Narragansett Food Sovereignty Initiative and Climate Change

Climate change on the northeast coast is prominent with rising seas, breaking high temperature records, droughts and floods, all resulting in a rapidly changing environment. The Narragansett (Algonquin) are struggling to revitalize their historically decimated culture while the environment upon which their culture is based is changing rapidly.  Their Indigenous Knowledge (IK) is being applied within the Narragansett Food Sovereignty Initiative – including strategies for adaptation to and mitigation of climate change.   Food Sovereignty, as opposed to sustainability or security, is a bottom up (local) process that defines goals and power relations before methods and outcomes are identified.  Through the UN Climate Change COP-22 we advocate environmental and social justice for indigenous peoples, in general, and the Narragansett, in particular.   International and national agreements are ethical only as they recognize indigenous rights and are just only as they are applied equitably to include indigenous peoples and their traditional ecological knowledge.