Environmental and Health Benefi ts of Hunting Lifestyles and Diets 129likely to far exceed the costs of a restoration of country-based activities we suggest
here.
But this will require a fundamental change in the way local, regional and
national policy makers conceive of the problems that the Innu face. Canadian
policy makers will have to be more imaginative in working with the Innu. They
will have to embrace ‘bottom-up’ ideas such as the various programmes offered by
the Tshikapisk Foundation. Of course, it is not helpful to look to the government
for all the answers. The initiatives of many Innu to spend time in the country
practising their way of life, eating wild foods and benefiting from the plentiful
exercise of country life is vital to the success of any of the positive changes we are
endorsing in this paper. These endeavours could be facilitated by a combination of
some government subsidies through an Outpost or Hunter Support programme
and the development of non-profit revenue generation through ecotourism and
other activities consonant with Innu hunting life.
It is clear, too, that the changes suggested here also have some relevance for
people elsewhere in industrialized countries who are suffering ill-health from inap-
propriate diets and sedentary lifestyles. Better connections to food and the land,
supported by reformed agricultural, food and land policies, could do much to
promote wider and long-lasting changes in behaviour (Pretty, 2002; Pretty et al,
2004). However, the trends seen through most food systems towards commodifi-
cation and processing of foods, combined with the self-interest of manufacturers
and retailers, will make these changes difficult to sustain unless individuals and
communities are able to take the links between health, food and the natural envi-
ronment seriously, and act to develop new projects to address them. Being in the
country for the Innu has considerable resonance for people in other societies who
too have become disconnected from nature, land and food, yet who have a greater
political voice to do something about these disconnections.
Acknowledgements
We are especially grateful to the many Innu people that have helped and hosted us.
We thank Joseph Mark, Sebastien Rich, Basile Penashue, Dominic Pokue, Daniel
Ashini, Mary Adele and Louis Penashue, Mary May Rich, Anastasia Qupee, Jean-
Pierre Ashini, George Rich, Armand McKenzie and Anthony Jenkinson. We are
also grateful to Stephen Loring for his comments on Innu pre-contact history,
Marlene Atleo for her reflections on school calendars, and to two anonymous
reviewers for their helpful comments.
References
ACC/SCN. 2000. 4th Report on The World Nutrition Situation. UN Administrative Committee on
Coordination, Sub-Committee on Nutrition. In collaboration with IFPRI. New York: United
Nations.