Daniel MacIsaac
Northern News Services

NNSL (Apr 26/99) - The territorial government has dedicated a report on protecting Northern lands to two men who dedicated their lives to the cause.

Stephen Kakfwi, minister of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development, announced in the legislature Monday that cabinet had approved the Northwest Territories Protected Areas Strategy report -- which he said represented the calumniation of years of work by the advisory committee.

"It is dedicated to the memory of two members of that group," Kakfwi said, "Mr. Nelson Green -- a champion of Inuvialuit culture, traditions, language and harvesting rights -- and Mr. Ron Seale -- a man who devoted both his professional and personal life to preserving our wild spaces and parks."

Working to develop a framework to guide the work of identifying and establishing protected areas in the NWT, the advisory committee was comprised of all levels of government and community representatives. Green and Seale worked on the committee and toward producing its final report until their untimely deaths, within a month of each another, earlier this year.

Norm Snow, executive director of the Inuvialuit Joint Secretariat, said from Inuvik on Friday that as one of the original negotiators of the Inuvialuit land claim, Green brought his years of experience to the committee.

"The Inuvialuit members had really developed their own preservation strategy," he said, "and were there to say, 'This is how we did it here.'"

Snow said Green effectively balanced both the needs to conserve and use natural resources.

"He always upheld the principles of the Inuvialuit Final Agreement -- that the Inuvialuit should guarantee renewable resources for future generations in perpetuity," said Snow.

Seale's wife, Elizabeth, said Thursday that her husband had spent his whole life working with protected areas and that he also believed in this link between conserving resources, harvesting them and culture -- a comprehension that she said allowed him to work successfully with aboriginal groups like the Inuvialuit.

Elizabeth said she first met Green in 1996 while standing in for her husband during discussions on Tuktut Nogait park outside Inuvik.

"I could see they respected him," she said, "and it was really quite moving."

Elizabeth said because Seale was in Africa at the time, the Inuvialuit participants all signed a commemorative baseball cap for him, honouring his work.

She said even Seale's work for Mount Elgon park in Uganda reflected the approach he took in the territory.

"He took a different approach, that we use here in the North, that local people should have some access to the resources -- local people had been harvesting bamboo there forever," she said.

Elizabeth said Seale's memory will also live on through the Yellowknife Ski Club -- where he instructed the young Jackrabbits and which presented the first Ron Seal Leadership Award on Saturday.

Meanwhile, having received a thumbs up from the territorial cabinet, the Protected Areas Strategy now heads to Ottawa for approval by Indian Affairs and Northern Development Minister Jane Stewart. The work of both men lives on.