Why Indigenous peoples should lead nature conservation | Lisa Young

Posted on by Audrey Rainey

Indigenous peoples are protectors of this land. They need to be leaders in nature conservation efforts if we want to conserve biodiversity and meet Canada’s international conservation targets. Lisa Young, Executive Director of the Unama’ki Insitute of Natural Resources shares her insights on the importance of learning from our Indigenous peoples.

https://Canada.ca/Our-Nature

****Transcript****

LISA YOUNG (Executive Director, Natural Resources): Let the indigenous people take the lead. They’re the ones that are going to set the direction, they’re going to set the purpose.

We need to reconnect with the land. We need to have that responsibility, that respect for the land that would lead to better choices in what we do and how we conduct ourselves as people on this land.

They are so important – indigenous protected areas — for just restrengthening communities and bringing First Nations back to the forefront where they belong in their traditional role as protectors of this land.

To create the space for indigenous people to do that, IPCAs are going to provide that opportunity, and we’re hoping, in doing that, we can demonstrate and then show the world that this is a good way forward, that these concepts and these… this approach doesn’t have to be confined within a park, it doesn’t have to be confined with an IPCA; there’s lessons to learn that are so relevant for conservation across Canada, across borders.

We talk a lot about the state of the environment these days about… there’s concerns about climate change and biodiversity, and there’s a lot to learn from our indigenous peoples on how we can do better.

Source: Environment and Climate Change Canada

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