Harvest Program in First Nations of Subarctic Canada: The Benefits Go Beyond Addressing Food Security and Environmental Sustainability Issues

Country: Canada
State / Locale: Subarctic, Canada
Population: Indigenous/First Nation
Community Engagement (IAP2 Spectrum): Collaborate
Equity: People Place Process Power

Study Description:
This paper has two main goals: first, to study the food sharing system of the Sharing-the-Harvest program, and second, to explore the program's benefits beyond just food security and environmental issues through interviews. The program is about helping subarctic First Nations people gather geese, a traditional food, to share with their communities and protect the environment by controlling the goose population. They shared the harvested geese with all the communities, covering 76% of the homes in each community. People said this local food support helped families with not enough food and money. Being out on the land was really important for them. People who had never been to their ancestral land before had a good experience, while others were happy to be back home, maybe for the last time. This way of sharing food could help other Indigenous groups worldwide to be healthier and protect the environment from too many or invasive species.

Spiegelaar, N. F., Tsuji, L. J., & Oelbermann, M. (2013). The potential use of agroforestry community gardens as a sustainable import-substitution strategy for enhancing food security in subarctic Ontario, Canada. Sustainability, 5(9), 4057-4075.