With Indigenous-led conservation, Canada’s future looks bright

Indigenous-led conservation offers society the opportunity to shift the paradigm of thinking that has created the climate crisis and offers Canada a bright future, said Dahti Tsetso in conversation with Canada’s National Observer editor-in-chief, Linda Solomon Wood. Wood hosted Tsetso, deputy director of the Indigenous Leadership Initiative (ILI), and Valérie Courtois, ILI’s director, in a live Conversations evening on May 12.

ILI is an NGO that supports Indigenous Nations within Canada to create Indigenous Guardians Programs and establish Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCA). Courtois says over the last two decades Indigenous people have led or co-led the creation of newly protected lands and waters in Canada. She points to the largest marine protected area in the world, created by the people of Baffin Island and their government, and the proposed Seal River Watershed, which would protect 55,000 square kilometres of ocean. She adds that efforts of the Sahtu Dene people to protect an area known as Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories offer a way to ensure regional wetlands continue to store the equivalent of 24 years worth of Canada’s carbon emissions.

There are currently three IPCA’s in Canada covering close to 50 thousand square kilometres of land and water. Indigenous Nations take the lead on the management of these areas, and decision-making around them reflects traditional knowledge, laws and customs. Tetso was part of the team that finalised the agreement creating the Edéhzhíe Protected Area in the Northwest Territories.

“Conservation means something completely different to our communities than it does to others. When I say we use our relationship to land to guide the way we make decisions, I really mean that,” says Tetso. The 14,000 square kilometres of land and water within the borders of Edéhzhíe are home to threatened species including the boreal woodland caribou, wood bison, wolverine, peregrine falcon and the short-eared owl. It holds the source water for much of the Dehcho region, and Tsetso says it contains a wealth of cultural significance for the Indigenous people of the area.

ILI has also supported more than 80 communities in establishing Indigenous Guardians programs across the country.

“Guardian programs are really led by Indigenous nations themselves. So their work becomes an expression of our nationhood in many ways,” says Courtois, who has worked closely with the Guardians program in Labrador, where she is based. “In this region they are implementing all kinds of exciting programming from, deploying audio recording units to monitoring songbirds and songbird migration, to supporting food security issues… they help collect fish, they help collect fish samples, they help assess the health of fish populations, they help drive community interests and identify priorities around aquatic systems to ensure that our communities are making good decisions around resource management and guardians have helped monitor industry activity. They've helped engage youth in leadership development, they've helped implement language and culture programming.”

Courtois says ILI’s goal is to see every Indigenous community in Canada that wants a Guardian program, gets one.

“We'd have little boys and girls with really significant and deeply meaningful employment opportunities before them. We'd be accessing knowledge systems and informing our decision making to hopefully avoid conflicts like what’s happening in Wet'suwet'en and other places,” says Tsetso. “Because you'd be resourcing our communities to have informed decision-making and share that with others. It would mean, hopefully, some solutions to some of the changes in climate because, the more that we take care of land, the more that we mitigate some of those very scary climate impacts. You know it, to me it carves a hopeful future, and it carves a hopeful future for all.”

Courtois adds that while the $340 million dedicated to Indigenous-led conservation in the 2021 Federal budget is a significant and historic investment, it’s not enough.

“When you think about the value of all of the extractives that we have coming off our territories, if we look here in Labrador alone, we have the largest nickel mine in the world generating tens of billions of dollars in revenues. We have the largest iron mines in the world, we have one of the largest hydro projects in the world, these are incredibly rich kinds of extractions that have come off our land,” says Courtois. “And all we're asking for from the governments of Canada is the ability to make sure that as cultures we are thriving, and that the rest of Canada is thriving. You know, our identity as Canadians is so tied to our landscapes and our environment, if we don't do this, right, I don't know who we will become. So we have to do this, and we're hopeful that the Canadian government will continue to be a strong supporter of indigenous led conservation and stewardship.”

The full interview is available to view here.