Archive for January 2015

(Published in Ricochet, January 2015) Grace Islet is a victory for protecting Indigenous gravesites, but work remains Grace Islet rests just a few meters off the shore of Salt Spring Island in British Columbia. Formerly part of an ancient village known in the Hul’qumi’numlanguages as Shiyahwt, its harbour was a hub for Aboriginal fishing families from…

(Published in Aqua Magazine, 2011) The Beautiful Laundress: Redressing Fashion It’s the house your Bohemian great-aunt would have lived in had she lived by the sea on Canada’s wet coast. The ocean glints out the front windows, while fir trees and berry bushes cluster around the side yard, inviting grazing deer. Inside, vivid hues and rich textures abound.…

(Published Gulf Islands Driftwood, July 16, 2014) Sometimes you just have to draw a line. Salt Spring Islanders came out on Saturday to do just that: hundreds of people took advantage of the lowest tide of the year to walk over to Grace Islet. Together, mothers, fathers, children, and elders worked to string a line of…

(Published in West Coast Native News, July 2014) I live on Salt Spring Island. The adjective most used to describe this little dot in the archipelago sprawling across Canada’s Pacific coast is ‘bucolic’. Organic farms, yoga centres, pastures roamed by grazing lambs, grinning hippies on bicycles: get the picture? There’s a great deal of giving…

(Published in Island Tides, 2011) Markets and barns, farms and tables. Welcoming African guests to Salt Spring seems to have much to do with: “what shall we eat?” Herein we find common ground: while our drive in the islands is to return to our land-based roots and away from an industrial food system, for Mamello…

Published in Watershed Sentinel, June 20, 2013 Hupacasath Stand Up for Canada – FIPA Court Case by Andrea Palframan A remarkable resistance movement is gaining momentum in this country. A  few weeks ago, the federal court in Vancouver heard the case of Hupacasath vs. Canada. At issue was the China-Canada Federal Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement…

Durban, South Africa by Andrea Palframan, Watershed Sentinel   In the wake of the opening session of COP 17 climate change summit in Durban, violent storms ripped through the city, foreshadowing the dire warnings that will be sounded at the international conference. Flash floods and electrical outages resulted in six deaths and the accumulation of…

Watershed Sentinel A death-knell for a new Kyoto is being sounded just as the gates open at Durban’s COP 17. Politically, the victories here are being predicted to be insubstantial. Thus the focus is shifting to economic approaches, such as increasingly gimmicky emissions markets and a push for yet more privatization of resources. Beneath those…

(Published in Aqua Magazine, December 1, 2014) Moksha Yoga founder Ted Grand is not the kind of guy who does things by halves. With 70 studios from Sydney to Paris, one of Salt Spring’s great ‘activist entrepreneurs’ believes that yoga has the power to change the world.   As a young man, he joined legions…

(Published by Local Environment: The International Journal of Climate & Justice, T&F, May 13 2014) Abstract: In Lesotho, climate change adaptation funding is being managed and distributed by the same mechanisms which have traditionally operationalised humanitarian aid and international development assistance in the country. Lessons from the HIV/AIDS disaster, along with insights into the value…