It's Delaney Mack's first time pulling crab traps and she is unsure what to do. Mack, the newest member of the Nuxalk Guardian Watchmen, has had months of training for the job, which might include rescuing a kayaker, taking ocean samples or monitoring a logging operation. But winching crabs up 30 metres from the sea floor was not in the manual.
Soon, the four-person operation is humming along. The crab survey is a vital part of their work as guardians of this Indigenous territory in the province of British Columbia. It was started more than 15 years ago in response to heavy commercial crab fishing in an area where the federal government had done little independent monitoring to determine if a fishery was sustainable.
It is the quintessential guardian assignment: remote monitoring work of immediate importance to a small community, far beyond the gaze of administrators at understaffed government agencies.
The watchmen are the eyes and ears of their First Nation community in their territory, which spans 18,000 sq km on the central coast of British Columbia around the town of Bella Coola, 430 mountainous kilometres north-west of Vancouver.
For Mack, being chosen to join the guardians was a godsend. "I had no idea what I was going to do with my life," she said.
Indigenous guardianship goes back millennia, but in recent decades has become more formally enshrined and recognised. Today, there are about 1,000 guardians in 200 Indigenous communities across Canada, according to the Indigenous Leadership Initiative, a guardian advocacy group.
A new layer has been added to the guardians' authority: park ranger badges. As part of a pilot project launched last summer, five of the Nuxalk guardians and six of the Kitasoo/ Xai'xais guardians to the north-west have been granted the power to issue tickets for offences such as poaching and illegal logging on their territory.
Denne historien er fra June 07, 2024-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra June 07, 2024-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Friendship interrupted
They were best mates. Then one had a baby, while the other struggled to conceive. They share their brutally honest takes on what happens when motherhood affects friendship
KERNELS OF HOPE
During the siege of Leningrad, botanists in charge of an irreplaceable seed collection, the first of its kind, had to protect it from fire, rodents-and hunger
A new horizon' The inverse link between cancer and dementia
Scientists have long been aware of a curious connection between these common and feared diseases. At last, a clearer picture is emerging
Across the universe
Samantha Harvey won the Booker prize with a novel set in space. Yet, she says, Orbital is actually 'a celebration of Earth's beauty with a pang of loss'
Frank Auerbach 1931 -2024
Saved from the Holocaust, this artist captured the devastation of postwar Britain as ifits wounds were his own but he ultimately found salvation in painting
Seven lessons I've learned after 28 years as economics editor
Margaret Thatcher was Britain's prime minister and Neil Kinnock was leader of the Labour party.
Droughtstricken dam leaves economies powerless
A ll is not well with the waters of Lake Kariba, the world's human-made lake largest A punishing drought has drained the huge reservoir close to record lows, raising the prospect that the Kariba Dam, which powers the economies of Zambia and Zimbabwe, may have to shut down for the first time in its 65-year history.
Let this be the end of these excruciating celebrity endorsements
I wish celebrities would learn the art of the French exit. But they can't, which is why Eva Longoria has announced she no longer lives in America. \"I get to escape and go somewhere,\" she explained.
Alive, but unable to thrive under absolute patriarchy
Since the Taliban returned to power, women and girls have tried defiance, but despair at their harshly restricted lives
‘It's tragic’ Reflection in the wake of Amsterdam violence
Carrying signs scrawled with messages urging unity, they laid white roses at the statue of Anne Frank, steps away from the home where her family had hidden from Nazi persecution.
