Protecting our coast for everyone's future: Indigenous and scientific knowledge support marine spatial protections proposed by Central Coast First Nations in Pacific Canada

• Published in: People and Nature
• Main Authors: Mike Reid, Muxvpenstista Lena Collins, Smawn Richard J. Hall, Ernest Mason, Gord McGee, Alejandro Frid
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2022
• Subjects: fisheries; indigenous knowledge; indigenous‐led conservation; marine protected areas; marine spatial management; values; envir; droit; British Columbia; Canada; Pacific; First Nations
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10380; https://doaj.org/article/5da9cd6b8a5749b39cc65cd6af075fbd

Abstract We, the Haíłzaqv, Kitasoo Xai'xais, Nuxalk and Wuikinuxv First Nations, are the traditional stewards of our territories in the Central Coast of British Columbia, Canada. Our traditional laws obligate us to manage and protect our territories for current and future generations. Spatial management is inherent to our cultures through the Hereditary Chief governance system, in which specific people within a lineage inherit the rights and responsibilities for stewarding specific areas. Since the 19th century, we have been experiencing cultural disruptions caused by settler colonialism, which are now worsened by the declines of marine species vital to our cultures. These declines reflect fishery impacts exacerbated by climate change. Western fisheries management focuses on maximum sustained yields (MSY), ignoring body size declines that disrupt food webs and diminish population productivity for vertebrate and invertebrate taxa, thereby eroding resilience to climate change. The worldview encompassed by the MSY framework—take the most that you can without compromising future exploitation while assuming no environmental change—is the antithesis of ours—take only what you need and leave lots for the ecosystem. Furthermore, standard stock assessments do not account for uncertainties inherent to climate change effects on distributions and productivity, and many by‐catch species are unassessed. Consistent with our traditional knowledge, scientific evidence indicates that marine protected areas (MPAs), coupled with other measures to reduce fishing mortality, can restore exploited species, safeguard biodiversity and contribute to fisheries sustainability. In the 2000s, we paired Indigenous knowledge and Western science to develop marine spatial plans. These plans are foundational in our contribution to the ongoing development of the Marine Protected Area Network for Canada's Northern Shelf Bioregion (MPAN‐NSB), for which we are co‐governance partners with 14 other First Nations and the governments of Canada and British ...