Across Canada, Indigenous communities are taking a stand as guardians of the nation’s waterways. Rooted in a sacred relationship with water that spans millennia, these “Water Protectors” are leading innovative initiatives to safeguard rivers, lakes, and oceans in the face of climate change. Their efforts not only address immediate environmental concerns but also assert Indigenous rights and revitalize cultural practices tied to water.
The Sacred Relationship with Water
For Indigenous Peoples across Canada, water is not merely a resource but a living entity deserving of respect and protection. Josephine Mandamin, an Anishinaabe Elder and renowned Water Walker, once said, “The water is sick… we need to do something for the water.” This sentiment echoes through many Indigenous cultures, driving a powerful movement for water protection.
Climate change poses unprecedented threats to Canada’s waterways, from changing precipitation patterns and increased flooding to rising water temperatures and altered ecosystems. These changes not only impact the environment but also threaten the cultural practices and livelihoods of Indigenous communities deeply connected to these water bodies.
Traditional Water Governance
(Image credit: Arno Ryser, Unsplash)
At the heart of Indigenous water protection efforts lies traditional water governance – systems of stewardship that have sustained healthy waterways for generations. These governance models, often overlooked by colonial systems, are now gaining recognition for their effectiveness in promoting sustainable water use.
In the Great Lakes region, Anishinaabe water governance is rooted in the concept of “mino-mnaamodzawin” or “living the good life.” This holistic approach considers the interconnectedness of all living things and emphasizes responsibility to future generations. Deborah McGregor, an Anishinaabe scholar and advocate, explains, “Our traditional laws teach us that we have a sacred responsibility to protect the water, not just for ourselves, but for all of creation.”
Indigenous-Led Water Protection Initiatives
Across the country, Indigenous communities are launching grassroots initiatives to monitor, protect, and restore their waterways.
Community-Based Monitoring Programs
The Six Nations of the Grand River in Ontario have developed a comprehensive water monitoring program. Community members, trained in both traditional knowledge and Western scientific methods, regularly test water quality and track changes in the watershed. This program not only provides crucial data on water health but also empowers the community to take an active role in water stewardship.
Restoration of Traditional Water Systems
In British Columbia, the Okanagan Nation Alliance has been leading efforts to restore salmon habitats damaged by development and exacerbated by climate change. By combining traditional knowledge with modern conservation techniques, they’ve successfully reintroduced salmon to streams that haven’t been seen in decades.
Pauline Terbasket, executive director of the Okanagan Nation Alliance, shares, “Bringing the salmon back is not just about food security or environmental health. It’s about cultural revitalization and asserting our role as caretakers of the land and water.”
Legal and Policy Advocacy
Indigenous Water Protectors are also making waves in the legal and policy realms. Many nations are asserting their inherent rights to water governance, challenging colonial water laws that have long marginalized Indigenous perspectives.
The Yukon First Nations’ Together Today for Our Children Tomorrow proposal, which eventually led to modern treaties in the territory, explicitly includes provisions for water management and protection. This groundbreaking approach ensures that Indigenous water rights are enshrined in legally binding agreements.
Combining Traditional Knowledge and Western Science
One of the strengths of Indigenous water protection initiatives is their ability to bridge traditional knowledge and Western scientific approaches. This synergy creates more comprehensive and effective water management strategies.
In the Northwest Territories, the Tracking Change project brings together Indigenous knowledge holders and university researchers to study the Mackenzie River Basin. This collaborative approach has yielded insights into climate change impacts that neither group could have achieved alone.
Dahti Tsetso, a member of the Dehcho First Nations involved in the project, notes, “Our Elders can tell you how the river has changed over decades. When you combine that with scientific data, you get a full picture of what’s happening and what we need to do.”
Water Ceremonies and Cultural Revitalization
Water protection is not just about environmental conservation – it’s also about cultural revitalization. Many Indigenous-led initiatives incorporate traditional ceremonies and cultural practices, recognizing the inseparable link between water health and community wellbeing.
The Water Walks, initiated by Anishinaabe Elder Josephine Mandamin, have inspired Indigenous and non-Indigenous people alike to reconnect with waterways. These ceremonial walks around the Great Lakes and other water bodies raise awareness about water issues while revitalizing cultural practices.
Autumn Peltier, a young Anishinaabe water activist following in Mandamin’s footsteps, emphasizes the spiritual dimension of water protection: “We don’t see water as a resource. We see it as a living thing, as sacred. That’s why we call ourselves Water Protectors, not protesters.”
Challenges and Successes
Despite their crucial work, Indigenous Water Protectors face significant challenges. Industrial activities, from pipeline projects to mining operations, continue to threaten water sources in many Indigenous territories. Navigating complex jurisdictional issues between Indigenous, provincial, and federal governments also poses ongoing challenges.
However, there have been notable successes. In 2021, the Wet’suwet’en Nation’s efforts to protect the Wedzin Kwa (Morice River) from pipeline construction garnered national attention and support. Their actions highlighted the role of Indigenous peoples as frontline defenders of Canada’s waters.
The Future of Indigenous Water Protection
As climate change intensifies, the role of Indigenous Water Protectors becomes ever more crucial. Emerging leaders are combining traditional knowledge with new technologies, using drones, AI, and social media to monitor and protect waterways.
Eriel Deranger, Executive Director of Indigenous Climate Action, sees hope in these developments: “Our young people are taking up the mantle of water protection, armed with both our ancestral knowledge and new tools. They’re the future of this movement.”
Indigenous Water Protection as a Model for Climate Resilience
(Image credit: Getty Images, Licensed, Unsplash)
The efforts of Indigenous Water Protectors offer a powerful model for climate change adaptation and mitigation. Their holistic approach, which views water health as inseparable from community and cultural well-being, provides a roadmap for sustainable water management in a changing climate.
As Canada grapples with the water-related impacts of climate change, from flooding to droughts, the wisdom and practices of Indigenous Water Protectors become increasingly valuable. Their work not only protects vital ecosystems but also paves the way for a more just and sustainable approach to water governance.
Supporting Indigenous water rights and protection efforts is not just an environmental imperative – it’s a step towards reconciliation and a more sustainable future for all Canadians. As we face the growing challenges of climate change, the vision and dedication of Indigenous Water Protectors light the way toward a future where clean, healthy waters flow for generations to come.
Blog by Rye Karonhiowanen Barberstock
(Header Image Credit: Ries Bosch, Unsplash)
The post Water Protectors: Indigenous-Led Initiatives Safeguarding Canada’s Waterways in a Changing Climate appeared first on Indigenous Climate Hub.
Water Protectors: Indigenous-Led Initiatives Safeguarding Canada’s Waterways in a Changing Climate
After witnessing the effects of sea-level rise in the low-lying island nation of Tuvalu, Pacific leaders on Tuesday used the pre-COP31 summit in Fiji to voice their frustration at the difficulties they have experienced in tapping the global climate finance system.
A small group of government leaders, climate negotiators and heads of development banks and climate funds took a trip to Tuvalu’s Funafuti atoll on Tuesday morning, travelling by road over land just 10-20 metres wide to visit a project that is building barriers to keep the sea from the land.
They then flew to Fiji for the pre-COP summit, where several Pacific leaders said they had been let down by the insufficient quantity, bad terms and slow speed of international finance to help them adapt to a warming climate that is bringing higher oceans, drought and more powerful storms to their shores.
“Right now, our islands are like a canoe that has been rammed by a massive foreign ship. Our canoe is taking on water, we are sinking, and what is the world’s response?” asked Palau’s President Surangel Whipps Jr.
“They hand us a tiny patch to cover a gaping hole,” he continued, “but the bureaucratic process just to receive that patch is so slow that the water fills the hole while we wait. Then to rebuild the vessel so that we can survive the next storm, we are offered loans, debt that adds weight to a sinking boat packaged in red tape so thick we can barely access it. And while we wait, the water continues to fill.”
Pacific leaders and Australia called again on governments to invest in the new Pacific Resilience Facility (PRF), which has been designed by the Pacific Islands Forum and is seeking $500 million in investments by COP31 in November.
It has around $180 million so far, but did not receive additional pledges during the UN General Assembly in New York. The PRF aims to invest to generate annual returns which it can give to projects like water tanks for drought-hit communities.
Witnessing sea level rise
The annual pre-COP gathering is usually a low-profile technical meeting of climate negotiators. But this year, Australia – which is the president of negotiations at COP31 – partnered with the Pacific to introduce a “leaders segment” in an attempt to shine a spotlight on climate issues affecting the region.
Fourteen government leaders – from Australia, Timor-Leste, Mauritius and the Pacific – made the trip. They were joined by the European Union’s climate commissioner Wopke Hoekstra, the heads of the Green Climate Fund and the Asian Development Bank and former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard.
On their return to Fiji, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Matthew Wale told the pre-COP leaders roundtable that the sea level rise they had witnessed was personal for him.
“Tuvalu was not just a site visit for me. I saw the story of my own saltwater people,” he said, adding that he, his daughter and his grandfather had lost their houses to sea level rise and that three-quarters of his electorate live on land that will be underwater in the next 30 years.
From the other side of the world, Antigua and Barbuda’s environment minister Michael Joseph said Tuvalu’s problems felt similar to those of his own Caribbean islands. “I saw vulnerable communities… just metres from the sea and people determined to remain on their land, preserve their culture and way of life,” he said.
A group of Fijian schoolchildren told the leaders it was not just sea level rise the Pacific struggles with but also heatwaves, droughts and storms, which worry their families and prevent them from learning.
Climate finance red-tape
Several Pacific leaders criticised the world’s leaders for not doing enough to combat climate change. Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown expressed disappointment that only two non-Pacific leaders had come to the pre-COP, a fact Australian media widely picked up on to label the event a flop and question its A$20 million (US$14m) price tag.
“We’ve heard a lot of numbers these last two days,” Brown said. “Let me share one of my own. More than 50 invitations extended to world leaders… to see for themselves what high emissions are doing to our nations and our ocean – an ocean that covers nearly one-third of the Earth’s surface.”
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He called for more climate finance for the Pacific, asking “if the world is prepared to assess our suitability for climate finance, why is it not equally prepared to scrutinise whether those responsible for delivering it are meeting their obligations?”
Like Palau’s president Whipps, Naoero’s President David Adeang criticised the red tape that is hindering access to climate finance as well as a lack of money, complaining especially about “complicated procedures, heavy reporting, delays in approval and disbursement”.
Adeang added that “the way we assess vulnerability matters”, adding that it should be measured by more than income. Naoero, for example, is classified by the World Bank as high-income, restricting which climate finance it is eligible for.
Action plan to improve access
On Thursday, the Australian government will present a statement and action plan on improving access to climate finance for small island developing states and least developed countries, which it is asking other countries and organisations to endorse.
The statement addresses some of these Pacific complaints as well as acknowledging that progress has already been made on simplifying access by multilateral development banks and climate funds.
In Fiji, Asian Development Bank head Masato Kanda said his institution is “tailoring our finance and operations to island realities” because “your children and their children should be able to grow old in the countries their ancestors have called home for millennia”.
The executive director of the Green Climate Fund (GCF), Mafalda Duarte, said that the GCF-backed coastal adaptation project leaders visited in Tuvalu shows that “climate finance works” although – as the project took eight years to implement – “it takes time, and therefore we have no time to waste”.
Australia calls for optimism
While Pacific leaders expressed concern that the world is set to blast past its agreed 1.5C warming limit, endangering their nations, Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called for “optimism”. “If people think there is no hope, then they will not strive to get the change that we need,” he said.
He said that when he attended his first COP in 2005, Australia’s renewable energy target was 2%. Its target is now 82% renewable electricity by 2030.
While Albanese promoted Australia’s success at electrifying homes and businesses and rolling out renewables, he has been criticised by climate campaigners for extending the production of fossil fuels, including coal – largely for export.
France’s Minister for Ecological Transition Monique Barbut defended the European Union’s climate action at the pre-COP meeting. She said the continent was heating up and reducing emissions faster and providing more climate finance than anywhere else in the world.
“It is time for all major emitters to step up and do their fair share” on climate finance, she said. Most developing countries with large emissions have fiercely resisted joining the club of climate finance donors, arguing they have played a disproportionately small historic role in causing climate change.
Barbut, as well as Palau’s president Whipps, called for the next flagship scientific assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to be finished by COP33 in 2028, in time to inform the next global stocktake of national climate action.
This timeline has been opposed by countries like India, Saudi Arabia and China, who argue it would put an unfair burden on developing countries. Barbut said countries should “support the work of the IPCC rather than sabotage its calendar”.
Barbut said that governments should agree at COP31 to aim to raise the share of “clean electricity” in final energy consumption to 35% by 2035. The Turkish and Australian governments have pushed for this goal although without specifying that the electricity should be “clean”. Barbut added that COP31 should also agree to cut emissions of methane, a particularly potent greenhouse gas.
The post Pacific leaders rail at climate finance failures after pre-COP trip to Tuvalu appeared first on Climate Home News.
Pacific leaders rail at climate finance failures after pre-COP trip to Tuvalu
Jacynta Fa’amau is a Pacific campaigner at global grassroots climate movement 350.org and a secretariat member of Pacific Climate Warriors.
The first thing that struck me was the sheer size of Queensland’s Saraji coal mine. Standing at the edge of the enormous pit, my brain scrambled for words as I scanned the earth’s open wound – a whole island could probably fit inside it.
Looking down, I noticed footprints of an emu and a koala, pressed and dried in what was once a puddle – signs of how drought had driven animals in desperate search of water, so dangerously close to the coal trucks and heavy machinery ahead.
Earlier this year, I joined a small group of Pacific Islanders on a journey through the Bowen Basin to learn from First Nations communities battling Australia’s mammoth coal industry. Of the more than 40 coal mines operating in the area, BHP & Mitsubishi Alliance’s Saraji mine is one of the largest. So it came as a painful shock to us when in August, the Australian government approved the mine’s extension just months after our visit.
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Witnessing coal extraction is devastating. It is bad enough to see what pillaging tonnes of coal can do to a mine’s immediate surroundings: dry creek beds, dwindling wildlife, denuded land. But to know that this coal will be shipped across the ocean, bring air pollution, and eventually lead to the destruction of Pacific islands thousands of miles away is another kind of heartbreak.
Rising ocean waters
I’m an Australian-born Samoan. In 2002, I visited my family home for the first time. My father took me to the rural community where generations of my family were raised. He did not have the words to describe how much has changed since rising ocean waters had taken away almost a third of the beach.
I learned of how we had to relocate my great‑great‑grandparents’ grave to higher ground twice in the last 15 years. Of how my cousins have to paddle out further to sea to catch fish, since warmer waters have destroyed much of the reef. Of how the ocean crashes so close to my uncle’s home that he had to build a new house further away.
We saw reflections of our own climate destruction in the Pacific when we shared these stories with our First Nations relatives at the edge of the Saraji mine. Murrawah Johnson and Teila Watson, both Birri Gubba and Gangulu women, made clear connections between their struggles and ours. “We don’t get to inherit our land and we don’t get to inherit our traditional roles. We are fighting a war on extinction,” Murrawah said.
Coal extraction devastated their lands and cultures – totems have disappeared, fresh water has become scarce – while the effects of using it have devastated ours. “King tide, cyclones, all the violence that has been enacted on your country and people is because of the violence that has been allowed here, to us and our country,” Teila said.
Wearing the mantle of climate leadership
This week, Australia is assuming the mantle of climate leadership as co-president and head of negotiations of this year’s UN Climate Change Conference, COP31. It will lead on deliberating the summit’s priorities as world leaders and climate negotiators descend on Fiji and Tuvalu for the pre-COP meetings.
Ironically, just days before the pre-COP began, the New South Wales Independent Planning Commission approved the largest-ever coal project the state has seen, set to emit an extra 800 million tonnes of carbon emissions. I joined the Pacific Climate Warriors and other communities in submitting about 4,000 appeals to oppose the project – yet these all fell on deaf ears.