Greenhouses a possible solution
WIKWEMIKONG—It has become an all-too-familiar story, traditional medicine practitioners travel into the bush to seek out traditional medicines only to find that the medicines their forefathers have used for thousands of years are becoming harder and harder to find—to the point that many medicines, like the wild American ginseng plant, have long fallen into the category of “endangered” (American ginseng has been considered endangered since even before Ontario’s Endangered Species Act took hold in 2008).
Wikwemikong Species At Risk Coordinator Theodore Flamand has been working with local elders and members of the Wikwemikong community for years seeking ways and means to tackle the issue, and lately there has been some very positive developments.
“It’s going,” said Mr. Flamand, when asked how the results of last week’s lands committee meeting were coming. “We are at the point now where we are looking at putting some of the ideas into motion.”
One of the ideas that came about through discussions with the elders was the concept of “starting up medicinal plants in a greenhouse,” said Mr. Flamand. “The elders suggested that we do something about that.”
Close observers will have noticed the beginnings of a greenhouse structure taking shape by the Amikook Elders Centre. “We have some funding from Environment Canada to build a greenhouse,” he said. The idea is that the elders at the centre will undertake the germination and cultivation of a number of traditional medicines.
“We undertook to source seeds and discovered that they do have them at the Six Nations,” said Mr. Flamand. “They have wild ginger, for instance.”
As to the aforementioned American ginseng plant, Mr. Flamand has been in conversation with a local farmer in the community who has expressed a strong interest in growing the plants. “There is a lot of interest if it was to come to pass,” he said.
Another idea that came up at the community consultation meetings that has garnered a lot of interest is the creation of a “junior ranger” style of program that would engage youth in the community with conservation work in the bush.
“We are going to be going all out this year with the communication end of it,” said Mr. Flamand, noting that responsible stewardship of the land is a long-cherished First Nations tradition, a key part of which places responsibility on each current generation for preserving renewable resources like the medicines for the next seven generations.
The next Lands Committee meeting will take place today (Wednesday, February 10) in the South Bay Community Centre. “It is the most remote of the satellite communities,” noted Mr. Flamand, adding that the program’s intention is to eventually have greenhouses set up in each of those communities to assist with the cultivation of traditional medicines.
At this point, the greenhouses are strictly passive solar heated, said Mr. Flamand. The group is exploring a number of possibilities, including the use of temporary car ports as low-cost possibilities for extending the greenhouse project to as many places as possible.
“It there are people out there with greenhouses they want to part with, or the frames for those portable car ports, have them give me a call and we will put them to good use,” he laughed.
The reintroduction of wild rice to the traditional territories is one of the endangered species programs that has enjoyed tremendous success in recent years—a success they intend to extend to the preservation of traditional medicines and other traditional resources.
