Moving forward with Indigenous Guardians: Testimony on the Jasper National Park fires
October 23, 2024
On October 23, 2024, the House of Commons Environment and Sustainable Development Committee hosted a hearing on “Factors Leading to the Recent Fires in Jasper National Park.” Dr. Amy Cardinal Christianson, Policy Advisor for the Indigenous Leadership Initiative, shared the following testimony.
My name is Amy Cardinal Christianson, I live in Treaty 6, Rocky Mountain House, Alberta. I’m a member of the Metis nation from the Cardinal and Laboucane families of Treaty 6 and 8. My family’s band Peeaysis was disenfranchised by the Canadian government. My family used to travel and trade through Jasper, but I do not have Indigenous rights or territory in the area, and fully support the Indigenous rights-holders there. I come to this testimony from a national perspective through my past role as a research scientist with the Canadian forest service for 15 years, my two years spent as an Indigenous fire specialist with Park, Canada, and my current role with Indigenous Leadership Initiative.
I first want to send my thoughts of compassion and solidarity to my colleagues with Parks Canada, who not only had to endure the fire event that happened there and the recovery they are currently undertaking, but also hearings like this were people take incredibly complex situations that are generations in the making and try to finger point.
I know how hard you were all working leading up to the fires. I know what you endured during the fires and I’ll fully support you moving forward.
As the previous Indigenous witnesses stated, the fire problem in Jasper National Park started in 1907, when the National Park was established and Indigenous Peoples were forcibly removed. These people had distinct kinship ties to the cultural landscape there, including Indigenous Fire Stewardship practices, like frequently burning valley bottoms to achieve diversity on the landscape, in coordination with our important teacher Lightning. Now when people travel to national parks like Jasper, they observe a carpet of dark green trees as far as the eye can see, and think that is beautiful and natural. It is not. It is an unhealthy landscape that is suffering. It is not adaptive to human-caused climate change, which is further increasing the fire problem.
Our elders refer to this as hungry forest, because you have to go so far to encounter any forms of diversity. These homogeneous forests, where the trees are all around the same age and same species type, become prone to disturbances, like insects, and also out of control fires. I want to make it clear that fire is not a disturbance on the landscape, although we often treat it as such. Rather it has been the removal of fire from fire dependent forests in Canada that has been the larger disturbance.
When I woke up the day after Jasper burned, I had multiple messages from Indigenous peoples who are rights-holders in that area, saying that this would have never happened if they had continued their relationship with fire and the land in the valleys of Jasper.
I also want to point out that what happened in Jasper is not unique. Indigenous communities all across Canada are repeatedly disproportionally impacted by wildfire. In the last two years ,149 indigenous communities have experienced wildfire evacuations. I’ll repeat…149 Indigenous communities evacuated…In the last two years… Yet Indigenous Nations and Peoples are continually excluded from decision-making around fire management.
Wildfire evacuations are expensive. We estimate that in the last 42 years evacuations have caused the Canadian economy $4.6 billion. That doesn’t even include the cost of actually fighting the fires, just the cost of moving people.
We spend hundreds of millions over the years in Canada on bringing in international firefighters who don’t know our landscapes. We’re spending hundreds of million on firefighting planes that eventually need to be upgraded or replaced. People are starting to push a federal firefighting force, but more bureaucracy with people further removed from local knowledge is not the answer.
We already have a movement that could function as a nation-wide firefighting force in Canada that’s just waiting to be activated – Indigenous guardians.
More than 200 First Nations year-round guardian programs already help manage lands and waters across the country. Some are helping respond to fires. When fire threatened Fort Good Hope, NWT, this June, the guardians there were prepared. They helped evacuate community members, and thanks to training from Yukon First Nations Wildfire, they joined the fire line and helped save the town.
By expanding existing guardians programs and investing in new fire guardians programs, we can create a fleet of locally knowledgeable professionals ready to respond to fires and reduce risk. Indigenous fire guardians will work year round on fire – they will be able to put fire on the land in spring and fall – a technique proven to reduce fire risk during hot, dry summers. They will work on emergency management, planning, education, preparedness, and fire prevention – and on recovery after fires happen. Vegetation grows back – they will be there to make sure fire mitigation work is maintained. They will work to build healthy landscapes, which also protects our vital watersheds.
Not only does this increase the ability to navigate this new era of fire, but it also creates jobs. Engaging more guardians in fighting wildfire is an investment that will pay off. I just returned from Australia, where their Indigenous fire rangers are making huge positive impacts. It will enable Indigenous Nations and Canada to meet the challenge of supercharged fire with greater capacity and Indigenous and local knowledge. We will always have fire, and we can change our relationship to it. Indigenous leadership is the future of fire.
