“The Beverly herd has not disappeared,” said John Nagy, lead author of a recently published study that has biologists across the North relieved.

Those scientists were shaken by a 2009 survey on the traditional calving grounds of the Beverly herd, which ranges over a huge swath of tundra from northern Saskatchewan to the Arctic coast. A herd that once numbered 276,000 animals seemed to have completely disappeared, the most dramatic and chilling example of a general decline in barren-ground caribou.

But Nagy’s research — and consultation with the communities that live with the animals — concludes differently.

Wild caribou roam the tundra near the Meadowbank Gold Mine located in Nunavut on March 25, 2009. A vast herd of northern caribou that scientists feared had vanished from the face of the Earth has been found, safe and sound - pretty much where aboriginal elders said it would be all along.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette

His work springs from recent studies that question the long-held theory that caribou always return to the same calving ground. It holds that different herds use different grounds, and that’s what sets them apart.

“In the past, herds have been defined based on their calving grounds,” said Nagy. “However, it’s been shown that not all herds maintain fidelity to their calving grounds.”

Herds are now defined by which animals hang out together, not by where they give birth.

“It’s actually behaviour that structures these herds, not calving grounds.”

It turns out that the Beverly herd has simply shifted its calving grounds north from the central barrens near Baker Lake, Nunavut, to the coastal regions around Queen Maud Gulf. Nagy’s analysis of radio-tracking data showed caribou in the region once thought to belong to the Ahiak herd are, in fact, Beverly animals.

“It showed that there were two different subpopulations of caribou within that area that calved along the Queen Maud Gulf,” he said. “One is migratory, which I believe is the Beverly herd.”

The new theory hasn’t been entirely accepted, but it’s starting to convince wildlife regulators.

“We’re leaning that way,” said Ross Thompson of the Beverly-Qamanirjuaq Management Board.

Nunavut government biologist Mitch Campbell, one of Nagy’s co-authors, said early results from a survey of the rediscovered herd suggest Beverly numbers are lower than their peak, but remain healthy.

“There’s no indication that the herd is as large as it used to be,” he said. “We did find a healthy size caribou population there.

“We saw lots of calves. The animals seem to be in good condition.”

While scientists are excited, aboriginal elders are more likely to shrug.

Said Campbell: “When the initial alarm bells were ringing about the Beverly herd disappearing, right away we went in to talk to the communities and they said: ‘No, no, no. These caribou have moved north and we’ve been told by our elders that they do that.’”

Thompson heard — the same.

“Many of the community people reported that elders think this is nothing new. Caribou move.”

Next time, said Campbell, scientists should pay them a little more mind.

“We needed to engage the communities much sooner,” he said. “The communities were the first to say this may not be an issue.”

Still, he defends the previous science.

Long-term information on caribou was sketchy, but numbers did seem to be declining at the same time as mining exploration and development was expanding. Nobody wanted to be the biologist on whose watch the caribou disappeared, said Campbell.

“We were all freaking out,” he said.

“We knew that there was development and things going on in that area. What would be the responsible thing to do — just keep going until we know, or to say: ‘Put the brakes on. We’ve got a problem?’

“That’s what we all did.”

Campbell and Thompson agree that the Beverly herd is likely to eventually return and that both calving grounds must be protected.

But for now, it’s just good to know the caribou are still around, said Thompson.

“We haven’t screwed up and lost a major caribou herd after all.”

Chrissy Swain, now 32, recalls that day at Slant Lake, about an hour north of Kenora, Ontario, which set off what has become Canada’s longest-standing logging blockade. “Back then youth didn’t have a voice,” Swain says. “But people started taking us more seriously when we started the blockade.”

For a long time, Grassy Narrows was accustomed to not being heard. In the 1950s, new hydro dams flooded the low-lying river valleys the First Nation had lived in, driving away the fur-bearing animals and submerging wild rice beds and sacred spiritual sites. In the early 1960s, the Canadian federal government moved the small Grassy Narrows community away from the river to a new location on a small stagnant lake off the highway to Kenora, where Chrissy Swain and her friends grew up. The 1970s brought more devastating news: the nearby Dryden pulp and paper mill was pumping mercury into the water. It eradicated the local fishing industry, leaving the community poor and sick. Hunting and trapping came to replace fishing, but in the 1990s, the provincial government of Mike Harris opened the area to clear-cut logging, which quickly drove out moose and other animals on which the community relied.

Remnants of a clear cut logging operation near Grassy Narrows, Ontario. Photo by Jon Schledewitz.

Chrissy Swain’s grandfather was one of many people affected by mercury poisoning on the Grassy Narrows and White Dog reserves. Today he shakes uncontrollably and can barely walk. Swain was just 16 when she began to realize things weren’t as they should be in her community and decided to take action. Though Swain would share in spiritual ceremonies, pick wild berries, fish and hunt, she yearned for a traditional Anishinabe life of living off the land. “I lost out on that part of my identity,” she tells me.

Decades of neglect and abuse by two levels of government have left a grim legacy, in the form of joblessness, drug and alcohol abuse, and physical and sexual violence, all of which afflict Grassy Narrows still. But a number of factors have recently come together that offer hope. One of these is a recent legal decision that could protect the land from harmful industry activity that affects aboriginal hunting and trapping. The precedent doesn’t just herald an opportunity to regenerate a devastated natural environment—it has the potential to turn the entire relationship between Canada’s First Nations and federal government upside down.

Years of mercury poisoning and clear-cutting “put them into a corner where they had to take a serious stand on both those issues,” explains Treaty 3 Grand Chief Diane Kelly. Chief Kelly is the leader selected by national assembly to preside over the 140,000-square-kilometre treaty territory encompassing two First Nations in Manitoba and 26 in northwestern Ontario, including Grassy Narrows. She says Grassy Narrows is facing these challenges head on. “The people of Grassy Narrows have been really diligent in standing up for their rights.”

The way Chrissy Swain sees it, standing up for those rights is just part of providing for her children, like any working Canadian mother. She’s been bringing her three kids to demonstrations and blockades since they were babies. Since 2008, Swain has led annual walks to raise awareness about indigenous and environmental justice. The first was over 1,800 kilometres from Grassy Narrows to Toronto, ending in a “Sovereignty Sleepover” at Queen’s Park attended by hundreds of First Nations leaders and activists across Ontario. Her last walk took her to a sun dance in Manitoba. “It was only a 300 kilometre walk,” she says casually.

Over the years the community has used every tactic in the book to stop industrial clear-cut logging: roving blockades of logging roads and highways, boycotts, rallies, speaking tours, and a high-profile court case. In the last few years, this persistence has started to pay off. Forestry giant Abitibi-Bowater surrendered its forestry license in 2008 and large-scale clear-cuts have stopped for now. Domtar (the largest paper producer in North America) and Boise have also committed not to source wood from Grassy Narrows traditional territory. More recently, a major legal victory for the small reserve of 900 residents asserts aboriginal hunting and trapping rights override the Province’s right to resources in the Keewatin Lands, a 50,000 square kilometre area in the Boreal Forest.

Grassy Narrows trappers Joseph Fobister, Andrew Keewatin, and now-deceased Willie Keewatin brought the suit in 1999 to judicial review, leading to a case in the Ontario Superior Court. “It’s quite simple,” explains 55-year-old trapper Joseph Fobister. “My right to hunt and fish are protected by treaty. When clearcut logging happens, it takes away that right.” The judge awarded them legal costs before trial, saying the issue was in the public interest and hadn’t been considered in any previous case.

“We’re not against logging. We’re just against bad logging,” says trapper Fobister. In the ’60s, he says he had good rapport with loggers, often catching rides to his family trap-line with them. Now, “there’s nothing for me to trap.” When he was young, unmarketable trees and debris were left. Today it’s a different story. “Everything is gone when you go there now.”

After years of waiting, the reserve finally got the chance to present its evidence in nearly eight months of hearings. On August 16, 2011 Justice Mary-Anne Sanderson ruled in favour of Grassy Narrows in a lengthy 300-page judgment. Ontario cannot infringe on aboriginal rights to hunt and trap enshrined in the Treaty 3 agreement signed in 1873 with the federal government, the judge said.

Joseph Fobister was choking back tears when he heard the news. “My first thought was ‘justice at last.’ It’s been a long 10 years waiting for something to happen,” he tells me following a press conference at Queen’s Park. Grassy Narrows Band Council Chief Simon Fobister is also elated: “This time the Indians won.”

Trapping isn’t the only concern over clear-cut logging. Research suggests clear-cut logging practices can increase mercury levels in the soil. This past September Chief Fobister led a Grassy Narrows delegation to Japan to raise awareness about the health effects of mercury. Mercury poisoning, called Minamata disease, was named after the Japanese city where the first case was observed, after chemical company Chisso dumped waste water into the local bay. While on a trip to Japan, Chief Fobister screened the film The Scars of Mercury, a documentary about the findings of Japanese doctor Masazumi Harada, a leading specialist in mercury poisoning. Harada has been closely studying the situation in Grassy Narrows since the ’70s. In 2010, following his fifth visit to the reserve, Dr. Harada reported the impacts of mercury poisoning are worse now, despite mercury levels having decreased. Today pregnant women are still passing this mercury to to their fetuses and babies are being born already suffering Minamata disease.

When I visited Grassy Narrows in 2006, clan mother Judy Da Silva drove me in the back of her pickup truck out to a clear-cut where she picked wild herbs and berries and hunted and trapped as a kid. A large expanse of dust and baby evergreen saplings now stands where the old mixed forest used to. Da Silva, a tireless activist, could often be found sitting near the fire at the Slant Lake blockade, while her children skipped rocks on the lake or explored the bush behind the log cabins. Now her daughter Taina, 17, is taking up the cause, giving a public talk for the first time at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education while visiting Toronto this past summer. It’s the steadfast commitment of clan mothers like Judy Da Silva that continues to inspire the next generation of activists today.

“They have given a really strong foundation that has resulted in what we see today in this decision,” says Clayton Thomas-Muller. A tar sands campaigner with the Indigenous Environmental Network, Thomas-Muller grew up as a Mathais Colomb Cree in Winnipeg, joining the Native Youth Movement at 17 where he began working with Grassy Narrows.

Thomas-Muller says the case of Grassy Narrows represents a sophisticated new strategy: a collaboration between environmental and economic justice movements, NGOs, and indigenous solidarity groups across North America, using a variety of tactics, including civil disobedience, education campaigning, and legal challenges. “What Grassy [Narrows] represents is one of those catalyst moments in our contemporary history between Indian and white relations in this country.”

“Not only was it a decision for the people of Grassy, but it was a victory for all First Nations across Canada,” he says. Resource extraction industries have disproportionately affected the health and livelihoods of First Nations communities across the country. Whether it is the tar sands in Alberta that Thomas-Muller is now focused on fighting, or the mining, hydroelectric, or timber industries, native communities are on the front lines almost everywhere in Canada. Changing the calculus of how First Nations can control what industry can do on their lands is huge.

Robert Janes, the lawyer representing Grassy Narrows trappers, agrees that the decision has pretty big implications for First Nations across Canada. “This case doesn’t just apply to logging. It indirectly applies to all major resource development that could interfere with their treaty rights.” That includes mining, hydroelectric dams, transmission lines, and more. People in Grassy Narrows are hoping the court ruling will be a spark that ignites change across Ontario, says Janes, like the 1970s decision over hydro that led to the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement being signed with the Cree nation and the Quebec and federal governments.

“The courts have become more and more direct and prescriptive in their decisions because they too are becoming frustrated that the governments aren’t following certain court decisions,” says Russell Diabo, a First Nations policy consultant who has worked closely with the Algonquins of Barriere Lake in Quebec. “If that trend continues I think it’s going to become harder for the executive branches of the government to ignore.”

The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources has appealed the case to the Ontario Court of Appeal and Robert Janes says that the case will likely be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. This could drag out the issue for another five years. Janes believes that the government wants to preserve the status quo with regards to logging, but the likelihood of reaching a negotiated solution, the desired outcome for Grassy Narrows, will depend on the newly elected provincial government.

After a long legacy of government decisions that negatively affected the community, including residential schools, hydro flooding, mercury poisoning, relocation, and now the destruction of their forests from clear-cut logging, it’s easy to see why people in Grassy Narrows are taking a wait-and-see approach.

Andrew Keewatin, who initiated the legal case over a decade ago, is also skeptical. “It will be interesting to see if they’ll honour the decision now,” he says. “Most likely they’ll try to find a way around it.” Keewatin, known as “Shoon” in Grassy Narrows, teaches traditional practices to the reserve’s young people, such as building log cabins, snowshoe making, fishing, and trapping. “Trapping is no longer a means of livelihood for people on the reserve. It’s more of a favourite pastime,” he says. Life on welfare has taught trappers to limit their activity to the reserve, he explains. But he is looking towards the future. He notes that the Trappers Council is looking into ways of selling furs directly to tourists and that some businesses in South Korea have shown some interest in buying their otter furs.

How will this court ruling affect people on the front lines in Grassy Narrows? “We’re still going to be here,” says Swain, insisting the blockade will persist even after the ruling. “I’m still going to stand up for my children,” she says. “I’m teaching them, too, so that after I go they can use their voice.” What does she think about the court ruling? “It’s not a victory yet,” says Swain, explaining it’s a step forward, but there’s still a lot more work to do.

As the logging blockade enters its 10th year, Grassy Narrows First Nation is continuing to assert its sovereignty. This fall, the activists started issuing a toll on the blockaded logging road—many Americans visit the Lake of the Woods area, a popular tourist camping destination, driving past the log cabins and wig-wams at the blockade. When it comes to plans for the future, Swain isn’t short of them. She suggests that instead of the government issuing licences to campers on their lands, Grassy Narrows could set up their own camps. She also hopes they could someday take over jurisdiction from the Ministry of Natural Resources, regulating poaching and other activities on their land to create their own jobs. She says change is slow, but she sees it happening. “We’re trying to take back everything that was taken from us.”

photo credit Tim Swanky, UNBC

“The land makes us who we are. What identity will my daughters have when our keyoh (traditional land holding) is a tailings pond? If the land is covered with a mine, then who are we going to be in the future? It’s a scary thought, we can’t just move to another place. It’s our livelihood, our way of life, we still rely on the land for our food; it is a big part of who we are. Our territory is our responsibility; we can’t just move around. The land is so sacred we are not supposed to talk about it. We are being forced to talk about it now because we have to defend it. We didn’t talk about it before because it is just so sacred. It is the Mother Earth in us.”

Anne Marie Sam shared this with me by telephone, speaking from Prince George, BC, where she was participating in “The Canadian Boreal – Our Home”, a national meeting of First Nations leaders discussing their role in sustainable management and protection of the boreal forests.

Anne Marie is a Dakelh (people who travel by water) member born into the Frog Clan of Nak’azdli. Anne and her family are from Nak’azdli reserve, adjacent to Ft. St. James in northwestern British Columbia, a part of the Carrier-Sekani Tribal Council. Her young life was strongly influenced by time spent on the land with her extended family, headed up by grandparents, and including aunts, uncles and cousins. From a young age, the children were expected to help in all aspects of food gathering and preparation for winter storage. Summers were spent in this work. The boreal forest was a rich source for them. Nak’al Bun (Stuart Lake) is crucial to the Fraser River Salmon Run. The early Stuart Salmon run makes its way to Stuart Lake and continues on further north to the spawning grounds. The salmon are a key food source. To supplement the Salmon each family is responsible for areas known as Keyoh. The Nation River Keyoh was an important part of Anne’s childhood and now Anne is able to share with her children the connection to the Nation River. The Keyoh is the area of survival where they go berry-picking, medicinal plant collecting, and lake fishing. Hunting grounds for bear, caribou, moose and beaver, geese and ducks abound in the boreal forest near her home. Anne was mentored in food gathering and preparation tasks that were age appropriate within the community of her greater family. Her importance in the survival of their clan was understood, and this instilled in her pride, a sense of place, and of her contribution to their society from a very early age.

This strong sense of self is particularly impressive when set against tragedy in her young life. Before Anne was one year old, her father died in a sawmill accident, leaving Anne’s 21-year-old mother to raise her two young daughters along with the assistance of the extended family. Time was spent on each family keyoh, experiences that cemented family ties.

“We were always grounded and we knew who we were: we were part of the Frog Clan. We were loved, cherished and taught many life skills within our family.”

Anna and her sister Liza on the Nation River

As a young adult, Anne pursued post-secondary education, first an undergraduate degree in history, and then completed the course requirements for a master’s degree in history and First Nations Studies Her energy for advocacy of the boreal forest and her Nak’azdli culture and lands are astonishing. She has three children (two still very young), a master’s degree in progress, and recently completed a term as a councilor on her band council. Her attention is focused on a mine, Shus Nadloh (Mt. Milligan) which has been proposed for her own keyoh. She is the Chair of the group First Nations Women Advocating Responsible Mining (FNWARM), an impressive gathering of female chiefs, councillors and former chiefs who are working to reform the mining process in BC to balance the economics of mining developments with respect for First Nations rights and culture, and the need for First Nations stewardship of their lands and traditional territories.

First Nations input prior to development, promotion of First Nations land use plans, and lobbying governments to restrict the ease with which exploration claims can be registered are three examples of their work. The group’s focus is on the social and cultural impacts of mining, impacts borne heavily by women and children. Healthy boreal forest ecosystems are crucial to their traditional practices, so the environmental concerns easily join with cultural concerns. Her work in boreal forest and mining advocacy takes Anne away from her family on average for a week out of every month.

When developments such as mines are proposed, there are usually socio-economic and environmental studies that take place, contracted and paid for by the company proposing the work. Anne’s work with the Shus Nadloh mining proposal led to a different approach. Studies were paid for by the mining company, but the band was able to bring in their own consultants to create a socio-cultural review of the development process, rather than relying solely on the consultants hand-picked by the mining company to do socio-economic and environmental reviews. A socio-cultural study looks beyond money and jobs being brought into a region, further examining the maintenance or restoration of cultural health throughout the economic development process.

“It is important to look at the animal life and vegetation in the boreal forests as part of development. It is also important to look at the human life and indigenous cultures that exist in the forest.”

Anne’s work in boreal advocacy as a member of FNWARM and as an individual involves a holistic approach to forest-based developments which include harvesting of trees, hydroelectric projects, pipeline routes and extraction of non-renewable resources by mining. The indigenous cultures know the intricacies of the boreal forests and the animals sustained by them. Each band or tribe knows what their culture needs from this land to regain their former health and strength; Anne is promoting the need to find balance between sustainability of developments and cultural/environmental health. She is working tirelessly to help promote this balance. Regaining a more sensitive use of all boreal forest ecosystems will, by nature of their sensitivity, promote cultural health in their residents. The forest will benefit from this approach, with improved likelihood of integrity in key areas, and an overall retention of habitat. This holistic approach benefits humans far beyond the indigenous inhabitants of the forest. A healthy boreal forest is ammunition against climate change which impacts all life on the planet. Anne Marie Sam’s work exemplifies the expression “Think globally, act locally”.

See more at the Pew Environment Group

These men, who were born and raised near the Bloodvein River, point to ancient pictographs that are part of their heritage. (Photo: Hidehiro Otake)

Bald eagles soar over Manitoba’s Bloodvein River and a forest of lichen-draped Jack pines and mattress-thick moss. Piloted by grinning guides who shout at one another in Ojibwa, our boats splash through a series of churning rapids en route to an ancient rock painting on a granite cliff.

This river and the forest surrounding it are at the core of a campaign to create a UNESCO World Heritage Site on approximately 4.3 million hectares of boreal forest straddling the Manitoba-Ontario border, about one-third of the way up the eastern side of Lake Winnipeg. The goals of the Pimachiowin Aki preservation project are clear: protect a largely intact swath of trees and lakes and rivers, and the cultural traditions that live on here, from encroaching development. What’s less clear from the river, however, are the politics behind the proposed site — chiefly, the battle over the location of a major hydroelectric transmission line, as well as competing visions of economic development among First Nations.

“We have a lot to share with you and to teach you,” says Sophia Rabliauskas, the project’s soft-spoken community coordinator, during a spring tour of the area organized for journalists, environmentalists, scientists and politicians, including Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger. “Hopefully, people will get a chance to see that.”

Nearly a decade ago ago, four local First Nations began developing a plan to apply to UNESCO for World Heritage Site status (a fifth First Nation joined the group later). The land in question is home to about 7,200 members of the Bloodvein, Little Grand Rapids, Pauingassi, Pikangikum and Poplar River first nations, as well as a pair of provincial parks (Atikaki and Woodland Caribou) in Manitoba and Ontario, whose governments have been part of the pitch from the start.

Pimachiowin Aki (pim-MATCH-chowin ahh-KEY) means “the land that gives life” in Ojibwa, and the UNESCO application is rooted in both the natural and the cultural value of the region. Becoming a World Heritage Site would not only preserve habitat for threatened species, including woodland caribou and lake sturgeon, but also showcase traditional ways of relating to the land, such as harvesting wild rice and hunting moose.

“The original idea was just protection of traditional territory,” says William Young, owner of the Bloodvein River Lodge, the base for our river excursion. “Now we want to manage the area within our traditional territory. I think becoming a UNESCO site would give it more exposure both internationally and in urban Canada, especially Winnipeg.”

A UNESCO designation as a world-class landscape tends to draw tourists, which could be a boon to a place already popular with Americans and Europeans, who come to fish for pickerel and pike and to experience First Nations culture.

Until now, the culture of these communities has been protected by their isolation. To travel south, residents usually cross Lake Winnipeg to reach Highway 8, a two-hour trip by boat or, in winter, by truck when the ice is solid. There’s also an old winter logging road east of the lake that heads south. To fly, it costs $250 for a one-way ticket out of Bloodvein.

That will change, however, with the construction of a four-season highway along the eastern shore of Lake Winnipeg that will extend about 150 kilometres north of Bloodvein to Berens River. The new road is scheduled for completion in 2014 or 2015 and would connect to southern highways and provide easier access to health care and fresh food for residents of remote communities. But there are fears it could also bring alcohol, drugs and gangs to northern reserves. Moreover, the road could potentially open up the area to mining and forestry companies, although getting a UNESCO designation would significantly limit the extent of industrial development.

The most pressing industrial issue is the new hydroelectric transmission line, Bipole III, that Manitoba Hydro plans to build from the north of the province to Winnipeg. Politicians are arguing over the location of the line — indeed, it has become one of the main issues in early October’s provincial election — and over whether its route will affect the proposed UNESCO site.

Manitoba’s current NDP government wants the power line to be built west of Lake Winnipeg, claiming that selling electricity to the United States hinges on the power being produced and transmitted in an environmentally friendly manner. “As you know, Alberta has a reputation with the oil sands,” says Premier Selinger. “We don’t want to be put into that basket.”

The Progressive Conservatives — a close second in early polls — are in favour of a shorter and cheaper route down the east side of the lake, through Pimachiowin Aki. That wouldn’t prevent the area from becoming a UNESCO site, says Hugh McFadyen, Leader of the Official Opposition, who points out that construction jobs and profit-sharing by Manitoba Hydro would help northern First Nations. “What they shared with us is the devastating poverty in those communities,” he says, “and the hope to find some ongoing economic development.”

George Kemp, chief of Berens River First Nation, supports the east-side route and his community has not signed on to the UNESCO bid. “This is another attempt to lock up the east side by environmentalists from outside our communities,” he says. “There is a false promise that ecotourism is the answer for economic development.”

After years of meetings and boxes of studies, a decision is expected from UNESCO by late 2013 or 2014. Roughly half of all nominations are accepted, and Canada already has 15 UNESCO sites, including SGang Gwaay on Haida Gwaii, B.C., and Wood Buffalo National Park on the Alberta– Northwest Territories border.

Back at the Bloodvein River Lodge, two women fry pickerel and stir a pot of moose stew. Martina Young, a greyhaired elder wearing a T-shirt that spells out R-E-S-P-E-C-T, talks about the potential economic benefits of the road but also her uncertainty, even fear, of the unknown. Change is coming, regardless of UNESCO’s verdict, and people in Bloodvein are both worried and hopeful about the future.

From Arctic tundra to primeval rainforest to arid desert, our natural world has been fragmented by ever-expanding towns and cities, crisscrossed with roads, transmission lines and pipelines, and pockmarked by pump jacks, flare stacks, and other infrastructure used to drill, frack, and strip-mine fossil fuels from the ground.

The need to supply food, fibre, fuels, shelter, and freshwater to more than six billion people is driving the wholesale conversion of forests, wetlands, grasslands, and other ecosystems. Researchers have discovered that farmland and pasture now rival natural forest cover in extent, covering 40 per cent of Earth’s land surface. And although advances in modern agriculture have brought millions of hectares of once-unsuitable scrub land into food production, the environmental consequences of our growing “foodprint” have been severe in some regions, resulting in the loss of wildlife habitat, degraded water quality, and widespread soil erosion. Worldwide fertilizer use alone has grown by more than 700 per cent over the past 40 years to sustain crop yields over an ever-increasing area.

On the other hand, Canada’s rugged and inaccessible terrain, small and concentrated population, and relatively recent history of urban and resource development have spared us from the scale and intensity of land-use change that many other regions have experienced. A review of the state of Canada’s forests and woodlands by Global Forest Watch Canada concluded that we are one of the few countries with large tracts of forests relatively undisturbed by human activity. They found that about half of Canada’s forests are still intact. Most are found in the greenbelt of northern boreal forest that stretches across the country.

One of the largest areas of untouched boreal wilderness left in the world straddles a significant section of Eastern Manitoba and Northern Ontario. The local Anishinabe First Nation calls this massive 43,000-square-kilometre region Pimachiowin Aki (Pim-MATCH-cho-win Ahh-KEY). In English, it means the “the land that gives life”.

Home to such threatened species as woodland caribou, and dotted with freshwater lakes, wild rivers, and biodiversity-rich wetlands, Pimachiowin Aki has remained more or less unchanged for some 5,000 years, roughly as long as recorded human history. It is the very absence of clear-cuts, mines, hydroelectric dams, transmission lines, and other industrial infrastructure, along with the region’s rich cultural landscape, that makes Pimachiowin Aki so exceptional, and it is for this reason that First Nations communities want to protect it as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

As Sophia Rabliauskas, a Pimachiowin Aki spokesperson and leader from the community of Poplar River, says, “As First Nations, we already know the value of this land—because we live on it, and live with it every day. Now we want our neighbours, people who live in cities and people around the world, to understand just how important it is.”

Fortunately, the Manitoba government has listened and is working with First Nations to protect the area for its unparalleled ecological and cultural richness. If they succeed, it would join other world-renowned UNESCO World Heritage Sites, including the Pyramids at Giza in Egypt, the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, and the 7.7 million-hectare Ténéré Nature Reserve in the Sahara Desert region of Niger.

However, obtaining international recognition for Pimachiowin Aki as a UNESCO World Heritage Site is no easy task. The Manitoba government and local communities have had to make difficult decisions to sustain the ecological integrity of the region in the face of industrial pressures. Most notably, the government decided to reroute a planned multibillion dollar hydro transmission line away from the area. It would have cut through the heart of the World Heritage Site. The controversial decision has become political fodder in the current Manitoba election campaign.

Many environmental groups and scientists, including the David Suzuki Foundation, support the government’s difficult decision. We believe Pimachiowin Aki must be protected as a special place where rivers run wild, caribou roam unfettered by industrial development, and the centuries-old values of its indigenous peoples are honoured and respected.

Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Terrestrial Conservation and Science Program director Faisal Moola. Learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org.

In December 2009, Bloodvein River’s renewed interest in the Pimachiowin Aki World Heritage Project was announced. The project is a partnership of the Bloodvein River, Pauingassi, Little Grand Rapids, Poplar River and Pikangikum First Nations, and the governments of Ontario and Manitoba.

Bloodvein River’s plan outlines its vision of the protection and development activities to take place in its planning area. A section of Atikaki Provincial Park, which is covered by an existing management plan, falls within Bloodvein River’s traditional territory.

The proposed Pimitotah traditional-use planning area regulation describes the boundaries of the proposed area and the proposed management plan that would apply to it. In addition to establishing a permanent protected area, the plan proposes community-resource and commercial-development zones.

A public meeting will be held to review the proposed planning area regulation and management plan on Friday, July 8 from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on the main floor, Southeast Resource Development Council offices, 360 Broadway, Winnipeg.

Comment sheets on the proposed regulation and management plan can be found at www.manitoba.ca/conservation. Comments may also be given to Manitoba Conservation at 204 945 6784 or 1-800-214-6497 (toll-free), by mail to Pimitotah Planning Area Proposal, Manitoba Conservation, Land Programs Branch, Box 25, 200 Saulteaux Cres., Winnipeg, MB R3J 3W3, by email to eastsideplancomments@gov.mb.ca or by fax to 204-948-2197.

All comments must be received no later than Aug. 23.

“The Mother Earth Water Walk began in 2003 in answer to question — What will you do?”

http://www.motherearthwaterwalk.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=119&Itemid=126

“The Boreal Forest: Our Land, Our Story, Our Responsibility”

National Aboriginal Speaking Series Tour
Thursday, June 2nd, 7:00 p.m. at the University of Manitoba
Free admission – Open to the Public – Refreshments provided
The Canadian Boreal Initiative is inviting you to the opening event of its National Aboriginal Speaking Series Tour. Come and celebrate the leadership and commitment of Aboriginal communities in the conservation and sustainable development of the Boreal forest.

The evening will be dedicated to Aboriginal leaders who will share their stories from the Boreal Forest, both successes and challenges. Sophia Rabliauskas, well known First Nations activist, Pimachiowin Aki spokesperson and leader of Poplar River First Nation in Manitoba will be speaking with Stephen Kakfwi, a gifted and passionate speaker, former Premier of the NWT and Dene Nation President. The event will open with the performance of prominent local band, Eagle & Hawk.

Please see details in the attached poster (click image or click here). For further information, please contact our Events Coordinator, Sarah de Jonge, by email at sdejonge@borealcanada.ca or by phone at 613-232-2537.

SWAN RIVER(The province is investing $800,000 to help address alarming declines in moose populations in several areas of the province, Premier Greg Selinger announced here today.

“We are concerned about the decline of the moose population in these areas and we are investing in rebuilding the population,” said Selinger. “To reverse the decline and restore the population to sustainable numbers, we are consulting First Nations, Métis and other Aboriginal communities, as well as the general public to develop long-term plans to ensure the population is not reduced to this level in the future.”

The areas of concern include Game Hunting Area (GHA) 18 in the Duck Mountain area of west-central Manitoba, GHA 14 in the vicinity of the Swan-Pelican Provincial Forest and GHA 26, which extends from Lake Winnipeg to the Ontario boundary between the Winnipeg and Wanipigow rivers, including Nopiming Provincial Park.

Included in the total program is an additional $190,000 that will be allocated to the Wildlife Enhancement Initiative for aerial surveys related to moose management. The initiative is dedicated to wildlife management and is related to the number of hunting licences sold in Manitoba.

Other provincial initiatives include:

Increased enforcement to ensure compliance with wildlife regulations. The Duck Mountain area will get two additional natural resource officers and better patrol coverage, and a resource officer assigned to GHA 26, bringing the complement of staff in that area to six.

Two new wildlife biologists to implement all aspects of the moose recovery program including contacts with First Nations, Métis and Aboriginal people.

Road access management to areas of high moose density including permanent and short-term decommissioning of all-weather, secondary and winter roads in critical parts of the province.

Wolf management surveys. Reliable wolf population estimates are critical to understand how wolves are influencing moose populations and guide options for wolf management.

The province is establishing a moose advisory committee comprised of local groups, Aboriginal organizations and governments to partner with the province in the further development of a moose recovery strategy.

“If moose populations decline too much there is a risk the population may not recover or the recovery period will be extended over many years,” said the premier. “The 2010 survey results confirm the concerns about the state of local moose populations raised by First Nation communities and licensed hunters.”

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