Cumulative impacts of legislation on Anishnaabe food ways

For the Anishinaabek Nation, forests are sites of social, ancestral, and more-than-human relationships that sustain Life. For Canadian governments, forests are sites of timber extraction that sustain industry. Canadian legislators fail to see the forest for the trees. This case study examines cumulative impacts of Ontario’s forestry legislation on Anishinaabek life ways, focusing our study on food ways. Food ways include cultural, economic, scientific, linguistic, spiritual, and intergenerational dimensions of food in a society. Anishinaabek food ways are affirmed in the 1850 Robinson Huron Treaty, a land sharing agreement between the Anishinaabek Nation and the British Crown. Crown responsibilities for resource ‘management’ was given to Provinces following the BNA Act (1867). We demonstrate ways Ontario forestry legislation disregards the Crown’s Treaty-affirmed obligations to uphold Anishinaabek harvesting rights. This case study begins with Elders’ reflections on glyphosate use in forestry. Forest operators claim herbicide use speeds commercial species regeneration, yet this strategy converts food and medicine-bearing forests to pine plantations lacking the biodiversity upon which Anishinaabek food ways depend. We ask how changes to Ontario’s forestry legislation impact Crown obligations under the Robinson Huron Treaty (1850) to protect Anishinaabek food ways. We examine limitations of settler colonial knowledge systems for understanding the impacts of forest ‘management’ decisions. This research demonstrates a need for settler scholars and forest practitioners to update their understandings of Crown responsibilities through Indigenous peoples’ Treaty perspectives. Respecting Anishinaabek food ways means adjusting how settler society views forests.