News for Now Update: Week ending April 30, 2022

Local Tribes Fight to Save Salmon
A devastating trifecta of warming waters, pollutants, and hydropower dams threaten salmon in the Columbia River Basin. With the help of motivated youth including Keyen Singer, local tribes, such as the Confederated Tribes of Umatilla Indian Reservation, are pressing forward in their generations-long fight to save this sacred food source by petitioning for the removal of four dams on the lower Snake River. Read more at NRDC.

Efforts to Rebuild California Condor Population
Decimated by pesticides and other threats, the California condor population dropped to just 27 birds in 1984, before recovery efforts. Sacred to the Yurok Tribe, these massive scavengers play a key role in ecosystem support. In response to growing threats of wind turbine fatalities, federal wildlife authorities and the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power are working on solutions to continue to rebuild their numbers. Read more in the Los Angeles Times.

Native American Seedkeepers Restore Crop Biodiversity
According to the United Nations, 75% of crop diversity has been lost over the last century due to monocropping in our industrialized food system. Traditional Native American farmers like Aaron Lowden of the Ancestral Lands Conservation Corps are using seed diversity to combat this, cultivating traditional crops to restore resilience to our food systems and fight the threat of food insecurity. Read more at The Guardian.

Pioneer Archives Post: Dr. Price’s Field Study of Communities in the South Sea Islands
Dr. Price visits the Polynesians and Melanesians of the South Sea Islands in this intriguing travelogue, published in the Dental Digest in 1935.
Inside, he compares the incidence of cavities (and other degenerative processes) among groups consuming native diets versus those consuming modern foods. He also touches on topics such as his study of the chemical and activator content of the foods, the incidence of irregularities of teeth and dental arches relative to nutrition, and his study of those suffering from tuberculosis. Read more in our Pioneer Archives Post.