Beyond Conservation:
About
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Why this toolkit is needed
In recent years, the commitment and action to advance reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Canada has grown. In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) released its final report with 94 Calls to Action. These Calls to Action cover areas such as child welfare, education, language and culture, health, social and economic outcomes, and justice. They constitute an attempt to redress the legacy of residential schools and advance the process of Canadian reconciliation. The work of reconciliation and decolonization of relationships will take generations. This toolkit is intended to encourage and facilitate that work in the field of stewardship and conservation.
Photo by Torngat Secretariat
Acknowledging history: About this toolkit

Indigneous-led stewardship: A path forward
Collaboration can take many forms, and here we would like to distinguish between Indigenous-led and Indigenous-involved conservation and stewardship work. Indigenous-led projects are those that Indigenous Peoples design and implement. They centre around Indigenous self-determination and Indigenous priorities. Indigenous Peoples can lead projects in close collaboration with non-Indigenous partners. Indigenous-involved projects are those where Indigenous Peoples are consulted and might contribute to a project, but are not necessarily involved in decision-making. (See “Situate your initiative: ‘Indigenous-led’, ‘Co-led’ or ‘Indigenous-involved’?” for more detail.)
“Indigenous peoples comprise only 5% of the world’s population but protect approximately 85% of the world’s biodiversity through stewardship of Indigenous-managed lands.” (Hoffman et al, 2021)
It has been demonstrated in Canada that lands stewarded by Indigenous Peoples who were allowed to maintain their traditional ways support higher levels of vertebrate biodiversity than other protected areas, and that they support more threatened vertebrate species than existing protected areas (Schuster et al 2019). Here are some examples:
Photo by Melanie Mullin

Photo by Ryan Dickie
The caribou connection: About the NBCKC and IKC
Boreal caribou are of significant spiritual, cultural, and practical value to many Indigenous communities that reside within the current and former range of the species. However, existing and ongoing development and resource extraction across the boreal caribou range threatens to destroy the habitat on which they depend. There is an urgent need for all parties concerned with and responsible for boreal caribou to cooperate in stewarding and conserving the species.
Reconciliation in the conservation and recovery of caribou is a founding principle and practice of the National Boreal Caribou Knowledge Consortium (NBCKC) and its Indigenous Knowledge Circle (IKC).
The NBCKC was established in 2018 as part of the federal government’s action plan for boreal caribou. The Consortium is coordinated by a Secretariat within Environment and Climate Change Canada, and is composed of federal, provincial, and territorial governments; academic researchers; industry associations; First Nations, Métis, and Inuit governments, nations, and organizations; ENGO representatives, and consultants. The Consortium’s mandate is to provide a forum for collaboration in support of boreal caribou conservation and recovery by bringing together the expertise and experiences of its members to:
The Indigenous Knowledge Circle (IKC) is a sister group of the NBCKC. It is composed of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit rights holders and their advocates from across the range of boreal caribou. The IKC’s mandate is to advocate for and provide the NBCKC with guidance and feedback on their relationship with Indigenous peoples and Indigenous Knowledge Systems. This is accomplished by:
Photo by Ryan Wilkes
Members of both the NBCKC and IKC have the common goal of recovering and protecting boreal caribou. They also recognize that Indigenous Peoples and their ways of knowing have often been misused or missing completely from caribou conservation projects. The importance of Indigenous leadership and involvement in caribou recovery have been part of conversations since the inception of these groups. In 2020, members of the NBCKC and IKC collectively identified five critical shifts that need to be made in the field of caribou conservation. One of these is a shift to a Two-Eyed Seeing approach. Specifically, the NBCKC and IKC call for the transition to a state where Indigenous and non-Indigenous people share decision-making capacity in the development of collaborative conservation solutions for boreal caribou based on both Indigenous and non-Indigenous knowledge.
While there is a strong desire to move towards working with multiple ways of knowing and partnering between non-Indigenous and Indigenous communities on caribou conservation, there is a lack of clear guidance on how to do this well. The IKC initiated this toolkit project to help those involved in caribou recovery and management overcome the barriers to reconciliation and collaborate effectively across cultures. As work on the toolkit progressed, members of the IKC came to realize that the guidance and tools being collected and developed apply not only to caribou conservation, but to collaborative stewardship projects more broadly. There is a genuine desire that the principles, considerations, and tools provided here will enable fulsome reconciliation, restore broken relationships, and create the best possible outcomes for peoples, lands, and animals.
This toolkit does not include methodologies for implementing caribou-related conservation projects (e.g. how to monitor caribou, how to restore caribou habitat, how to manage caribou populations). These kinds of tools are available through other sources, including the Boreal Caribou Monitoring Toolkit and the Boreal Caribou Ecological Model, both produced by the NBCKC.
References and Useful Resources
Antoine, A., Mason, R., Mason, R., Palahicky, S., & Rodriguez de France, C. (2018). Indigenization, Decolonization, and Reconciliation. https://opentextbc.ca/indigenizationcurriculumdevelopers/chapter/indigenization-decolonization-and-reconciliation/
Boutsalis, K. (2020, September 20). The art of fire: Reviving the Indigenous craft of cultural burning. The Narwhal. https://thenarwhal.ca/indigenous-cultural-burning/
CBC News. (2021, October 9). Manitoba Métis Federation taking province to court over “unconstitutional” moose-hunting ban. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/manitoba-metis-moose-hunting-harvest-ban-1.6231085
Clam Garden Network. (n.d.). Intro to Clam Gardens. Clam Garden Network. Retrieved October 28, 2022, from https://www.clamgarden.com/intro-to-cg
Clam Garden Network. (n.d.). Stewardship. Clam Garden Network. Retrieved October 28, 2022, from https://www.clamgarden.com/stewardship
Department of Justice, Legislative Services Branch. (2021, June 21). Consolidated federal laws of Canada, United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act. https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/U-2.2/page-1.html?wbdisable=false
Hamilton, G. (2017, August 25). The shady past of Parks Canada: Forced out, Indigenous people are forging a comeback. National Post. https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/the-shady-past-of-parks-canada-forced-out-indigenous-people-are-forging-a-comeback
Hoffman, K. M., Davis, E. L., Wickham, S. B., Schang, K., Johnson, A., Larking, T., Lauriault, P. N., Quynh Le, N., Swerdfager, E., & Trant, A. J. (2021). Conservation of Earth’s biodiversity is embedded in Indigenous fire stewardship. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(32), e2105073118. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2105073118
Indigenous Peoples’ Centre for Documentation, Research and Information. (n.d.). Historical process at the United Nations—DOCIP. Historical Process at the United Nations. Retrieved September 6, 2022, from https://www.docip.org/en/oral-history-and-memory/historical-process/
Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami. (2018). National Inuit Strategy on Research. https://www.itk.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/ITK-National-Inuit-Strategy-on-Research.pdf
Pawlowska-Mainville, A. (2020). Environmental Stewardship in Canada | The Canadian Encyclopedia. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/environmental-stewardship-in-canada
Smith, D. B. (2013). Deskaheh | The Canadian Encyclopedia. The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved September 6, 2022, from https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/levi-general