By Andrew Mitchell
The Lil’wat Nation tabled the first phase of a land use plan in mid-October, expressing their vision for the types of activities that can take place in different zones within their traditional territory, and expanse of nearly 740,000 hectares.
Within that territory — an area that includes Whistler, Pemberton, the Soo and Callaghan valleys, as well as 13 provincial parks — they have created six land use designations that permit or restrict different kinds of activities.
The highest level of protection is given to Nt’ákmen (Our Way) Areas, which are designated for purely First Nations traditional activities and prohibit activities like industrial resource extraction, intensive tourism and land development. Identified Nt-ákmen areas include the Upper Soo Valley, an area also of interest to Whistler environmentalists.
In 2004, the Association of Whistler Area Residents for the Environment put forward a proposal to set aside 6,500 hectares of the Upper Soo Valley as a wildlife refuge to offset the Olympic development taking place in the neighbouring Callaghan. Although the idea has so far been rejected by the provincial government and the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Games, members of the Sea to Sky Land and Resource Management Plan have approved the concept in principle — providing timber companies were compensated for the loss of a portion of their harvesting land base. The Squamish Nation also identified the land as a sensitive area within their own land use plan, which overlaps with Lil’wat plans in several areas.
With the Lil’wat designating the Upper Soo as a Nt’ákmen area, the idea of creating a wildlife refuge in the area has been given a considerable boost.
“As far as the Upper Soo is concerned, we recognized the considerable wilderness values in the Upper Soo years ago but the Lil’wat Nation have been on the land there for a very long time and have a better understanding than we do of those values,” said Eckhard Zeidler, who first spearheaded the AWARE proposal for an environmental legacy in the Soo back in 2002. Zeidler was elected to municipal council in 2005, where he continues to back the idea.
“It’s really encouraging for us as friends of the Soo to see that they’ve expressed those values by designating it as Nt’ákmen,” he continued, “as well as the fact that they’ve recognized that and enshrined it in their Land Use Plan.”
The Lil’wat Nation’s plan will be further refined and detailed in future iterations, but it’s unknown how it will work with the provincial government’s Sea to Sky Land and Resource Management Plan. The Sea to Sky LRMP is mostly complete and is expected to go to provincial cabinet this winter for final approval, but in the meantime it is being used as an interim guide for the region “pending completion of Government to Government discussion with First Nations and the final approval of the LRMP”. There will also be a public review of the plan, pending the completion of the government to government talks.
The area that includes the Soo Valley on the LRMP map is currently identified as “unresolved”.
In addition to potentially providing additional protection to the Upper Soo, the Lil’wat plan also designates the area around Whistler as a ‘Conditional Economic Development Area’, which means that economic activities can take place on the land providing they protect Lil’wat cultural and environmental values, and are sustainable.
The Resort Municipality of Whistler, which is applying for a Community Forest timber harvesting tenure covering 55,000 hectares, does not see any conflict with the Lil’wat Land Use Plan.
“I think it’s important that we as a council and a community fully understand the wishes of First Nations as expressed in land use plans,” said Zeidler. “These aren’t land claims or anything of the sort, they are more of an expression of how they want to see the land used or not used, and I think we need to take that into consideration.
“The government to government negotiations are ongoing between the province and First Nations, and that high level plan, when it’s finished, will legislate land use in the region. That will include things like the Community Forest and Sea to Sky LRMP.”
The four other land designations made in the Lil’wat plan include Collaborative Management Areas, Cultural Education Areas, Stewardship Areas, and Managed Resource Use Areas.
The Collaborative Management designation refers to the 13 provincial parks in Lil’wat territory, echoing the concerns voiced by other First Nations around the province regarding access to provincial parks. First Nations would like to be able to freely access provincial parks for a variety of traditional uses, from hunting and fishing to the gathering of food and medicines.
The Cultural Education designation preserves areas for cultural teaching about the land, its cycles and, according to the executive summary “its limits.”
Stewardship designations will allow some low impact economic activities such as tourism, but would prohibit industrial logging, most types of mining, motorized tourism, power projects and other forms of land development. They will be managed to protect ecological values and water quality.
Lastly, the Managed Resource Use designation allows all types of economic activities as long as cultural and environmental values are preserved.
The draft 86-page Lil’wat Land Use Plan is only considered a starting point for the band, which will become more detailed in future drafts. Furthermore, it’s intended to be a living document that is open to change and revision over its lifespan.
