 2021

Often when Native nations assert their treaty rights and sovereignty, they are confronted with a backlash from their neighbors, who are fearful of losing control of the natural resources. Yet, when both groups are faced with an outside threat to their common environment--such as mines, dams, or an oil pipeline--these communities have unexpectedly joined together to protect the resources. Some regions of the United States with the most intense conflicts were transformed into areas with the deepest cooperation between tribes and local farmers, ranchers, and fishers to defend sacred land and water. Unlikely Alliances explores this evolution from conflict to cooperation through place-based case studies in the Pacific Northwest, Great Basin, Northern Plains, and Great Lakes regions during the 1970s through the 2010s. These case studies suggest that a deep love of place can begin to overcome even the bitterest divides.

Best-selling author and cultural critic Jerry Mander has challenged dominant cultural mind-sets in books such as Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television and In the Absence of the Sacred. In Paradigm Wars, he and coeditor Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, a leader of the global indigenous peoples movement and chair of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, have gathered an impressive international roster of contributors to document the momentous collision of worldviews that pits the forces of economic globalization against the Earth's surviving indigenous peoples. Many of the planet's dwindling resources are located on lands inhabited by native communities. Those resources are now the direct target of giant global corporations who desperately need them to fuel their own unsustainable growth. The World Trade Organization and other global structures of trade and finance have written the rules of trade to make life easier for these corporate resource-hunters-accelerating the loss of native lands, autonomy, and rights, and creating millions ofrefugees. Paradigm Wars comprehensively illuminates this shameful scenario in firsthand reports that detail its devastating impacts. The book also highlights how indigenous communities are strongly resisting the onslaught, often with amazing and inspiring success.

Winona LaDuke is a leader in cultural-based sustainable development strategies, renewable energy, sustainable food systems and Indigenous rights. Her new book, To Be a Water Protector: Rise of the Wiindigoo Slayers, is an expansive, provocative engagement with issues that have been central to her many years of activism. LaDuke honours Mother Earth and her teachings while detailing global, Indigenous-led opposition to the enslavement and exploitation of the land and water. She discusses several elements of a New Green Economy and outlines the lessons we can take from activists outside the US and Canada. In her unique way of storytelling, Winona LaDuke is inspiring, always a teacher and an utterly fearless activist, writer and speaker. Winona LaDuke is an Anishinaabekwe (Ojibwe) enrolled member of the Mississippi Band Anishinaabeg who lives and works on the White Earth Reservation in Northern Minnesota. She is executive director of Honor the Earth, a national Native advocacy and environmental organization. Her work at the White Earth Land Recovery Project spans thirty years of legal, policy and community development work, including the creation of one of the first tribal land trusts in the country. LaDuke has testified at the United Nations, US Congress and state hearings and is an expert witness on economics and the environment. She is the author of numerous acclaimed articles and books.

A young family from the Secwepemc First Nation lives in a traditional pit house near Kamloops in the Thompson River Valley of British Columbia. Their lives are rooted in concern for the environment, respect for unceded traditional territory and a return to traditional First Nations culture.

This book is a collection of essays by Indigenous scholars and leaders which has been organized to share theories, research, experiences, as well as their methods in the application of Indigenous Knowledge. The idea to publish a collection of essays which would focus on framing the concept of Traditional Ecological Knowledge theories and practice, within current environmental, economic and social challenges and its realities, arose out of the shared and recognized need by Indigenous scholars to advocate an imperative for the inclusion of Indigenous Knowledge in addressing new approaches to global sustainability.

Illustrated by Shaun Tan. Bestselling author, Marsden, has created a dramatically moving allegory of colonisation told from the perspective of native animals, in this stunningly illustrated volume. Examining the consequences of the arrival of a group of rabbits with unfamiliar ways, the story shows how colonisation can result in the domination of the environment and its other inhabitants. A thought-provoking book, it earned its author and illustrator the CBCA Picture Book of the Year.

Muskgege is a written record of traditional knowledge, passed down through the generations. It features descriptions and illustrations of 36 wild plants that can be used to make medicines. It is a beautiful and compelling reminder of the important role nature plays in First Nations culture.

This is the story of a determined Ojibwe Grandmother (Nokomis) Josephine Mandamin and her great love for Nibi (Water). Nokomis walks to raise awareness of our need to protect Nibi for future generations, and for all life on the planet. She, along with other women, men, and youth, have walked around all of the Great Lakes from the four salt waters - or oceans - all the way to Lake Superior. The water walks are full of challenges, and by her example Josephine inspires and challenges us all to take up our responsibility to protect our water and our planet for all generations. Her story is a wonderful way to talk with children about the efforts that the Ojibwe and many other Indigenous peoples give to the protection of water - the giver of life

Suitable for all ages. Compiled from writing, poetry, and illustrations created by young Nunavummiut, this anthology explores diverse aspects of the theme of weather from Inuit mythology to traditional knowledge, climate change, and daily survival. These creative works, created as part of an Arctic Weather Centre contest in the mid-1990s, are gathered here for the first time, and are accompanied by helpful information about each community represented. Through full-colour illustrations and engaging poetry and stories written both in Inuktitut and English, learn more about the vital force of Arctic weather as seen through the eyes of children.

During the short Arctic summers, the tundra, covered most of the year under snow and ice, becomes filled with colourful flowers, mosses, shrubs, and lichens. These hardy little plants transform the northern landscape, as they take advantage of the warmer weather and long hours of sunlight. Caribou, lemmings, snow buntings, and many other wildlife species depend on tundra plants for food and nutrition, but they are not the only ones... A Walk on the Tundra follows Inuujaq, a little girl who travels with her grandmother onto the tundra. There, Inuujaq learns that these tough little plants are much more important to Inuit than she originally believed. In addition to an informative storyline that teaches the importance of Arctic plants, this book includes a field guide with photographs and scientific information about a wide array of plants found throughout the Arctic.

Teaches children the natural world is a precious and rare gift that should be cherished.