“Future generations depend upon the protection of the natural resources of today. It is our job to guarantee that Mother Earth is in as good, or better condition as when we got here, for the next seven generations to come”.

- Richard Stevens, Passamaquoddy Tribal Governor

Since the first printing of the OPPT tribal news we have seen many articles about Native Americans being held captive to environmental pollutants. These chemical residues affect our subsistence foods, medicinal herbs, our homes and our unborn children. This problem spans from the Alaskan Aleuts to Passamaquoddy Indian Township, Maine.

The Fall/Winter 1999 article, “Drumbeat of Mother Earth” states that “tribal people consider persistent toxic chemicals to be the greatest threat to the long term survival of Native Americans.”

President Clinton recently signed into law “S.1880, Minority Health and Health Disparities Research and Education Act of 2000." Aimed at enhancing biomedical and behavioral research on minority health and health disparities, to support medical training for minorities and others, and improve the study and collection of data regarding minorities and other populations.

Tribal Based Environmental Protection Committee, has developed a user friendly data base tracking tool using Geographic Interface System (GIS) Technology called Tribal Relational Environmental Numeric Health Database System (TRENHDs).

TRENHD’s has been built by tribes for tribes to help access specific needs of the tribal population. TRENHDS Version 1.0 is specifically licensed to each user tribe to track the overall health and well being of their population and to identify areas of concern.

TRENHDS gives the tribes 100% control of all input, export database, security passwords features, import and export functions. Sharing data files can be easily configured to demographic (non-personal data) elements. The data elements are separated by biological (Tribal Members) and environmental (Site) data on a Micro Access 2000 (runtime version) database. TRENHDs can identify and track any illness, cancer, survey types, laboratory testing and produce instant reports and graphs. TRENHDs can cross match biological and environmental data points to illustrate “areas of concern” on a GIS map feature. In Version 1.2 (2001) TRENHD’s will be able to import and overlay maps, satellite photos, and full survey reports from hardware (XRF), and recall site photos on maps. Version 1.3 real time streaming video capabilities are being discussed.

In the Spring 2000 issue of OPPT Tribal News we wrote of the Moose/Deer Liver Cadmium survey. We used TRENHDs to illustrate the versatility to map and track data.

The data points were all entered in the Tribal Member Section and the locations where the moose/deer passed away were entered into the Site Section. Selecting the Report Section and the report we want to illustrate we click on the print report.

TRENHDs will produce the following report:

or graph

or map

or more locally

To identify a data point sampling and test data. Just double click. These are just a few of the feature of this incredible software. To view, download and request a demo CD go to http://www.bluejaydata.com/trenhds