Real Food Cascadia 2013 is almost here.
Real Food Cascadia is an annual convergence seeking to connect our local bioregional restoration projects with the global ancestral health movement. It has become clear that the health of the Land cannot be separated from the health of the People. The Bioregion we call Cascadia holds the potential to become a model of true sustainability. We have the capabilities to restore the original abundance of this place and we are choosing to do so. The rivers here were once home to the greatest salmon fisheries in the world, and they can be again. Through this convergence, we seek to mutually empower the Ancestral Health movements promise to return the powers of healing to our local communities and the Indigenous Food Sovereignty movements promise to liberate “food security” from the logic of colonialism We seek to demonstrate how the Ecological Restoration movement is intimately connected to the restoration of human health and the health of local economies, and how the Permaculture movement hold it’s greatest promise when it emerges from our backyards to take root at a bioregional scale.
We are calling for this gathering to combine our many strengths in the creation and restoration of a Bioregional Food Sovereignty here in Cascadia.
We are asking that all attendees register for this event, as we are providing food, refreshments, and working with limited space. Please register for event here.
Details about this all day conference are as follows.
2013 SCHEDULE
8:00am – 9:00am Meet and Greet Hour with refreshments
9:00am – 10:30am Casey Bryan Corcoran
10:30am – 11:00am Break
11:00am – 12:30pm Dawn Morrison
12:30pm – 2:00pm Lunch ***
2:00pm – 3:30pm Sandra M. Matheson
3:30 – 4:00 Break
4:00 – 5:30 Abe Lloyd
5:30 – 6:30 Visioning Bioregional Food Sovereignty
After party to follow at another location.
Casey Bryan Corcoran is co-editor of Autonomy Cascadia: A Journal of Bioregional Decolonization and produced the film Occupied Cascadia. His work as a grassroots activist focuses on restoring a functioning Food Sovereignty within the Deschutes watershed of central Oregon, while highlighting the ecological connections throughout the entire Cascadian bioregion and greater Salmon Nation. A deep interest in the historical connections between food, colonialism, and decolonization in form his thought and work.
Dawn MorrisonIn the years away from her ancestral Secwepemc (Shuswap) community, Dawn’s work in various capacities throughout her lifelong career in Horticulture has literally kept her in touch with her Indigenous roots through applying an ecological approach to studying and working with plants. Her Secwepemc heritage along with her technical and practical background in horticulture and ethonobotany, as well as her passion for environment and cultural revitalization lead her to a long lasting career in Aboriginal adult education and community self-development.
Dawn currently straddles the divide between urban living in the downtown eastside of Vancouver and maintaining a connection to her ancestral Secwepemc territory. Dawn is committed to working with Elders and traditional hunters, fishers and harvesters to improve the health and well-being of the Indigenous peoples, the land we have traditionally lived on and our languages and ways of life. As a Community SelfDevelopment Facilitator Dawn works from a basis of Indigenous food sovereignty and eco-cultural restoration and has an educational background in the areas of horticulture, adult instruction, restoration of natural systems, and business management.
Some of Dawn’s most recent professional developments include participating in various roles with several indigenous and non-indigenous organizations such as the: Vancouver Native Health Society – Tu’wusht Project (formerly Urban Aboriginal Garden/Kitchen Project (Garden and Sustainability Planning Facilitator), Southwest BC Bioregional Food System Design and Planning Project (Research Associate/Indigenous Community Engagement), B.C. Food Systems Network – Working Group on Indigenous Food Sovereignty (Coordinator/Chair), 1st Annual Interior of B.C. Indigenous Food Sovereignty Conference (Coordinator), B.C. Healthy Living Alliance Community Capacity Building Strategy (Aboriginal Community Development Leader), Neskonlith Indian Band Comprehensive Community Planning (Coordinator), and Project Associate on various other land, culture, ecology and food related projects.
Sandra M. Matheson is a member of the Managing Change Northwest team. She is a life-long farmer, educator, volunteer, veterinarian, wife, and parent. She lives and farms in Bellingham, Washington. Sandra was a participant in the four-year Washington State University IFS Holistic Management Project. She also completed the intensive two-year training to become a Certified Educator in Holistic Management. She has been working throughout Washington and the United States presenting, teaching, and facilitating various aspects of agriculture, holistic management and consensus building.
Abe Lloyd has a passion for plants and indigenous foods that traces back deep into his childhood. His early aspirations as a botanist led him to Northland College on the south shore of Lake Superior, where he completed a Bachelor’s of Science in Natural Resource Management. Since then, research projects have taken Abe to many corners of the planet, most notably, to Nepal where he served as an ethnobotanist for the Peace Corps with Langtang National Park from 2003-2004, and then to NW Yunan and back to Nepal, where he worked as a volunteer botanist for the Missouri Botanical Gardens monitoring vegetations changes in the alpine areas during the fall of 2009. More recently, in 2011, Abe completed a Master’s Degree in Ethnoecology at the University of Victoria under the Northwest Coast ethnobotanist, Dr. Nancy J. Turner. For his thesis research, Abe collaborated with Kwakwaka’wakw elder Kwaxsistalla (Clan Chief Adam Dick) to experimentally restore a traditional estuarine salt marsh root garden near the remote First Nation village of Kingcome Inlet on the Central Coast of British Columbia. Abe now lives in his home town of Bellingham and is an active member of the Washington Native Plant Society, the NW Mushroomers, and the Society of Ethnobiology. He is the director of Salal, the Cascadian Food Institute, an Adjunct Professor at Western Washington University, Whatcom Community College, and Royal Roads University, and actively researches, promotes, and eats the indigenous foods of this bountiful bioregion.
***We are providing refreshments and lunch on a donation and sliding scale basis. Lunch will be locally sourced meat and will have light vegetarian options.