The Shuswap Watershed Project has lined up an impressive list of speakers for its upcoming Watershed Conference to be held on April 23rd from 2 to 11 pm. at the Sullivan Campus of Salmon Arm Secondary School . Conference participants will have an opportunity to listen to and question speakers representing conservation organizations and all levels of government. The objective for this event will be to examine how best to conserve, protect and restore the Shuswap watershed.

Salmon Arm Secondary – Sullivan Campus
This conference is free thanks to the sponsorship of the Salmon Arm Savings and Credit Union and Shuswap-North Okanagan School District #83

DRAFT AGENDA

1:00-2:30 pm Poster Session
The conference begins with a poster session, where participants have an opportunity to view the posters and displays set up by government agencies, conservation groups, and students, as well as meet with representatives from these groups. After the opening welcoming addresses by a local First Nation leader and Salmon Arm Mayor Marty Bootsma, students will read their winning essays about what they can do to help protect the watershed. Mayor Bootsma will also be speaking about the work of the Fraser Basin Council, which works to promote environmental and economic sustainability throughout the region.

2:30 pm – Welcoming address by a local First Nation leader, followed by a welcome from Salmon Arm Mayor Marty Bootsma

2:40 – 2:45 Brief talk by Jim Cooperman about the Shuswap Watershed Project

2:45 – 3:15 Essay contest winners read their essays, hosted by Kim Fulton, Shuswap Watershed Project Education Coordinator

3:15 – 3:20 – Mayor Marty Bootsma will talk about the work of the Fraser Basin Council

3:20 – 3:50 – Keynote speech by Craig Orr, Exec Director of the Watershed Watch Salmon Society, titled “Water, salmon and resilience: maintaining healthy watersheds in the face of climate change” followed by Michelle Walsh, with the Secwepemc Fisheries Commission, who will talk about their work on the connection between groundwater and salmon.

3:50 – 4:00 A song by Old Man’s Beard guitarist Jesse Cooke and short break

4:00 – 4:05 – Hiking, biking, canoeing and kayaking the Shuswap to experience the watershed first hand by Shuswap Trail Alliance Executive Director Phil McIntyre-Paul

4:05 – 5:30 – Panel discussion “What needs to be done to best protect, preserve and restore the watershed?” Five minute talk by each panelist, followed by a question period (using written questions submitted by conference participants and allowing for discussion between panelists)
Conference participants will then have an opportunity to pose questions to a panel comprised of staff from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, the Ministries of Environment and Forests, the CSRD and King Campbell with Ducks Unlimited Canada, who will provide their perspectives on what actions are needed to protect the watershed. The conference will end with a summary talk by Dr. Warren Bell about what was learned from the presentations and what needs to be done in the future.

Panelists:
Carol Danyluk, Environmental Protection Officer, Ministry of Environment
Bruce Runciman, Habitat Management Biologist, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Jan Thingsted, Planner, Columbia-Shuswap Regional District
Kimm Magill-Hofmann, Forest Technician, Ministry of Forests and Range
King Campbell, Agricultural Program Head, Ducks Unlimited Canada

5:30 – 5:40 Warren Bell, Conference summary by Dr. Warren Bell and “Where do we go from here?”

5:40 – 6:15 free networking time (tables set up for dinner)

6:15 – 7:15 dinner by Cookshack Creations
A low cost dinner comprised mostly of food sourced locally from Shuswap farmers and prepared by Cookshack Creations will be served to conference participants after the talks. The event will finish with a concert that begins with the Song for the Shuswap songwriting contest winners followed by an all-ages dance to Old Man’s Beard sponsored by Askews.

7:15 – 7:30 networking time (tables down and chairs set up)

7:30 – 8:30 concert beginning with “A Song for the Shuswap” winners

8:30 – 8:45 break (chairs moved to make room for dancing)

9 – 11 dance to Old Man’s Beard

The conference will be free thanks to the sponsorship of the Salmon Arm Savings and Credit Union, but early pre-registration is recommended as seating will be limited. Registration forms are available at Wickett Business Services, Salmon Arm Observer and Bookingham Palace and participants can also register online at www.shuswapwatershed.ca.

For more information, contact:
Jim Cooperman, Project Leader, 679-3693
Kim Fulton, Project Educational Coordinator, 546-3644
Monica Gail Kriese, “Celebrate the Shuswap” Event Coordinator, 833-6100

We are non-Indigenous supporters of Defenders of the Land, a network of
Indigenous communities in struggle for land and self-determination
across Canada, founded at a historic meeting in Winnipeg from November
12-14, 2008.

As non-Indigenous supporters, we are allies of Indigenous peoples
asserting their rights and sovereignty. We offer our support for the
demands of Defenders of the Land expressed in their Basis of Unity, a
signpost on the path we walk together. We believe in taking leadership
from Indigenous communities, who have the right to determine their
destinies in accordance with their own beliefs, customs, laws, and
traditions.

As non-Indigenous supporters, we recognize that the history of Canada is
a racist and genocidal one, marked by the forced dispossession of
Indigenous peoples’ lands and resources, the suppression of their
governments and laws, and the assimilation of their cultures and
identities. In the bricks of residential schools and the borders of
reservations, these ongoing policies are a long scar drawn cruelly
across the land. Across the area known as Canada, Indigenous peoples’
territories are subject to unbridled exploitation for profit -
crisscrossed by railroads and highways, carved up by ski hills and
subdivisions, polluted by mineral and oil extraction, and devastated by
clear-cut logging and hydro-electric projects. Canada’s fundamental
agenda remains the same as it was at the country’s birth: the
assimilation of Indigenous peoples as distinct nations, and the
extinguishment of their rights and title to the land.

As non-Indigenous supporters we bear witness daily to the violent
severing of the connection between Indigenous peoples and their lands,
and how it has resulted in the devastation — socially, politically,
economically, spiritually, and environmentally — of Indigenous
communities. Indigenous people disproportionately experience poverty,
illness, homelessness, and imprisonment. Unprecedented numbers of
Indigenous women have gone missing or have been murdered. Despite the
traumas inflicted by generations of colonial policies, Indigenous
communities have always been the first line of defense against
destruction of the land. For their attempts to forge a more sustainable
future for all of us, Indigenous activists have been criminalized by
federal and provincial governments.

As non-Indigenous supporters, we have come from different places and we
have come for different reasons. As multiracial settlers, migrants,
refugees and descendants of slaves, we came across many oceans or
continents, four hundred years ago or yesterday. Many of us feel deeply
attached to places across Turtle Island, but we recognize that our homes
are built on the ruins of others. We are on the lands of Indigenous
peoples: lands unjustly seized, unsurrendered lands, treaty lands, and
urbanized lands. This reality is visible in the names of our streets,
our towns, our monuments – erasing the genuine identity of the Original
Peoples of this land.

As non-Indigenous supporters, we affirm that when Indigenous peoples
stand to defend their land and to protect Mother Earth, we will stand
alongside them. We commit to doing our part to actively decolonize
ourselves by recognizing our own complicity and taking responsibility to
change this society that privileges us. Our role as allies extends to
work within our own communities to oppose unjust practices perpetuated
in our name and to develop customs and structures that will guide just
relations with Indigenous peoples. We believe in the fundamental
principles of social justice and equality, and strive to create a
co-existence with respect for the autonomy and dignity of all groups and
individuals. We welcome the promise of movements that are based on the
recognition of Indigenous self-determination and build an informed base
of support – ranging from anti-poverty groups to environmental justice
mobilizations, from farmers to faith groups, from queer liberation to
immigrant and refugee justice, from working class movements to anti
capitalist and anti imperialist struggles globally.

With deep humility and gratitude, we thank Indigenous land defenders for
their resilience and the knowledge they have kept alive – through
ceremonies and struggle — that has protected the places that we and
future generations hope to share as our homelands.