How Indigenous Climate Policy can Help Preserve Beautiful British Columbia

Both second-generation immigrants, one of us was born in Vancouver, British Columbia and the other in Auburn, Massachusetts, and we grew up enamored of the natural world. From the fall foliage in New England to the natural beauty of Canada’s yellow and red cedar trees, some of which have existed for at least 800 years and reach almost 90 meters into the sky, our childhoods were spent exploring the streams and woods where we lived.

Last summer, the two of us returned to the Pacific Northwest and spent our first afternoon in Stanley Park, sitting under the shade of the gentle giants that have thrived for centuries in the temperate climate and substantial rainfall of the Pacific Northwest. What we didn’t realize at the time was that the original stewards of the land were the Coast Salish First Nations people, including the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil Waututh, and that where we sat was once home to 204 First Nations communities and even more Indigenous languages.

As we continued our trip, we came to learn about the inextricable link between these trees and the indigenous people who tended them into their present majesty. We also learned about how the Canadian government and private corporations have been exploiting the land and ignoring the treaties they signed years ago. However, as our planet struggles with climate change, a heritage of reverence and love for the natural world has put the First Nations people at the forefront of the environmental movement in Canada. Professor Mark Ahtleo, an Elder from the Ahousaht Nation, described how foreign companies have exploited native lands by illegally utilizing their resources. For example, there used to be five different spawning locations for one species of salmon in BC, but now, there is only one left due to overfishing by corporations. The industry also polluted the area and drastically altered the climate, ignoring water conservation and contamination issues. Moreover, private corporations also began to build infrastructure by relocating First Nations groups away from their habitats into remote places, making their communities smaller. One example of how the Canadian government has been taking advantage of First Nation’s resources is the construction of a dam on Williston Lake, the largest reservoir in British Columbia and seventh largest in the world by volume, which flooded native lands, destroying indigenous people’s economy, cultures, and communities.

Another example is the Blueberry River First Nations’ territories in Northeastern British Columbia. According to existing statistics, over two-thirds of the people’s traditional territory, supposedly preserved by treaties, has been developed for industrial purposes. However, Canadian courts did not admit the government’s liability for taking the land, proving the truth of Professor Athleo’s words.

We also spoke to Adrian Sylvester, a member of the Cowichan Tribes and leader of the Sasquatch Clan Patrol in Duncan, Victoria, who attested to how the Canadian government started mining operations on protected lands and dumping uranium on reservation sites in Saskatchewan and Alberta, leading to the pollution that streamed all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

Because the natural world plays such an important part in first nations’ spiritual values, sacred rituals, and ceremonies, who better to help undo some of this environmental damage than indigenous people themselves? Their extensive knowledge of plants, animals, microorganisms, and ecosystem management positions them well to speak for the land, and their belief that the natural world is sacred, meaning that they are invested in helping preserve the sanctity of the earth for future generations.

One example in Victoria, British Columbia is the culture of the Songhees first nations people. They lived on the land for generations before European settlers arrived, and they treated the boreal forests with reverence. Whether using fallen branches to carve totem poles or preserving the soft inner lining of the bark as fibers from which to weave cloth, those indigenous natives have long lived in harmony with the environment.

Moreover, because the primary food source for the Songhees First Nations people is fish, particularly red herring, and salmon, they also helped conserve the local ecosystem. They developed methods of determining seasonal cycles and the optimum timing for hunting and harvesting. They were even able to predict the temperature, not with the use of weather satellites, but rather from simply reading clues from the environment. However, sadly the Songhees no longer can read the weather or implement their land-based knowledge system due to the unnatural warming of the planet.

According to the latest United Nations climate report, the emission of carbon dioxide around the world continues to rise at a destructive pace, threatening the stunning of British Columbia. This peril may just be resonating with us now but based on what they have seen of species migration, weather-pattern alterations, and the reduction of water levels around the world, indigenous leaders have been warning us for many decades.

If only the Canadian government had honored the treaties it had signed by allowing first nations people to preserve the land, we would be better off than we are now. As Kyle Linklater, a hunter, father, and member of the Weenusk First Nation in Ontario, mentioned that his biggest fear of climate change is losing everything. Losing their tradition over the weather, over melting ice. He worries that if they lose what they have now, they will have nothing to show their children in the future.

Both of us hope someday to show our children the beauties of Canada’s pacific coast, from its crested alpine mountains and rugged coastline to its rainforests and breathtaking cedar trees. By coming to understand indigenous people’s traditions and roles in helping preserve this land we love so much, we now also know that there can be no future environmental policy that does not also look backward to the past to learn from and invest in the wisdom of the original knowledge keepers of the first nations.