On April 19-20, 2007, the International Institute for Indigenous Resource Management and Kwiaht, the center for the historical ecology of the Salish sea will be conducting a workshop on the role of traditional knowledge in protecting and managing tribal cultural and natural resources at the Helen Riaboff Whiteley Center of the Friday Harbor Laboratories in Friday Harbor, Washington.

Traditional or local knowledge systems fit within the definition of “science.” Yet, in many instances, Indigenous peoples feel that their knowledge is irreconcilable with science. Central to the workshop is a review of practical experience incorporating local knowledge in ecological research, with a view to understanding how communities can meaningfully engage with non-Indigenous scientists. The workshop will begin with a panel discussion of what "science" really is - that it is much more than industry, technology, capitalism, museums, i.e., the end users of science, but also the philosophy and practice of science itself.

The workshop will provide updates and practical instruction on recent developments in scientific and legal domains pertaining to the role of traditional ecological and other knowledge in cultural and natural resource management among indigenous peoples. The workshop fills an important need for resource managers, lawyers, and policy-makers by demonstrating how traditional knowledge can be integrated into adaptive management and other resource management strategies.

Call Jeanne Rubin at 303-733-0481 for more information about the workshop.

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Pi'ilani Hawaiian Civic Club of Colorado 'Ohana Retreat

On September 30, 2006, the Pi'ilani Hawaiian Civic Club of Colorado held its 'Ohana Retreat at the Tivoli Center on the Auraria Campus through the hospitality of the GLBT (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender) Student Services at Auraria.  The Pi'ilani Ohana Retreat opened with a prayer in Hawaiian by Andrew Cowell and emceed by Cathy Keliitoomalu.  Highlight of the retreat featured Shantell Ching, a teacher in the ancient voyaging skills of Hawai'i, and the only traditional woman navigator (ho'okele ) of the Hokule'a the double-hulled canoe that sailed from Hawai'i to Rapa Nui (Easter Island ).  She is among several navigators who are reviving this nearly lost science of using the knowledge of stars, winds, ocean currents, cloud formations, and observing the birds and sea life.  Lurline McGregor, the Producer of Hokule'a:  Guiding Star, discussed the making of this film.

Shantell's presentation focused on building the double-hulled canoes and the extensive research on voyaging, language, hula, music, the arts, and interviewing teachers of canoe building.  The crew underwent an arduous training regimen but the members were elected not only for their sailing skills, but also on their ability to get along. The voyage to Rapa Nui was one of the longest undertaken by the Hokule'a. It was also the first voyage that was essentially West-to-East-to-West. Shantell explained how voyages in that direction presented new challenges to the navigators.

Pi'ilani Hawaiian Civic Club of Colorado is a member of the Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs . There are a number of clubs both in Hawai'i and on the Mainland. Club membership is composed of Native Hawaiians, other current and former residents of the State of Hawai'i, and people who care about Hawai'i and Hawaiian culture.

For further information about the Pi'ilani Hawaiian Civic Club, contact Lance Clarose, President, at lclarose@yahoo.com or check the website at www.piilani.org.

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Protected Geographic Indications (Nordic Food Project)

Here's more evidence that protected geographic indications and protected designations of origin are being viewed as providing a competitive edge in the global marketplace and protecting regional traditions, including traditional knowledge. I would not be surprised to see some Nordic version of France's Institut National des Appellations d'Origine being established in the near future.

A new Nordic Council of Ministers' project is to raise the profile of Nordic food, cuisine raw materials and products in an increasingly globalised food and travel market.

The Nordic Council of Ministers' ”New Nordic Cuisine” project is designed to spread knowledge of Nordic raw materials and food culture. The "New Nordic Cuisine" project is an attempt by the Nordic governments to preserve Nordic values and to draw attention to the links between gastronomy and cuisine, tourism and regional values, health, welfare and business development, raw materials and value generation, and will help publicize Nordic competitiveness.

The Ministers of Food gave the idea their backing during the summer in recognition of the fact that not enough is known about Nordic raw materials and products and that they do not enjoy an identity of their own. Nordic cuisine consists of simple, safe and tasty products. Spreading the word about it will also boost the Nordic 'brand' in an increasingly globalised food and travel market. There seems to be an overflow of splendid Nordic raw produce with the same gastronomic qualities as delicacies from the Mediterranean cuisine. They however do not seem to gain the same status in the Nordic countries and are therefore not priced at nearly the same level. Fifty different wild berries grow in Finnish forests, but they are not offered for sale in Denmark. The Nordic Gene Bank has registered more the 130 different kinds of indigenous horseradish, all with different taste, but few of those varieties are grown commercially.

Project activities will include promoting understanding of the individual countries' agricultural and fish food traditions, promoting Nordic food products and cuisine and expanding the market for them. It is also designed to promote the unique characteristics of Nordic food and food production and make a Nordic impact global level.

"This project will also help make the Nordic Region more competitive internationally," project manager Finn Børre Stokholm of the Norwegian Ministry of Agriculture and Food, said. The project runs until the end of the year.

For several years now the International Insittute for Indigenous Resource Management has been working to get a similar initiative started in Indian country.

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Protected Geographic Indications (California Wineries)
Tina Caputo, Wines&Vines

Sacramento, California—On Sept. 30, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law SB 1380, a bill that aims to protect the integrity of the Sonoma name on wine labels. The legislation restricts the use of "Sonoma" to wines made with at least 75% Sonoma County grapes.

"It's a simple truth-in-labeling issue," said Sonoma County Winegrape Commission (SCWC) president Nick Frey. "Consumers have a right to expect Sonoma County-quality wine in the bottle if it says Sonoma on the label75 ."

Sonoma County Vintners (SCV) executive director Honore Comfort added, "Sonoma County is known for its distinctiveness and diversity… SB 1380 protects that reputation and reinforces consumer confidence about the Sonoma County name."

Not everyone sees the new law as a victory for Sonoma County wineries. Wine Institute (WI), political lobbying organization for the California wine industry, strongly opposed the bill.

"SB 1380's approach to state-mandated brand name control is inconsistent with the Napa County statute," WI representative Gladys Horiuchi told Wines & Vines, referring to the Napa label protection bill passed in 2000. "Unlike Napa County's statute that applies equally to viticultural areas within Napa County, SG 1380 does not apply to viticultural areas within Sonoma County such as Alexander Valley, Russian River Valley and Dry Creek in regards to brand names (established before 1986)."

According to the 2000 Napa ruling, a brand like Rutherford Hill must contain at least 75% Napa grapes. But the Sonoma law does not prohibit brands like Dry Creek Vineyard (established before 1986) from using grapes grown outside Sonoma. Brands named for AVAs within Sonoma County have long been required by federal law to meet the appellation of origin requirements for the geographic area named, however, if they were established in 1986 or later.

Wineries that could be affected by the law include Lake Sonoma Winery, Sonoma Creek, Sonoma-Cutrer and Sonoma Coast Vineyards.

Sonoma Creek president Stephen Kautz said the ruling will result in a "dramatic decrease in case production" for its wines. With an annual production of 15,000 cases, Sonoma Creek's California appellation wines account for 70% of the brand's production. Kautz said he will be considering his options regarding the brand before the government's 2008 deadline for compliance.

John Drady, managing partner of Sonoma Coast Vineyards, told Wines & Vines that he is happy to comply with SB 1380. "We applied for the Sonoma Coast Vineyards name because we are making wines that are 100% from vineyards in the Sonoma Coast appellation," he explained. "When we received approval for the name from the TTB, it was stipulated that the wines had to be 85% from the Sonoma Coast. As long as we stay true to the Sonoma Coast, and we are committed to that, we will continue to be Sonoma Coast Vineyards legally, ethically and passionately."

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Protected Geographic Indications (Quebec Act Respecting Reserved Designations)

R.S.Q., chapter A-20.02, An Act Respecting Reserved Designations updates Quebec law regarding the recognition of designations which are attributed to agricultural and food products as an attestation of their method of production, region of origin or specificity. The law also sets out requirements for the accreditation of certification bodies entrusted with certifying products bearing a reserved designation and the supervision of the use of the designations.

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Soundtrack Review: The New World
by Brent Michael Davids

As frequently told to me by the seasoned film composers I have encountered, music cannot save a film. And it is this sound advice that leads my review of the soundtrack to “The New World.” Some soundtrack reviewers might delight in a film score for its novelty or beauty away from the film for which it was created, but in doing so are remiss at accounting for the score's effectiveness or lack thereof in context. While I find James Horner's themes pretty and at times successful, my overall impression is one of disappointment both with the score and with the film. So in Horner's defense, I must point out that no matter how pretty the score, a soundtrack cannot save a lackluster film such a “The New World.” For my assessment of the film, I generally agree with the Variety review:

“While Kilcher's girl/woman charm, poised naivete and intriguing unfamiliarity lend Pocahontas a considerable fascination, Smith remains grievously underwritten for a leading role. One hasn't a clue what drives him, what he might have left behind in England, whether or not he's a trustworthy character (or narrator) with a good heart... Pocahontas is said to have been one of many children of the king, but there is no attempt to delineate the native group's family or power structure, or this tribe's relationship with its neighbors... the lack of moorings has the predictable effect of leaving the viewer adrift" (Variety, 2003)

Particularly important — from a cultural perspective — is the comment (above) regarding the indigenous people and the lack of any real understanding in the film about them. They are treated more as the noble savage stereotype, living in the stereotypical empty wilderness, all filmed as wondrous eye candy but with no cultural substance whatsoever. In my estimation, the soundtrack deviates little from succumbing to the same flaw.

Apparently, much of Horner's originally composed cues were rejected or replaced with needledrop, according to the many reviewers who were disappointed that Wagner and Mozart were not included on the music CD but featured prominently in the film itself. The opening sequence where the ships are sailing in for the first sighting by the Natives is a moving kaleidoscope on a musical theme we might recognize as “taps.” The theme (Vorspiel from the opera Das Rheingold), swirls and builds in open horns to a climax as the foreigners and Natives meet. It is effective in a nature sense, or from a westernized viewpoint of “nature” perhaps (the vast empty wilderness stereotype). But the film is shot as if we are among the Natives, and are seeing the ships arriving from a Native viewpoint, so the music ends up confusing rather than helping the film at this point.

Further confusing is the use of Mozart Piano Concerto #23 at times in the film. Rather than creating a sense of America, or even “nature” in America, the Mozart effectively blankets those scenes in a Eurocentric coverall wiping out any striking “new world” characteristics that might have been featured musically. Yes, Mozart is well known and pretty, but what relevance to the Powhatans or America? Not to mention the fact that the continent is not any newer, nor older, than any other continent. The score might have worked better without any piano at all actually.

Pianos did not come in use until much later than Jamestown's beginning. The first ships sailed into the bay in 1607. Rolfe took Pocahontas to England in 1616 where she passed away only 7 months later. Mozart was born in 1756, and composed his piano concertos some 140 years after Pocahontas lived. To use Mozart is historically inaccurate, so we must deduce the piano concertos were needledropped for their mood qualities, or to enhance the feeling of those scenes. But that feeling, again, is a very Eurocentric one, not owing anything at all to the wonderful American “nature” scenes, nor of the extremely complex social and cultural life of the Powhatan Renapes. Though beautiful, needledropping Mozart fails to capture the correct flavor for the film's subject matter in the important cultural sense.

So, one must ask, was there any hint of indigenous music or culture in the soundtrack? Well, yes and no. At one, and only one, point we do hear something resembling the stereotypical plains flute and some added drums, but the flute is not used in a way resembling any eastern Algonkian song style, nor did the drums remind us of any authentic drumming. On this point, we must conclude the typical hollywood stereotypes dictated the score by its use of drums and flutes but in ways not resembling actual Native music and, even further, not resembling any Renape, Lenape or Nenape music. Also, the placement of the hollywoodish pseudo-Indian music appears only once and that is during the scene when the colonial habitants are burning down a Native settlement. Great, the destruction of Indians gets the Indian music, and then it doesn't remotely resemble Indian music. Again, the music appears to be overtly Eurocentric in both type and placement.

However, judging from the lack of character development in the film, especially with regard to the Powhatans, and of course Pocahontas herself (who appears to be more a foil for white men's fantasy than a meaningful three-dimensional figure), I think the music score was simply following the same direction as the film. Whether a result of the composer's eye, or the filmmaker's eye, the soundtrack was a rather lackluster effort, owing at least in part to the film's own flat portrayal.

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New Monographs from Strategic Studies Institute
Alliances and American National Security

Are you interested in film? Filmmaking? Does the idea of hanging out and talking shop with indigenous filmmakers from all over the world sound like your idea of an evening well-spent? Well then, you might want to consider signing up for an internship with the International Institute for Indigenous Resource Management, the organizer of the Indigenous Film & Arts Festival.

Volunteering as an Institute intern will offer you a great opportunity to experience a broad perspective on all aspects of the film festival by working closely with the festival staff. These internships afford you an excellent opportunity to acquire the necessary organizational, communication, management, and other skills required to organize and put on an international film festival. The internships require a commitment of 10 to 15 hours per week and a set working schedule for you to be in the Institute offices.