Fredericton workshop trains Indigenous communities on seed collection

Participants from five Indigenous communities around Canada travelled to Fredericton for the week to receive seed collection training.

The workshop was provided for free through the National Tree Seed Centre. The Indigenous Seed Collection Program trains Indigenous communities on seed collection, and then invites representatives of the communities to its week-long workshops.

Jenna McGuire is an ecologist from the Historic Saugeen Métis community in Ontario.

“It’s been amazing learning more about this more full aspect of the tree’s life cycle, and for me connecting to the land has always been really important to me, and learning about nature and natural history,” she said.

Communities who are involved with the program can send seeds to the centre, where they will be stored. But the Indigenous communities continue to own the seeds and decide what happens with them.

“We’ll enter into an agreement with them, an MOU,  memorandum of understanding, to show that it’s their seed and that they do not lose the ownership of the seed or the intellectual property rights around those seeds,” Mary Knockwood, the Indigenous Programs Coordinator, said.

Several tree species that McGuire’s community traditionally uses are at a risk, or will be soon. She said she wants to educated people in her community about what she’s learned.

“I think a lot of people in our community, in the broader community, would also like to learn about what we’ve learned,” she said.

Knockwood said one of the most important aspects of the workshop is that communities can learn from each other and create connections.

“It’s building so much ability for them to work together and support one another. It’s such a beautiful thing,” she said.

The work is also personal for her — she’s a member of Fort Folly First Nation.

“I have a 21-year-old daughter. I don’t want to see her not have access, her children’s children not have access to the same species that I have access to,” she said.

“It’s part of who we are, it’s part of our identities and our culture and our traditions, our spirituality even,” she added.

The program is free for participants, and the centre’s coordinator encourages interested Indigenous communities to reach out.

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