Shaunna Morgan Siegers, interim executive director of the First Nations National Guardians Network. Photo by Matteo Cimellaro / Canada’s National Observer Listen to article

Canada’s National Observer – On the eve of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, Ottawa announced a $12.8-million expansion to the Indigenous Guardians program, which funds moccasins on the ground to support Indigenous-led conservation efforts and environmental monitoring through a First Nations lens.

Friday’s announcement was hosted on the floating dock of the National Capital Commission’s River House that sits on the Kichi Sibi, the Algonquin name for the Ottawa River. The Kichi Sibi holds spiritual and cultural significance for the Algonquin Nation, whose ancestral territory includes Ottawa. 

The event also marked an announcement that control of the program will be handed over to the First Nation National Guardians Network, an autonomous organizational body.

The network will help streamline funding and provide knowledge-sharing for the 49 existing guardian programs and 41 new programs made possible by the extra funding.

The network, a global first, will support First Nations guardian programs that are seen as key for land-based research, environmental monitoring and cultural revitalization. At the press conference, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said the program will result in increased access to harvesting for First Nations, more jobs and opportunities to braid ancestral knowledge with western science.

“We hear all the time about the challenges of climate change and the loss of biodiversity,” Shaunna Morgan Siegers, interim executive director of the First Nations National Guardians Network, said at the press conference. “And these are big challenges, and guardians can offer solid solutions.”

Until now, many First Nations have had to scramble to patch together enough funds from different sources to keep First Nations guardians employed, Siegers told Canada’s National Observer.

“I’m hoping for a stable, sustainable future for guardians,” Siegers added.

The federal government will also look to establish self-governance for both Inuit and Métis guardian initiatives, Guilbeault said at the press conference.

Matto Cimellaro / Canada’s National Observer / Local Journalism Initiative