Honouring Indigenous Heritage Month
November is Indigenous Heritage Month. What better opportunity to shine a light on a project near and dear to the Earth Rated team. We recently announced our donation to support the Pakatakan Project through our partnership with SNAP Québec, the Quebec Chapter of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society.
Earth Rated is redefining what it means to have our values represent our culture and our beliefs – guiding the way we do business – and we are proud to partner with organizations who share our values which speak to who we are as individuals and as an organization.
On November 4th, 2021, Dolorès André and Véronique Bussières delivered a presentation at the Earth Rated headquarters in Montreal to update the team on the work they are doing to help conserve Canada’s natural spaces and wildlife.
Véronique Bussières is the Biocultural and Marine Conservation Manager at SNAP Quebec and Dolorès André is Project Manager at UAPASHKUSS.
UAPASHKUSS is a non-profit organization composed of Innu spiritual guides, elders and Innu members with expertise in Innu culture and language. Their mission includes the identification, documentation and protection of Innu natural sacred sites and the transmission of Innu Knowledge.
The Pakatakan project, which means "portage" in the Innu language, is the result of a partnership between UAPASHKUSS and SNAP Québec and aims at protecting and recognizing Innu sacred natural sites listed by UAPASHKUSS.
In order to help achieve climate targets, we need to focus on protecting these areas. As Véronique explains, “we hear a lot especially these days about the climate crisis, but there is another important crisis—which is the biodiversity loss crisis—we’re losing a lot of natural spaces, and species, and it really affects our whole resilience as a planet. By reducing stressors & pressures, you create refuges in the landscape.”
For Dolorès, this project is about protecting heritage and honouring her mother’s dream to work on the identification and protection of Innu sacred sites after having observed the decline of caribou.
“When we go visit these spaces, we know that this is where our ancestors used to be and that represents our culture and our traditions and our identity – and so we want these sites to be recognized as natural sacred sites and be protected. I’d like to thank Earth Rated for their contribution that they gave to us for our development. I am very honoured and grateful.”
Giving back is at the heart of Earth Rated. We’re inspired by the Pakatakan Project’s safeguarding of the world’s cultural and biodiversity heritage as well as the rights of Indigenous peoples towards these spaces.
Learn more about what "Giving Back" means to Earth Rated by clicking here