Guardians on the land in the Seal River watershed, a proposed Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area in northern Manitoba.

Canada’s National Observer: It’s hard for Gillian Staveley not to get choked up over her northern British Columbia Indigenous guardian program. In the summer, there are cultural camps for youth, and all the while, monitor work and language revitalization is ongoing in her homeland. 

“It’s hard for our elders not to get emotional too because they see the significance of this for our young people, and in a lot of ways, it’s the dreams of our ancestors that are becoming a reality,” Staveley told Canada’s National Observer. 

The Kaska Dene, Staveley’s nation, are one of the first across the country with a thriving Indigenous guardian program. The initiative has been around for a decade but Kaska Dene knew it still needed to grow. That’s about to happen.

On Friday, the federal government announced an investment of up to $27.6 million to support 80 guardian programs. With the announcement, there will be 18 new guardian initiatives and continued support for 62 existing ones across the country, including a  Kaska program, Staveley said.

Guardians are hired to caretake and steward the land for different purposes. They often manage wildfires, test water quality, collect data on climate and environmental impacts, monitor species and revitalize culture and language. 

The investment marks one year since the First Nation guardians’ funding has been independently managed by the National Guardians Network, the Indigenous-led organization that leads the national stewardship network. As a result, funding is getting into initiatives three times as fast as previous years, Staveley said. 

“Knowing that this process was designed by guardians, for guardians, is huge, and I think we’ve even in just one year seen the outcomes of that,” said Staveley, who sits on the National Guardian Network Council, in addition to working with the Kaska Dene initiative. 

The First Nations National Guardians Network was announced two years ago in Montreal during COP15 in Montreal. The program allowed the investment and knowledge-sharing needed to sustain and expand the groundwork established by Indigenous guardians working in their territories. 

Incorporating Indigenous and western science “just gives us better information to strengthen the decision making that’s being done around the issues that we’re seeing on the land,” Staveley said.

Much guardian work involves “two-eyed seeing,” which integrates both western science with ancestral knowledge to empower Indigenous nations to capture an understanding of what is happening on the land. 

Incorporating Indigenous and western science “just gives us better information to strengthen the decision-making that’s being done around the issues that we’re seeing on the land,” Staveley said.

The announcement arrives just before the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. For Staveley, the cultural resurgent work of stewardship and land rights that guardian initiatives carry is “the most beautiful example of reconciliation I can think of.”  

There’s more demand for guardian programs than there is funding. There were about 183 applications for the initiatives. Different financing models, such as philanthropic partners, provincial governments and private finance, might play a larger role in guardians’ work in future. 

The business case for guardian programs is evident. An Australian analysis found that every dollar invested in the initiatives generates around three dollars in social, environmental and economic benefits, like providing employment, ecotourism opportunities and community wellbeing. 

It’s a strong pitch for future governments like a possible Conservative Party majority. The party has so far been largely silent on its conservation policy positions. 

In an interview with Canada’s National Observer, Indigenous Services Canada Minister Patty Hajdu said the Conservatives would cut programs like Indigenous Guardians, arguing that Conservatives only talk about reconciliation in the context of major projects. 

“This is too woke for them to talk about protecting the environment,” Hajdu said. “Well, if this is woke, I’ll be woke all day long.”

Canada’s National Observer asked a Conservative Party spokesperson if the party would continue to fund Indigenous guardians and strive to meet biodiversity targets, but did not hear back by publication. 

It’s also unclear how and if Conservatives would push to meet biodiversity targets set out in the Montreal-Kunming Biodiversity Framework. Guardian programs address biodiversity through the monitoring and, at times, restitution of ecosystems. For example, Hajdu points to the Biinjitiwaabik Zaaging Anishinaabek (Rocky Bay First Nation) in northern Ontario that implements sturgeon protocols for local mining operations to ensure the health of fish and water ecosystems. 

Canada’s National Observer asked a Conservative Party spokesperson if the party would continue to fund Indigenous guardians and strive to meet biodiversity target, but did not hear back by publication. 

The announcement arrives weeks before the global biodiversity conference, COP16, in Colombia. The guardians network will have representatives on the ground to show the world what Indigenous conservation can look like when Indigenous Peoples play a large role in the international target to protect 30 per cent of the world’s lands and waters. 

The hope is to show the world that Indigenous nations can take lead positions in achieving those global biodiversity targets. 

“This is something that we can really find hope in,” she said. 

Matteo Cmellaro / Canada’s National Observer / Local Journalism Initiative