In this post:
- Native Alaskans sweep Iditarod
- $5 million grant to seek ways to mitigate climate damage on manoomin (wild rice)
- Honor the Earth blasts Biden for approving Arctic oil drilling
- Woman wonders if her 2020 complaint against an MPD officer who told her BLM is a terrorist group ever went anywhere
Native Alaskans sweep Iditarod
“Inupiaq musher Ryan Redington — grandson of the co-founder of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race — won the 998-mile event on Tuesday, March 14, becoming the sixth Alaska Native musher and second Inupiaq to win the storied race,” Indian Country Today reports. “For the first time since 1974, the first-, second- and third-place finishers will be Alaska Natives.”
$5 million grant to seek ways to mitigate climate damage on Great Lakes manoomin (wild rice)
A Northwestern University-led research team received a $5 million, five year grant from the National Science Foundation “to develop new methods to help mitigate the effects of climate change on the Great Lakes and its surrounding natural ecosystems,” the University reported.
“By partnering with Indigenous and Native American scientists, conservation agencies and government agencies, the team will focus on manoomin (the Ojibwe word for wild rice), a critical — yet declining — part of the Great Lakes ecosystem and a sacred food that connects Native communities to the land,” the University’s news story said.
Patty Loew (Mashkiiziibii-Bad River Ojibwe), a Northwestern journalism professor and an advisor who helped facilitate early conversations, said the “project began with relationship building and a willingness by Northwestern researchers to step back and invite our Indigenous partners to frame the research.”
The academic team includes members from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities campus and other institutions. “The team spent two years establishing relationships and learning from Bad River, Lac du Flambeau, Fond du Lac and Mille Lacs tribes, with assistance and guidance from the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission and Indigenous faculty at Northwestern.”
Principal Investigator Josiah Hester is Native Hawaiian. He called the project “an acknowledgement that we urgently need to partner with Indigenous scientists, who can draw on their ancestors’ sustainability practices and knowledge in our efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change.”
Honor the Earth blasts Biden for approving Arctic oil drilling
“Honor the Earth stands in opposition to the Biden Administration’s recent decision to approve one of the largest oil developments on public land in the Arctic,” it said today in a media release. “On Monday, the administration approved three platforms to be constructed in Alaska’s North Slope that are part of a multibillion-dollar project spurred by energy giant ConocoPhillips. This decision stands in direct opposition to the climate goals set forth by this administration and has sparked outrage amongst numerous environmental and Indigenous groups, including Honor the Earth.”
“The decision by the Biden administration to go ahead with three new drilling platforms in pristine tundra wilderness, in spite of promises of no new drilling on public lands or waters, is just more of the same–a slap in the face to Indigenous communities everywhere,” said Honor the Earth Co-Executive Director Krystal Two Bulls.
Read Krystal Two Bull’s full statement here.
Woman wonders if her 2020 complaint against an MPD officer who told her BLM is a terrorist group ever went anywhere
Back in 2020, Jacqueline Bilek called the Minneapolis Police Department’s Fifth Precinct about a man “putting fliers on windshields condemning Black Lives Matter,” according to a story in the always interesting Minnesota Reformer.
She wanted to know “if the man was dangerous, because she’d heard he was having mental health problems,” the story said. The officer “launched into his own diatribe … calling Black Lives Matter a terrorist group that ‘we will wipe off the face of the Earth.’”
Bilek filed a complaint and still doesn’t know if anything happened as a result. Full story here.
The officer is still working for MPD, the story said.
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