Tag Archives: Valérie Courtois

Indigenous Nations, Women

Indigenous women are blazing a conservation trail

By Natasha Bulowski, Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

There is a saying in the Kaska language: “Dene K’éh Didī Nī́ʼ Sū́géhʼīn Mā” — “woman taking care of the land.”

“It’s something that’s really well known in our community,” Gillian Staveley, a director at the Dena Kayeh Institute in British Columbia, told Canada’s National Observer, “because people acknowledge that it is women who are taking care of the land and they always have been and they always will be.”

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Environment, Indigenous Nations

Investing in Indigenous-led conservation key in Canada’s climate crisis fight

National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Like most people heeding the red alert issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change last week outlining humanity’s continued spiral towards irreversible climate catastrophe, Valérie Courtois was alarmed. 

“It scared the crap out of me,” Courtois, director of the Indigenous Leadership Initiative (ILI), told Canada’s National Observer. 

“And I think it’s scaring the crap out of anybody who heard about it. At least, I hope it did.” 

No longer a distant calamity, the panel’s report indicates the Earth will likely surpass the 1.5 C warming threshold as early as the 2030s. 

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