KA'A'GEE/KAKISA - A four year effort to protect land near Kakisa has moved a step forward for Ka'a'gee Tu First Nation.

In late August, the Canadian Wildlife Service (CWS) agreed to be the sponsoring agency for an area around Kakisa that the First Nation wants to protect. As part of the NWT Protected Areas Strategy the wildlife service will now work with Ka'a'gee Tu and other stakeholders to evaluate the area for permanent protection under the Canada Wildlife Act.

"People were really happy," Chief Lloyd Chicot said of the band's response to the organization - agreeing to sponsor the area.

Ka'a'gee Tu First Nation has been working for four years on the NWT Protected Areas Strategy to reach this point. The work is being done to protect an area amounting to approximately 9,600 square kilometres.

"It's a rich area for hunting and trapping. It's sustained this area for a long time," said Chicot.

The area includes Dog Face Lake in the southwest and abuts the Cameron Hills in the south. It also encompasses Kakisa Lake, Tathlina Lake and part of Beaver Lake in the north. The area was chosen based on advice from elders, but the process to protect it has been grown out of the Interim Measures Agreement and the Dehcho Land Use Plan, said Chicot.

Much of the proposed area is currently protected under the Dehcho Interim Measures Agreement, which expires in October of 2010. The land and what's on it is very important to the people of Kakisa, said Chicot.

"It makes us who we are," he said.

There is still a long process ahead before the land can be designated a National Wildlife Area, said Karen Hamre, the managing director for the NWT Protected Areas Strategy.

The wildlife service is putting appointing a working group assess the area's values and make suggestions on boundaries, management and what protection designation it can receive. The working group will include representatives from environmental groups, First Nations, the territorial and federal governments, affected businesses and the CWS, Hamre said.

To gather information, the area will undergo various assessments including ecological, cultural and socio-economic, and renewable and non-renewable resource potential.

Based on this, the working group will make recommendations - none of which are binding.

If the area is approved for permanent protection it will have to pass through another federal process under the Canadian Wildlife Act.

To date, only one site in the territory has finished the working group stage. It took seven years for Saoyu-?ehdacho, the name for two peninsulas on the west side of Great Bear Lake, to pass this stage.

"It was the very first one and we're a little better at it we hope," said Hamre.

Since some field work and studies have already been done on the Kakisa area, Hamre said the working group could be complete a recommendation report in two to three years.

The band recognizes all of the work needed in order to secure protection for the area, and it is ready to do its part to keep the process moving, said Chicot.

"We're pretty committed to seeing it through," he said.