Sockeye salmon swimming in a river

Why Indigenous-Led Management Is Integral to Reconciliation and Restoration Efforts

October 15, 2024 | Source: The Revelator | by Jillian Everly

As a legislative policy fellow and anthropologist who studies women’s well-being in coastal communities of Chile and Indigenous salmon management in Alaska and Canada, I’ve witnessed how genocidal attempts to eradicate Indigenous peoples and their cultures have also damaged the environment. We see it in current management’s low returns in fish, high levels of runoff and nutrient input into ocean systems, and generally unsustainable levels of resource extraction.

I’ve also seen the opposite: I interviewed managers and biologists in Vancouver, Canada, who described the substantial improvements of Indigenous-led, bottom-up approaches to conservation. They see fish return and people fulfilling their well-being and nutrition needs. They see political and economic reform and a revitalization of social and cultural practices.

Unfortunately this is still not the norm, as we saw in a recent international agreement between the United States and Canada that placed a seven-year fishing moratorium on Chinook salmon to encourage fish populations to rebound. Most people would agree that this is a worthy goal for the conservation of both the species and the people who depend on Chinook. However, the new agreement fails to factor in Indigenous access to resources for ceremonial and subsistence harvest, which is mandated by law, nor did legislators acknowledge public comment that supported that access.

The marginalization of Indigenous peoples today, as seen in this agreement’s failures, can be traced back to colonialism.