Have you heard of Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas?
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- Created: Tuesday, 04 August 2020 15:09
Have you heard of Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas?
by Katie Blake
HAT Executive Director
In Canadian culture, we have largely come to know protected landscapes in the form of parks, ecological reserves, wildlife protected areas, and world heritage sites . Land trust and non-profit owned conservation areas, as well as conservation covenants (better known as easements outside of BC) have been more recent additions to the list of lands that Canadians count as conserved. This collective conservation work has surely prevented the loss of many species and ecosystems that may otherwise have succumbed to resource development, housing, and other land conversion. Protected areas are considered by many as the cornerstones of conservation that will safeguard biodiversity, provide clean air, fresh water, and food, buffer us from floods and droughts, and provide us with outdoor recreational opportunities.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of these protected areas were created without the involvement of Indigenous communities. These protected areas often restrict or outright exclude Indigenous communities from traditional use of large portions of their territories. We are now living in an age in which improving relationships between Canadian society and Indigenous communities has been embraced as a collective priority, and Indigenous rights and sovereignty are increasingly understood. How can the practice of land conservation be reconciled with supporting Indigenous communities and their long-standing relationship with the land?
Read more: Have you heard of Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas?
Membership has long been a mainstay of the HAT conservation community. HAT members are the driving force behind much of why HAT exists. Not only do they play a central role in HAT’s governance structure by participating in and voting at the Annual General Meeting (held at the end of every January), they are those folks who want to be involved in conservation in a direct way, whether that’s through showing their support at member events, or as regular participants at volunteer restoration workshops.
