#33 of 42 articles from the Special Report:
Conversations
Ethel Blondin-Andrew is a former Liberal MP and cabinet minister now working with the Indigenous Leadership Initiative. Photo submitted by Ethel Blondin-Andrew
For Ethel Blondin-Andrew, the most important solution to Canada's climate crisis is also dangerously underfunded: Indigenous-led conservation.
“We have the vision, we need the resources,” Blondin-Andrew said in this year's first Conversations event with
Canada’s National Observer founder and editor-in-chief Linda Solomon Wood on Thursday evening. “We have a head start. We have the fundamental traditional knowledge, the relationship.”
Blondin-Andrew was the first Indigenous woman elected to the House of Commons and to serve in federal cabinet. She now works with the Indigenous Leadership Initiative (ILI) to develop Indigenous governance and stewardship of the land via programs that train Guardians and educate youth on land use planning. She explained at the event on Zoom that the initiative builds on traditions that have been around for generations, and which account for significant strides in conservation and climate policy.