Aski Reclamation staff collect seeds from native plants as part of their reclamation work, in order to ensure restored sites are both ecologically diverse and culturally grounded. Photo Credit: Quinton Tutin/The Narwhal
Environment CanadaReviving Ancestral Lands: Indigenous People Are Healing the Environment
A First Nations corporation is hard at work restoring traditional Indigenous homelands in British Colombia, Canada, to wetlands by reclaiming land degraded by oil and gas, mining, and forestry.
“People here are invested long-term with the objective of having land that supports them and their cultural activities,” explains Alycia Aird, a member of Saulteau First Nations and general manager of Aski Reclamation LP that employs local Indigenous people to restore First Nations’ homelands.
Located 750 kilometres northeast of Vancouver, the ancestral land of the Saulteau and West Moberly Lake First Nations has thousands of old and abandoned wells – each disturbed local ecosystems and has the potential to contaminate nearby water sources and emit planet-warming gases like methane – from one to 48 grams per hour. In 2019, the Saulteau First Nations started to collect plant data, compiling information dating back at least 50 years and creating a database of native trees, shrubs, and grasses. Then, the reclamation team identified what plants to reintroduce to the site and planted several native species like black spruce trees, cottonwood, willow, and red osier dogwood. Five years later, even native animals have returned to the site. “There are frogs all over the ground, birds are chirping; it’s an ideal candidate for what restoration looks like,” adds Aird.
