Tag: new year

Tribal Governments Demand Role in Annex 2001

  • Water diversions from the Great Lakes concern many people, including Native Americans. Some are worried that their voices aren't being given equal weight. (Photo by Bartlomiej Stoinski)

Tribal and First Nation governments from the Great Lakes region say they’re being left out of negotiations to craft a sweeping new framework for regulating Great Lakes water. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports:

Transcript

Tribal and First Nation governments from the Great Lakes region say they’re being left out of negotiations to craft a sweeping new framework for regulating Great Lakes water. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports:


Representatives from about 75 Native American communities in the U.S. and Canada are demanding a more prominent role in the decision-making process for the agreement known as Annex 2001. The agreement aims to limit Great Lakes diversion. But many tribal groups say the draft agreement is weak.


The Council of Great Lakes Governors says it plans to invite tribal groups to a forum shortly after the New Year. Frank Ettawageshik is the tribal chair of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, in northern michigan. Ettawageshik says he has yet to see the offer. But he says tribal governments don’t just want to be consulted as Indian communities.


“Of course, the governments are made up of many communities. But it’s not just a matter of wanting community input. It’s a matter of wanting input at a government-to-government level.”


The Council of Great Lakes Governors is handling Annex negotiations. The eight governors and two premiers are expected to sign the agreement sometime next year.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Sarah Hulett.

Related Links

Commentary – Beyond Y2K

After all the hype and preparation, Y2K came and went without
so much as a bleep on the computer screen. But instead of congratulating
ourselves for a disaster avoided, Great Lakes Radio Consortium
commentator Suzanne Elston thinks we should be remembering what
caused the problem in the first place:

Transcript

After all the hype and preparation, Y2K came and went without so much as a bleep on the computer

screen. But instead of congratulating ourselves for a disaster avoided, Great Lakes Radio

Consortium commentator Suzanne Elston thinks we should be remembering what caused the problem in

the first place;


I have to admit I was one of the few people who didn’t stockpile canned goods and cash in

anticipation of the Y2K crisis. And although I had plenty of candles on hand New Year’s Eve, they

were there to create a festive atmosphere for my dinner guests, not to light our way into some

post millennium darkness.


But if all the hype leading up to Y2K wasn’t enough, ever since the greatest non-event of the

century came and went, we’ve had to listen to all this self-congratulatory nonsense. All the hard

work. All the careful planning. Aren’t we great? Doesn’t anybody remember we caused this mess in

the first place? We keep developing these new technologies and then applying them without ever

looking beyond the most obvious consequences.


Things like the personal computer promise to change our lives. And they do, but until there’s a

crisis – like the silly Y2K thing – nobody bothers to ask at what cost.


Look at the environment. We deal with the obvious and forget about everything else. So if a

chemical’s highly toxic or a nuclear device is highly explosive, then we have a tendency to avoid

it, or at least try to contain it somehow.


But look at things that have had a subtle but deadly impact, like chlorofluorocarbons. Down here

an earth they were the greatest thing since sliced bread. Inexpensive, inert substances that could

do everything from keeping our food frozen and our houses cool to cleaning our computer chips. And

then we found out that CFCs were destroying the ozone layer. Who knew? Better yet – who even

bothered to ask?


Look: I’m not saying that we should abandon any new ideas in case they might backfire on us. What

I am saying is that everything has a cost… everything. And we could avoid a whole lot of trouble

and panic, if we really bothered to look at the price tag in the first place.


Suzanne Elston is a syndicated columnist living in Courtice, Ontario. She comes to us by way of

the Great Lakes Radio Consortium.