NWT team heads to Alaska
Mike W. Bryant
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (May 21/01) - The Northwest Territories is jumping on board with countries from across the Northern hemisphere for an international discussion on protected wilderness areas.
Three delegates from the NWT attended the Circumpolar North Wilderness Seminar in Anchorage, Alaska last week to compare efforts in protecting wild spaces and heritage places across the Northern hemisphere.
"What we want to highlight for the audience and participants of the conference is the community-driven process that's being implemented through the NWT Protected Areas Strategy," said Angela Stadel, NWT Protected Areas Strategy Advisor.
The NWT Protected Areas Strategy has been in operation since 1999. It is a joint project involving both federal and territorial governments and First Nations groups.
Stadel, along with Implementation Co-ordinator Heidi Heder, and Raymond Taniton, former Chief for Deline and now Project Co-ordinator, focused their presentation mainly on Sahyoue and Edacho, the two western peninsulas on Great Bear Lake.
These two areas, also known as Grizzly Bear Mountain and the Scented Grass Hills, were commemorated as Canadian heritage sites in 1999.
Sahyoue and Edacho have been recognized by the NWT Protected Areas Strategy as an important cultural landscape that is the source and living legacy of the stories of the Sahtu Dene.
"What we are finding is that a lot of these are being selected on their cultural values," Stadel said.
"They might be gathering places, burial grounds, and key harvesting areas both from the past and in ongoing use."
Stadel said the NWT must do more to ensure that these areas and others under consideration, such as the Horn Plateau, are protected from mining and development.
"What we're finding in the NWT is that the legislation doesn't match the protection needs of these cultural areas," Stadel said.
"There's a lot of development interests in the North and PAS (Protected Areas Strategy) is a key component in highlighting important areas that need protection."
