Native Guardians: Canada’s First Nations Move to Protect Their Lands
By Ed Struzik
Yale Environment 360
November 3, 2022
Faced with mounting impacts from warming and a push for resource development, Indigenous communities in northern Canada are setting aside vast areas for protection. They are also partnering with scientists on research that can help conserve their lands and their way of life.
On yet another unusually warm subarctic day last August, members of the Łı́ı́dlı̨ı̨ Kų́ę́ First Nation in the Northwest Territories of Canada held a fire-feeding ceremony, drummed, raised their eagle-emblazoned flag, and prepared a celebratory feast for themselves and a group of scientists 30 miles south of where they live in Fort Simpson.
By the close of festivities, Laurier University’s 23-year-old Scotty Creek Research Station, which is monitoring the varied impacts of climate change and permafrost thaw, had become the first Indigenous-led research station in Canada.