Revision as of 21:40, 22 April 2018

Native people are often in a relatively unique situation when it comes to going vegan, and while it can vary from region to region, generally speaking it is significantly more difficult for them due to their marginalized status and reliance on subsistence hunting/fishing for survival, as well as less pressing from a moral perspective to encourage them to do so because the source of their animal products is usually both more sustainable and less cruel than typical animal agriculture: in sum, it makes promoting veganism to native populations a poor bargain in terms of effective activism.

You'll have a hard time getting very far or convincing many people, and even if you do succeed the payoff in terms of animal suffering prevented for success will be much smaller than having convinced somebody from the mainstream/dominant culture to go vegan. So in short: please don't waste your precious activist time on trying to convince people for whom it may be nearly impossible to go vegan. Focus on the low hanging fruit from within mainstream society where going vegan is much easier and more productive.

Food Access

Similar to Food Deserts, native people can have food access problems that make going vegan more difficult for them.

Regional Food Prices

In many regions where native people live, particularly near or in the arctic circle (wherein around 10% of the inhabitants are native), most foods must be imported and prices can be astronomically high for things that many vegans (and others) take for granted in regions closer to production.

"We've fought to be more equal to the rest of Canada in terms of purchasing food or other items, but there seems to be an invisible border somewhere that once you cross that line, the cost of food or merchandise doubles or triples in cost," Iqalukjuak[1]

A recent Canadian study found huge differences by region,

Food insecurity was most prevalent in Canada’s North (especially Nunavut) and the Maritimes in 2014. In Nunavut and the Northwest Territories, the prevalence rose to the highest levels observed since monitoring began in 2005, 46.8% and 24.1% respectively.[2]

However, the study didn't include First Nations people on reserves, where the problem is likely even worse than in cities.

Although on-reserve First Nations people and homeless peoplex comprise relatively small proportions of the populations in each province, their high levels of vulnerability to food insecurity must mean that the true prevalence of food insecurity is to some extent underestimated because of their omission.[3]

There are very few local food options. While agriculture in these regions is possible, it's very difficult and often requires infrastructure-heavy modern techniques like greenhouses and even grow lights to get a head-start on sprouting which may not be accessible to people in poverty. Meanwhile, the innately non-vegan options of hunting and fishing are essentially free for native people and provide food availability year-round.

In theory it is possible to import food more efficiently including non-perishables, even circumventing grocery stores, but this represents a major political and infrastructure issue and requires organizing coops, etc. For this reason, focusing vegan outreach on natives isn't the low-hanging fruit of "it's easy to go vegan" that it is for a solvent person in a modern city. While it might be productive vegan outreach to go to these regions and organize coops to sell vegan food and affordable prices, simply telling native people not to exploit the only immediately accessible food resources many of them have (hunting & fishing) is probably wasted effort and may only serve to antagonize.

Poverty

Livelihood

Lower Harm

Hunting vs Animal Agriculture

Sustainable Fishing

Cultural Barriers

Religion

Political Circumstances

Autonomy

Optics