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Healing Broken Connections: Traditional Knowledge and Regional Integration Kluane National Park and Reserve
Mike Walton, Paula Banks and Robin Bradasch
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Healing Broken Connections” is a $1.3 million investment
over four years by Parks Canada toward reconnecting
Kluane First Nation and Champagne and Aishihik First
Nations Peoples to their traditional territory within
the National Park and to understand how Traditional
Knowledge can be accommodated in landscape scale
decision making. The project will develop protocols for
decision making, identify indicators of Traditional
Knowledge and measure the use of Traditional Knowledge
in decision making.
In 1943 the lands set aside by the Federal Government to
create the Kluane Game Sanctuary imposed a total ban on
all hunting and trapping. The land and species on which
the Tutchone Peoples had traveled, harvested from and
lived with for thousands of years, were no longer
accessible to them.
“The traditional knowledge that arises out of the
Southern Tutchone relationship to the land contributes
to the maintenance of ecological integrity and
contributes to the modern day management of the park.
Unfortunately, the exclusion of aboriginal people from
the park from the mid 20th century has had negative
consequences not only on the park’s ecological health,
but also on First Nation’s culture. As a result of not
being able to use the park, traditional knowledge of the
park lands and resources and their people’s history in
this area could not be passed on through community
members” (KNP&R Park Management Plan, 2004).
The project addresses four principle issues that
contribute to the park’s ecological integrity and
recognizes that a sustainable landscape supports the
ecological integrity of Kluane National Park and
Reserve:
· Southern Tutchone Peoples have been removed from the
ecosystem thereby compromising the park’s ecological
integrity.
· Respectfully understanding knowledge systems that
influence decision makers while meeting legal
obligations found in Land Claim Agreements.
· Landuses that are increasing in size and intensity on
a landbase that is finite in size.
· How Traditional Knowledge (TK) can be respectfully
used to maintain and improve the ecological integrity of
the park.
The immediate challenges include: differing knowledge
systems, conflicting institutional priorities, Parks
Canada’s insistence on measuring and recording
information in ways that are not seen as important to
First Nations. The immediate benefits have been: greater
understanding of the world of difference between
Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal cultures, sharing
knowledge and building trust relationships. This session
will tell the story of the First Nations Peoples and
their removal from the park, their progress in Land
Claims and Self Government agreements and how Parks
Canada developed with the First Nations, the project to
Heal Broken Connections. |
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