Indigenous Knowledge and Science: Partnering to Restore Our Environment

Cornwall, ON – On Wednesday, January 11th at 7 pm Science and Nature on Tap launches its 2017 season when world respected environmental trail blazer, Larry McDermott comes to speak in Cornwall at Schnitzels European Flavours. A member of Shabot Obaadjiwan First Nation, Larry McDermott has a Masters’ Degree from the School of Canadian Studies and Native and Northern Studies from Carlton University. Executive Director of Plenty Canada, an organization dedicated to environmental protection and healthy communities, Larry is also co-chair of the Canadian Environmental Network Biodiversity Caucus. He also serves as a Commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission.

Larry provides an indigenous world view where people are deemed an integral part of the environment and that maintains that we can only sustain healthy lives when the environment as a whole is healthy. Plenty Canada maintains that the bio-diversity of our environment is a precious resource that we all need to care for together.

Bringing both indigenous ways of knowing and western science to the table as a means of solving environmental concerns is something that the world actually acknowledged at the United Nations Earth Summit in June of 1992.

In Canada we are striving towards determining strategies to protect the environment in ways that combine both indigenous knowledge and western science to create real world solutions to serious problems. To that end, Larry travels the world with Plenty Canada to share a practical message of cross cultural sharing, food sovereignty, sustainable economic development, as well as traditional skills. The public is invited to partake in a “two-eyed” vision of protecting the environment when Larry McDermott speaks next Wednesday, January 11th, 2017.

The public is invited to this free session, hosted by the St. Lawrence Institute of Environmental Sciences, at Schnitzels European Flavours in Cornwall. However, space is limited so if you would like more information or to reserve a seat please call (613) 936-6620 or e-mail kcooper@riverinstitute.ca or visit the River Institute website at www.riverinstitute.ca.

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Media Contact:

Karen Douglass Cooper
Communications / Community Outreach Officer
Remedial Action Plan Coordinator
St. Lawrence River (Cornwall)
St. Lawrence River Institute of
Environmental Sciences
2 St. Lawrence Drive
Cornwall, ON K6H 4Z1
kcooper@riverinstitute.ca
www.riverinstitute.ca