Canada's Environmental Voice
“I’m allergic to coalitions.” That’s what a prominent Canadian environmental leader once told me. It was 2012, and the organization I was working with at the time had broached the idea of uniting several groups in an effort to disrupt the entrenched “jobs versus nature” narrative.
Is it easier for us to embrace “belonging” if we know who doesn’t belong? Can we respect someone – let them belong – even if we don’t particularly like them?
The words on the back of the business card say so much: Belong & Thrive. For staff at House of Friendship, a social service charity based in Waterloo Region, Ont., these words are much more than an inspirational motto. They are a reminder that helping people in need by providing food, […]
In a world facing many social challenges, it is hard to sort through all the “need” and find the right place to start inciting change. It is understood that poverty, housing and food insecurity (to name but a few) are very real challenges. We see them every day when we go […]
We are so very pleased to be sharing this special issue of Alternatives Journal with you. It was developed in collaboration with The Kitchener and Waterloo Community Foundation (The KWCF), and our shared journey of discovery began with a goal of exploring the concept of “belonging” in its myriad of meanings.
What do small-scale farmers and market gardeners do in the winter? This is a perennial question for growers in temperate climates where the growing season for sustainable, local agriculture is traditionally just half of the year.
In the spring and summer of 2014 and late winter 2015, I lived and worked in the beautiful vibrant hamlet of Igloolik, Nunavut, a coastal Inuit community of more than 1800 people located on Igloolik Island about 300 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle. I was there doing my undergraduate thesis, working on […]
With a recorded interview obtained in the field, the Wildlife Defence League revealed some powerful information: an individual working for the caribou recovery project in British Columbia admitted to fitting a radio collar onto a wolf, then using it to track down and kill the wolf’s pack members. The worker also revealed that […]
Emi Do was captivated from the get go. By the beginning of the 2011 season, she had accumulated 13 plots of land scattered around Vancouver, to which she tended by way of bicycle and trailer. Her first season, at the beginning of 2010, Do stumbled on the opportunity to farm a plot on the […]
The other day I had a treacherous thought as I reviewed a report on how far away Canada is from meeting our climate targets. Where would be today if those of us who condemned the Harper governments “Turn the Corner” climate plan years ago (2007) had instead encouraged the government to implement it?
