Environmental and Health Benefi ts of Hunting Lifestyles and Diets 125and its food whilst not contributing to any further natural resource declines. These
would not represent a ‘backward’ step for the Innu, but would rather seek to make
the best use of available technologies and practices. Several of these options have
been tested elsewhere, such as the outstation movement for Aborigine communi-
ties in Australia (Morice, 1976) and ecotourism in Saami areas of Scandinavia and
among indigenous peoples in Siberia. For the Innu, these options are not necessar-
ily new. Some have been discussed for decades, but no action has been taken.
There is now even more urgency for action.
We suggest four key policy changes:
1 a regional food policy to promote country food sourcing and consumption;
2 following the recommendations of the Canadian Human Rights Commission
(Backhouse and McCrae, 2002), a fully-funded outpost or hunter support
programme to strengthen regular connections to the country;
3 an ecotourism programme to increase visitor travel to the country and expend-
iture for Innu goods and services;
4 a new school calendar policy to ensure that children can visit the country for a
month or more in spring and autumn without increasing their likelihood of
being held back a year for missing school time.
Establish a food policy for country food
Some countries, such as Greenland, have progressive policies to support hunting
lifestyles and consumption of country foods (Marquardt and Caulfield, 1996).
The Greenland Home Rule government has been promoting local country food
markets since 1988, and hunters regularly sell via formal kiosks, informally to
relatives and neighbours, directly to schools, hospitals and senior citizens’ homes,
and directly to government-controlled processing facilities. The aim of the policy
is to support country food consumption as a substitute for expensive and less
healthy imported foods. At the same time, such a policy helps to promote the
economic viability of indigenous communities. Country foods are not permitted
to be exported. An important factor which enables this in Greenland is that there
is effective indigenous control over land and sea tenure systems (Marquardt and
Caulfield, 1996, p116).
Experience closer to Innu country shows that as long as Innu were able to
maintain collective control of certain lands and waters, as consistent with the
United Nations Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, such a
policy could be a possibility. In the Inuit and Cree regions of northern Quebec, a
Hunter’s Support programme has been in existence since 1982 when the Quebec
provincial government legalized it. The programme operates by the province releas-
ing funds to aboriginal organizations that pay Inuit and Cree hunters for the meat
and fish they bring home. It also helps to subsidize the purchase of hunting equip-
ment, transportation and a small fee for the hunters’ time. After taking some of the
food from the hunters, the aboriginal organizations then distribute food throughout