Two New Zealand researchers who visited the Utzel-Ke-Dene Indigenous People for cultural exchange described an “almost militant” raid on a cultural camp by wildlife officers investigating illegal caribou logging. said he was shocked.
Puke Timothy is a researcher at Manaaki Tenua Landcare Research, the Royal Institute for Land, Environment and Biodiversity Research.
Timothy is a Maori, indigenous to New Zealand, a country with a colonial history similar to Canada.
“I’m shocked that certain approaches are still going that way,” he told CBC News.
“We knew it so well in our hometown and thought we wouldn’t see it anywhere else.”
The NWT Environment Agency said officers were executing search warrants following reports of illegal caribou hunting.
Environment Minister Shane Thompson said in a statement Friday that 10 caribou carcasses had been found within a nomadic hunting zone to protect the endangered Bathurst caribou herd from hunters.
have a talk, have a chat
Manaaki Whenua researcher Phil Lyver said the situation could have been rectified more peacefully.
“What they should have done was… come to the beach and talk to the camp elders,” he said. “Let’s have some tea. Seriously, sit around the fire.”
Instead, I witnessed numerous officers in tactical gear searching every tent and teepee in the camp.
“There’s a lot of hurt around the community because of that reaction,” he said.
“It just felt like… an overreaction to come in and search the tent like that.”
Learn about Taidene-Nene National Park
The pair were part of a group of 16 who attended a two-week cultural exchange to learn about First Nations involvement in Taiden Nene National Park, where the raid took place.
“It was really a question of what benefits they were achieving through the establishment of national parks,” Leiber said.
The park is the product of an agreement signed in 2019 between Parks Canada, Łutsel K’e Dene First Nation, Deninu K’ue First Nation, Yellowknives Dene First Nation, Northwest Territory Métis Nation, and the Northwest Territories Government.
But Leiber said the raid provided a new perspective on the relationship between territorial governments and indigenous peoples.
“We have these partnerships, we have these agreements, and we get that kind of reaction from government agencies, which is just making the whole colonial experience worse. ‘ he said.
Video of the attack posted on Facebook
A video posted on Facebook by Iris Catholique, Thaidene Nëné manager of Łutsel K’e Dene First Nation, shows minutes of the raid.
In one video, a person can be heard asking a police officer, “Why are you doing this to your elders?” When they are looking for a ziplock meat bag.
According to First Nation, on September 13, wildlife rangers helicoptered into the Lake Artillery camp.
At that time, about 80 members of the Ousel Kedene Indigenous Tribe participated in the cultural camp.
In a statement, Environment Minister Shane Thompson said police received two independent reports from the public about illegal harvesting on Monday.
“The officers used the search warrant to initiate a field investigation at the site, as well as at secondary locations operating under the authority of the Wildlife Act,” he wrote.
Thompson added, “We identified a significant amount of edible meat that we believe was wasted.”
Due to the ongoing active investigation, the department cannot share many details.
Thompson added that many wildlife officers in his department have lived in the North for a long time.
“Caribou are important to them, to the communities in which they live and work, and to the elderly,” he said.
“Such research is difficult. Mobile zone enforcement is an important part of the joint conservation measures we have in place to protect the Bathurst herd.”
The Bathurst herd has fallen from 470,000 in 1986 to about 6,200.