Boozhoo News River Readers,

We’ve got plenty to read about this week, with recent national and international events taking place.  There’s coverage from the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York, as well as the U.S. Indigenous Data Sovereignty & Governance Summit (attended by Animikii’s Jeff Ward) in Tucson. You’ll find critical perspectives and analysis on those, as well as other notable articles at the intersection of Indigenous culture and science with tech. 

As always, thanks for being here! 

This week’s stories include: 

• What does an Indigenous approach to art and technology look like?

• Indigenous Beading app creator highlights culture at Métis Local 25 event

• How Indigenous leaders are ‘carrying fire’ from Northwest history to the present

• Indigenous Leadership Program students driving community impact

Data Control Will Shape the Next Phase of Tribal Sovereignty

The big picture: Tribal nations are entering a new phase of sovereignty, one defined not just by land and resources, but by control over data. That shift was front and center at the U.S. Indigenous Data Sovereignty & Governance Summit 2026, where tribal leaders and researchers focused on a simple question: who controls the information that shapes policy, funding and perception? Roughly 400 attendees gathered at the Casino Del Sol conference center, on the homelands of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe in Tucson, to examine what data sovereignty means for tribal nations — from data centers and artificial intelligence to the growing role of Indigenous data practitioners.

Why it matters: For generations, Indigenous peoples have fought to protect what is ours - our lands, our cultures, our languages and our identities. Today, that fight increasingly extends into a space many of our ancestors could never have imagined: data. The growing movement for Indigenous data sovereignty, led by organizations like the Indigenous Data Alliance, the organizers of the summit, is not just timely — it is essential to the future of tribal nations. Data is power. It shapes public policy, drives funding decisions and influences how communities are perceived by the outside world.

Key Points: 

• Federal agencies must do more to recognize and uphold tribal authority over data.

• Researchers must commit to ethical practices that prioritize consent and collaboration.

• And tribes must be supported with the resources needed to build and maintain their own data infrastructure.

What they’re saying: One slide presented during the summit read: “Most A.I. models don’t know what we know, yet. We are still deciding if we want them to.”

Learn more: Read the full article at Native News Online

Curated Articles:

Impact assessments not required for Olds, Mihta Askiy data centres. Expert says legislation needs to catch up

'You can't manage what you don't measure,' says law professor. Two more data centre projects in Alberta are not being required to complete formal impact assessments, which would evaluate factors such as environmental effects: Synapse’s one-gigawatt data centre campus in Olds and the Woodland Cree First Nation-led Mihta Askiy data centre project, about 500 kilometres northwest of Edmonton. The exemptions come as the province has allowed celebrity investor Kevin O’Leary’s $70-billion, 7.5-gigawatt AI data centre project Wonder Valley, a proposal in northern Alberta, to bypass an environmental impact assessment. "What we're seeing here is a new sector that's very resource intensive … including with respect to electricity generation and water use," said David Wright, associate professor in the faculty of law at the University of Calgary. “And yet at that very time when this new sector comes along, you see governments actually stepping back from environmental assessment and kind of going on faith that all is going to go well.”

AI is a double-edged sword for Indigenous land protection, UN experts warn

Artificial intelligence, or AI, is helping Indigenous communities detect illegal logging, track wildfires, and monitoring of traditional lands. But the data centers powering AI are driving new threats, requiring water, energy, and critical minerals often extracted from Indigenous territories.  Now, Indigenous leaders at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, or UNPFII,  are wrestling with a paradox: how to harness AI’s protective capabilities without fueling the extractive forces they’ve resisted for generations. A new study published by Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, who is Mbororo and a former chair of the Permanent Forum, highlighted some of the possibilities and challenges AI presents for environmental protection, as well as the impacts of the technology on Indigenous territories.

Indigenous land defenders are being killed, AI is scraping their knowledge

At the UN, leaders confronted compounding crises of territorial violence and digital extractivism. Indigenous land defenders are being killed and criminalised at alarming rates, AI systems scrape traditional knowledge without consent, while Indigenous women face escalating rates of violence, crises that Indigenous leaders confronted this week at the United Nations, where they warned that the fight for health and sovereignty now extends from traditional territories into digital spaces. Those warnings came during the 25th session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, or UNPFII, where the overarching theme “Ensuring Indigenous Peoples’ Health in the context of conflict” resonated with participants from around the world. In 2023 alone, 31 percent of human rights defenders killed worldwide were Indigenous or working on Indigenous rights, despite making up only five percent of the global population.

How Indigenous leaders are ‘carrying fire’ from Northwest history to the present

The fire scars in Oregon forests tell a story, and it’s a familiar one to Indigenous communities. A soft rain fell around Joe Scott as he unwrapped the leather cord fastening halves of a mussel shell. Scott, an elder from the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, packed each half of the shell with stringy willow wood — his insulation. He added chunks of smoldering fungus — his fuel. The small fire stayed lit, even when he closed the shell. This is how Scott carried fire to a cultural burn ceremony near Selma in Southern Oregon this month. It’s also how, historically, his ancestors carried fire into the mountain forests of the Pacific Northwest. Scott is part of a growing Indigenous movement to revitalize the knowledge and burning practices that once commonly shaped many Oregon landscapes. Even its wettest ones. Emerging research from Oregon State University is affirming this fire history, one long held among accounts from Indigenous communities. Scott said he turned to traditional Indigenous history to learn how to reconstruct the shell fire-carriers. “It’s science, it’s inquiry, it’s recovering ancestral knowledge,” he said.

Indigenous Beading app creator highlights culture at Métis Local 25 event in Bienfait

Métis culture, creativity, and hands‑on learning were on display Saturday in Bienfait, as Métis entrepreneur Jill Ruep took part in the Mental Health Awareness and Cultural Education event hosted by Métis Nation–Saskatchewan Local 25. Ruep is the creator of Ma Fii Lii Rasaad, which means My Daughter’s Beads in Michif, and is developing what she describes as the first Indigenous‑led beading app in North America. The digital platform is designed to help the next generation express cultural creativity through custom beading patterns, while learning the teachings and stories behind traditional beadwork. “Beading carries stories, teachings, and identity,” Ruep said. “This is about creating a digital space where culture and creativity can be expressed in a way that still honours our traditional ways of learning.” Ruep recently participated in the pitch competition at the Innovation Conference for Economic Development (ICED) in Estevan, where she received funding and support to continue developing the app. She said the funding will be used to strengthen connections with Indigenous artists, Elders, and knowledge keepers.

What does an Indigenous approach to art and technology look like?

Drew Trujillo (Mexica Mestizo), who founded the computer science department at the Institute of American Indian Arts last year, is working to answer that question. The innovative program integrates cutting-edge digital media and studio arts methodologies into an Indigenous framework. The Indigenous approach is what distinguishes it from other university programs, including the Experimental Art and Technology program at the University of New Mexico, where Trujillo received his Master of Fine Arts degree. “One of the courses I’m teaching this semester is called ‘Beyond Human-Computer Interaction,’ and the idea is to expand beyond the Western, human-centric approach, keeping the things that are working really well, but also looking at things from a more Indigenous perspective ... where we are in collaboration with animals, plants and anything you can imagine that could have its own agency,” Trujillo said. Rather than separating people from nature, Trujillo wants to show that new technologies can deepen human connections to the natural world. “In that way, the technology is acting as a bridge, and it’s a question for each individual artist within the program as to how they want to use that,” Trujillo said. “They could use it in a way that’s extractive — where they’re only taking away from the plant — or they could use it in a way where there’s a relationship of reciprocity ... and you’re giving back.”

Indigenous Leadership Program students driving community impact

This year marks the largest cohort of the University of Manitoba’s Indigenous Leadership Program (ILP), with 35 students completing  Paskwamostos Wawiyaw (Bison Circle, formerly Indigenous Circle of Empowerment) and 11 students completing the Bison Spirit program for first-year students. Coming from faculties across the university, these Indigenous students are not only learning about leadership — they are putting it into practice. From October to March, the Paskwamostos Wawiyaw participants designed and delivered capstone projects centered on community impact. Leadership programming director Justin Rasmussen explains, the projects focused on supporting youth, responding to community needs and raising awareness — demonstrating how students translate leadership from theory into meaningful, visible action. These projects reshaped how students understand leadership. For many, this meant embracing uncertainty. As Stagg shared: “You don’t need to have it all together.”  That mindset — openness to growth and change — became part of the students’ own leadership journeys.