Insights from the Kitasoo/Xai’xais Nation’s Development of an Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area
By: Canadian Science Publishing
Tags: Conservation, Environmental Issues, Protected Area, Indigenous

Green Inlet, Kitasoo/Xai’xais Nation Territory. Photo credit: TC Tran

In a collaboration with the Kitasoo/Xai’xais Nation, we present here the Nation’s perspective on creating a new designation, Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas, to describe the management they have always conducted, and they are seeking to have provincial government recognize it in legislation.

There have been limited studies that have highlighted the work done by Indigenous organizations to develop these protected areas.

By highlighting the Nation’s motivations and process, we address this gap in the research literature. By doing so, researchers, state governments, and other interested entities can learn better ways to support the development of Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas within Kitasoo/Xai’xais Territory and beyond. Additionally, Indigenous Nations interested in developing their own protected area can adapt the Kitasoo/Xai’xais’ process for their specific contexts.

Read this open access paper on the FACETS website.

We conducted this research partnership by directly assisting the Nation’s ongoing protected area planning and development process for the area of interest known since colonization as Green Inlet. This included: conducting interviews with Nation members and staff; reviewing internal documents and related information; as well as looking at public information, such as academic research and Canadian government reports, legislation, and policies.

By developing an Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area, the Nation seeks to address ongoing issues with current governance and management of provincial and federal protected areas. This new protected area will better reflect the Nation’s Indigenous Rights, responsibilities, and worldview while providing opportunities for cultural revitalization and sustainable management and economic uses in the area.

Establishing this protected area is a product of years of foundational work: conducting research on other Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas around the world, extensive Territory planning, and stewardship capacity rebuilding.

Kitasoo/Xai’xais protected areas face challenges from climate change, development pressure, lack of provincial and federal government recognized management authority, and ongoing colonization.

To address these challenges, the Kitasoo/Xai’xais Nation is seeking solutions within and outside the Canadian protected area system and western science. This includes changes to provincial and federal protected area legislation that support Indigenous stewardship and applying complementary approaches from western science.

Finally, as the Nation has invested substantial resources to improve protected areas for people, the environment, and economy, we suggest that more support is needed from provincial and federal organizations.

More resources are necessary to think through and prepare for the transformative change to protected area governance and management that must happen if Canada, British Columbia, and Kitasoo/Xai’xais are going to advance towards meaningful reconciliation and support for the Kitasoo/Xai’xais’ new protected area and others like it.

Read the paper — “Borders don’t protect areas, people do”: insights from the development of an Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area in Kitasoo/Xai’xais Nation Territory by Tanya C. Tran, Douglas Neasloss, Kitasoo/Xai’xais Stewardship Authority, Jonaki Bhattacharyya, and Natalie C. Ban.