Poison

Poison

This is an image of a skull and cross bones and a clam both made with Pacific northwest coast native design elements in them. I made this image to represent the pollution that has happened to my tribe’s beaches which has made the clams and other shellfish unsafe for human consumption with out following procedures to clean the clams. The pollution is fecal coliform caused by human waste from sewage that has contaminated the beaches. The contamination is caused from all the uncared for septic tanks which people use around the beaches and when it rains the water flowing to the ocean carries the waste to the beaches.

There are ways of cleaning the clams by bringing them to a place where they flush out the dirty water. Also bacteria in fecal coliform can be killed with proper cooking but the problem with shellfish is that many people steam it which does not kill the bacteria like boiling does. For me personally even if I do kill the bacteria there is the thought that I am eating someone’s shit molecules, which really disgusts me.

Canada’s lack of environmental laws has failed my tribe once again and these beaches could have supported a sustainable natural resource that could feed my tribe as well as provide a commercial aspect with selling them. We have a treaty that states we can always carry on fisheries as formally, but the pollution prevents us from carrying on fisheries as formally because we can no longer just go to the beach and gather one of most important traditional foods without the chance of getting sick from eating it.

The attitude that our society has towards the environment needs to change before we lose everything.

Poison belongs to the following groups:

1 In The Beginning - Ancient Practices, Aboriginal Art, Canada, Environmental Awareness, Pacific Northwest Art, Underwater & Sealife and Vector Goodness Lounge