A pictograph panel at Kalagwees on Turnour Island, one of the many sites mapped and assessed by Tlowitis Guardians. Photo by Brodie Guy.
Tlowitsis First Nation records 370 archaeological sites on traditional territories across B.C.
Tlowitsis First Nation has recorded 370 archaeological sites within their traditional territories spread around the coast of northern Vancouver Island, Johnstone Strait and mainland inlets.
In a report, the First Nation guardian watchmen and archaeologists from Inlailawatash – a Vancouver based, Tsleil-Waututh Nation-owned archaeology firm–highlighted numerous sites of cultural importance in their territories.
Between 2016 and 2019, Tlowitsis Guardians visited 130 recorded and newly identified sites to assess their locations and overall site condition. In 2018 and 2019 the Guardians assessed 63 previously recorded sites and also identified 29 new ones.
The new sites included unique burial-box sites with grave goods, pictographs, village and defensive sites.
The work was done to ensure that these sites are protected from human or natural disturbances and to take care of the Tlowitsis heritage. These sites are important to the First Nations as they are considered a physical and spiritual link to their ancestors.
Haida women support their relatives in raising a carved monumental column by master carver Kilthguulans Christian White at Hl’yaalan ‘Lngee. The pole was raised in 2017 at Hiellen Longhouse Village, a promising venture in cultural revitalization and economic development. Photograph by Brodie Guy.
The last decade has seen the creation of more than 100 businesses, 1,000 permanent jobs and 14 regional monitoring and Guardian Watchmen programs through conservation finance program
The grizzly bears of Glendale Cove are the stars that draw international visitors to Knight Inlet Lodge. They are also the catalyst for one of the more than 100 successful First Nations businesses launched with the help of Coast Funds, an Indigenous-led conservation finance organization created through the 2006 Great Bear Rainforest agreements.
“It is 100 per cent First Nations owned and it opened up our eyes to opportunities beyond resource extraction and shone a light on the opportunities and benefits of ecotourism,” Dallas Smith, president of Nanwakolas Council and Knight Inlet Lodge, told The Narwhal.
Knight Inlet is an example of the achievements of the conservation finance funds, which promote community well-being and Indigenous-led sustainable development and stewardship, Brodie Guy, Coast Funds executive director, told The Narwhal.
Over the last decade, more than 1,000 permanent jobs have been created, 100 businesses have been developed or expanded and 14 regional monitoring and Guardian Watchmen programs, operating across 2.5 million hectares, have been created or expanded, according to a Coast Funds report released this week.
Funding approved for 353 projects has attracted more than $286 million in new investment to the region between 2008 and 2018 and every dollar spent by Coast Funds leverages three or four dollars, according to the report.
“We are demonstrating that conservation finance, led by Indigenous people, is the key to protecting the world’s most precious ecosystems, such as the Great Bear Rainforest and Haida Gwaii,” Guy said.
One key is that funding is allocated across the communities, rather than one big pot, so it avoids the gold rush mentality or competition between First Nations, Guy told The Narwhal.
“It’s completely up to the nation based on their vision for moving forward and their stewardship of the land and water in this period of — hopefully — decolonization,” he said.
Haida women support their relatives in raising a carved monumental column by master carver Kilthguulans Christian White at Hl’yaalan ‘Lngee. The pole was raised in 2017 at Hiellen Longhouse Village, a promising venture in cultural revitalization and economic development. Photograph by Brodie Guy.
Over the past decade, First Nations have created a robust conservation economy in Canada’s Great Bear Rainforest, one of the largest old-growth temperate rainforests left in the world, through investments in sustainable development and environmental stewardship projects that link the health of nature to the wellbeing of indigenous communities, according to a new report.
The report was issued last week by Coast Funds, an Indigenous-led conservation finance organization created in the wake of historic land-use agreements signed by First Nations and the Canadian province of British Columbia in 2006. The Great Bear Rainforest Agreements, as they are called, were the culmination of a struggle that began in the 1990s, pitting First Nations and their environmentalist allies against the forestry industry and the local government. The future of the Great Bear Rainforest was so fiercely contested the conflict became known as “The War in the Woods.”
