6 Principles for Indigenous-led Conservation in the Decade of the Ocean
October 18, 2024
By Frank Brown
Environmental conservation is changing rapidly in Canada and internationally, creating new opportunities for Indigenous-led sustainability. These are also opportunities for reconciliation, to right the colonial wrong of severing Indigenous peoples from their stewardship responsibilities. Indigenous-led conservation restores sacred responsibilities to care for the land and the water. The success of Indigenous-led conservation will depend on mutually beneficial partnerships that tackle important questions around knowledge, authority, collaboration, and nationhood.
The power of collaboration in ocean spaces
The Great Bear Sea Project Finance for Permanence (PFP), announced this summer, marks a new era of collaboration in marine conservation and stewardship. Protections for the Great Bear Sea, also known as the Northern Shelf Bioregion, complement existing conservation measures in the Great Bear Rainforest. With more than 78,000 km2 of protected land and water, the region provides a model for scaling-up Indigenous-led conservation efforts.
The Great Bear Sea PFP is a partnership between 17 First Nations, the B.C. provincial government, and the federal government, with backing from philanthropic investors. Regional tri-lateral conservation initiatives like this are being formalized at the same time as Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCAs) are emerging as powerful tools for conservation. For decades, First Nations in BC have been struggling for recognition of their rightful and inherent authority to govern these spaces. The assertion of this authority will require new relationships in conservation policy making and management.
New relationships are also emerging in transnational contexts, such as the Alaska-Yukon, BC-Washington, Alberta-Montana, and Great Lakes regions. The ILI is supporting new international governance efforts in these regions, such as the development of an Indigenous Guardian movement in the United States.
Whose knowledge will lead the way in marine stewardship?
Regional and international relationships will require new ways of working together across knowledge systems, cultures, and bioregions. This is clear in the in marine ocean space. 2021-2030 is the United Nations (UN) Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development. Many of the ten challenges identified for the decade are relevant for Indigenous-led conservation and climate action. Whose knowledge will drive the many achievements that will emerge in this space by 2030?
Whose knowledge will inform regulations and decisions about marine and oceanic environments? Heiltsuk First Nation continues to wait for environmental justice to be truly delivered, eight years after the environmental degradation that was caused by the fuels that spilled into Heiltsuk waters from the grounded Nathan E. Stewart. Despite the attempts of government to modify environmental regulatory procedures – such as the federal Indigenous Knowledge Policy Framework for Project Review and Regulatory Decisions – First Nations jurisdictional authority, and its basis in Indigenous knowledge, values, and laws, continues to be mostly ignored.
Principles for place-based co-existence in regional and trans-boundary contexts
Federal and Provincial governments still control conservation decision-making. However, the above examples show that an alternative is possible. Government-led decision-making can be replaced with place-based co-existence. This embraces the power of Indigenous laws, as Indigenous communities work together to reshape how conservation-related decisions are made and upheld.
Place-based coexistence is intimately tied to the land and the water based. Places serve as markers of co-existence that connect past, present, and future generations through storied relationships to land and water. Canoe journeys are a tangible example of these pathways, as they connect places, strengthen inter-cultural relationships, and nurture multi-generational stewardship – both in knowledge and practice.
The pathways to place-based co-existence through Indigenous-led conservation may not always be easy to follow. The following six principles can shape these pathways for the benefit of Indigenous-led conservation now and in the future.
Reconciling different worlds.
Working with multiple knowledge systems means dismantling old hierarchies. Since colonialism, Indigenous knowledge has been ignored and culturally grounded stewardship practices have been suppressed. Yet they have not been extinguished and Indigenous peoples today are reasserting their stewardship responsibilities, cultural practices, and multi-generational knowledge systems. Working together, Indigenous communities will be stronger in asserting Indigenous knowledge in conservation.
It may be challenging for non-Indigenous partners to work with multiple knowledge systems. Indigenous knowledge should be the starting point for marine governance in unceded territories, and the best of Western science should be mobilized to support Indigenous leadership and decision-making.
Respecting First Nations law and jurisdictional authority:
New governance frameworks and regulations do not remove the inherent rights that are recognized and affirmed by section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982. Initiatives such as the Great Bear Sea PFP assert First Nations rights and authority. Within these initiatives, First Nations may enact their own processes of self-governance and may assert jurisdictional authority. Proactive work is needed to help First Nations work together in applying their laws, and to help Federal and Provincial governments to embrace Indigenous law as equal to settler law.
Establishing ethical spaces of engagement:
First Nations have the right to protect and preserve their knowledge. This is supported by frameworks such as OCAP (ownership, control, access, and possession) and the Federal government-endorsed First Nations Data Governance Strategy. These principles and practices must be embraced in marine governance, but how will they work in regional and trans-boundary initiatives?
Ethical spaces must be created that encourage First Nations to apply their knowledge and laws together. Regulations should not force First Nations into either relinquishing knowledge to settler governments or not consenting to the use of their knowledge at all. Indigenous knowledge should be used on Indigenous terms, and dispute resolution processes must be upheld by culturally grounded processes. For example, Heiltsuk First Nation’s assertion of Ǧviḷ̓ás (Heiltsuk laws) in the aftermath of the Nathan E. Stewart spill should be the starting point for enforceable regulatory action.
Pulling together – applying diverse Indigenous knowledge concepts in ocean and marine governance.
Many Indigenous concepts exist to provide guiding principles for dialogue and decision-making across cultures. For example, since at least 2004 Mi’kmaw elder Albert Marshall has advocated “two-eyed seeing” as a way of working with multiple knowledge systems. En’owkin (or En’owkinwixw) is an Okanagan process of consensus-making dialogue that has helped to protect water environments. First Nations can work together to build regional Indigenous frameworks that guide non-Indigenous partners in applying conservation measures in a way that is grounded in Indigenous laws, cultures, and knowledge-sharing customs.
Indigenous knowledge is science: institutional capacity building for informed decision-making.
Multi-generational Indigenous knowledge systems are land and water based. Their outputs can fill knowledge gaps in key environmental areas, such as the impacts of environmental change on ecosystems and biodiversity. Indigenous Guardians are on the land and water, collecting knowledge and information that works with Indigenous and Western knowledge systems. Regional and transboundary initiatives must invest in building Indigenous institutional capacity to provide the data for making key environmental decisions. Without this capacity-building, decisions will continue to be made without sufficient information or by relying on information that is disconnected from local realities and livelihoods.
Evolving co-governance for ongoing reconciliation.
Reconciliation is not a single act to be checked off a list of consultation guidelines. Progress has been made in recent years in advancing reconciliation protocols with specific First Nations, and Coastal First Nations have demonstrated a regional collective approach to improving Indigenous-Crown relations.
However, the implementation of the Great Bear Sea PFP is not an end point. It is a sign of changes to come, as shared decision-making is increasingly applied. Initiatives such as the Great Bear Sea PFP are important because they help to build non-partisan continuity, establishing structures that persist regardless of changes in government. They also provide a template for advancing relationships and shared decision-making across the country.
