Tag Archives: Nanwakolas Council

First Nations leader celebrates evolution of stewardship in Great Bear Rainforest

A model for environmental protection may become much more.

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

There are new measures to better protect bear and fish habitat in the globe’s largest remaining coastal temperate rainforest, thanks to First Nations’ increasing role in stewarding the Great Bear Rainforest (GBR).

The new protections resulted from the latest five-year review of an agreement between the B.C. Ministry of Forests and two First Nations alliances — Coastal First Nations and Nanwakolas Council — which represent 11 of the 26 Nations with territory in the rainforest.

Continue reading First Nations leader celebrates evolution of stewardship in Great Bear Rainforest

New federal funding buoys First Nations’ efforts to protect Great Bear Sea

National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Coastal First Nations striving to protect to B.C.’s Great Bear Sea got a boost after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently announced $800 million in funding for Indigenous-led conservation projects.

Spread over seven years, the funding will support projects in B.C., Ontario, Nunavut and the Northwest Territories and is expected to protect a total of one million square kilometres, said Trudeau. The prime minister made the announcement at the global United Nations biodiversity conference, known as COP15, underway in Montreal. 

Continue reading New federal funding buoys First Nations’ efforts to protect Great Bear Sea

The Ugly Side of “Beautiful Fish”

Traditional territory of both the Tlowitsis First Nation (who support fish farming) and Ma’a̱mtagila Nation (who are against it)

By Desiree Mannila, originally published on the Watershed Sentinel

A proposal for five new fish farms off the north coast of Vancouver Island has sparked disappointment for ocean protectors who achieved the phase-out of seventeen fish farms in the Broughton Archipelago in 2019. The farms are being proposed by John Smith from Tlowitsis First Nation, in partnership with Grieg Seafood. Smith is attempting to rezone the Chatham Chanel to allow these farms.

The proposal is in direct opposition to the work that wild fish advocates have done to remove the farms from their territories. Decades of work has resulted in the federal government committing to creating a phase out plan by 2025, as well as a promise from the Government of British Columbia to establish rigorous new rules for renewals of salmon farm tenures in BC waters past 2022. The proposal is a shock to the 102 Indigenous communities that signed a petition in 2019 demanding farms be removed from their territories.

Continue reading The Ugly Side of “Beautiful Fish”

Na̲nwak̲olas council strikes agreement to protect sacred cedars

National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

First Nations culture along B.C.’s West Coast is rooted in the majestic and monumental cedar tree.

Known as the “Tree of Life,” cedar has a multitude of uses for coastal peoples, says Na̲nwak̲olas Council president Dallas Smith.

But more than a century of industrial old-growth logging has mowed down these forest giants that can live for thousands of years, putting the shared spiritual and cultural well-being of First Nations at risk, Smith said.

Continue reading Na̲nwak̲olas council strikes agreement to protect sacred cedars