Opinion: So far, only very short closures of other B.C. parks have been requested
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VICTORIA — Environment Minister George Heyman downplayed the significance this week of the NDP government decision to exclude the public from one of B.C.’s most popular provincial parks, allowing access only to Indigenous people for extended periods.
Joffre Lakes provincial park, alongside Highway 99 east of Pemberton, will be closed to the public for three stretches, totalling 8½ weeks between April 30 and Oct. 6.
During those times, the park, also known as Pipi7íyekw, can only be accessed by members of the Líl̓wat and N’Quatqua nations. They jointly manage the park with the province and sought the closures for harvesting, and spiritual and ceremonial purposes.
“We need to respect that there is an important connection between those two nations and that territory,” said Heyman. “That is not an unreasonable request. That’s a request British Columbians understand.”
The environment minister discounted the likelihood that these closures will lead to similar requests from other First Nations for provincial parks within their traditional territories.
Chief Dean Nelson of the Líl̓wat Nation said his people requested the closures to re-establish their relationship with the place.
“Pipi7íyekw has been a sacred place for our community since time immemorial, providing sustenance and cultural value, integral to our livelihood, that has provided sustenance and cultural value to his community since time immemorial,” he said in a joint news release with the provincial government.
“By implementing these closures, we are striving to reintroduce our community to an area where they have been marginalized. The time and space created by these closures will allow our youth, elders and all Líl̓wat citizens to practice their inherent rights while reconnecting with the land.”
The two First Nations initiated two closures of the park on their own last year, prompting the provincial government to start the negotiations that led to this year’s closures.
While Heyman insisted that the goal was to keep the park open to the public as much as possible, the schedule means access will be cut off for more than a third of the days from May to October. The three closures are April 30 to May 15, June 14 to 23 and Sept. 3 to Oct 6.
“We will have park staff at the gates during those periods of closure to give people information should they show up, why it’s happening, when they can go, what they need to do to get a day pass and ensure there’s information for people.” Heyman told Jill Bennett on CKNW.
When people found out the reasons for last year’s closures, “they were understanding and respectful of the reasons,” says Heyman and he expects they will respond the same way this year.
The environment minister further justified the closures as a way of reducing the stress to the park, which was approaching 200,000 visitors a year before the COVID-19 pandemic, making it one of the most visited in the province.
He has also reduced the number of day use passes to 500 from 1,000, “because frankly it was too high and unsustainable.”
“We want to allow the land not to get overloaded and allow the land, as the nations have said, some period of time to rest,” said Heyman.
Heyman was asked whether the government’s willingness to go along with the closure of Joffre Lakes Park could prompt similar requests from other First Nations.
“Every nation is different, every nation has other priorities, other cultures and other relationships to the land within their parks,” says Heyman. “In some cases land that was important to them to carry on those practices also exists outside the park. We’d be open to discussions, but I don’t see this as precedent setting.”
He maintains the government has no-one-size fits all policy for such requests, but rather a determination to take them one at a time.
“There’s no universal policy. Our policy with each nation is based on the needs and the discussions with that nation. It’s called a distinction-based approach. It served us well in all kinds of agreements around the province.”
Having said that, he confirmed that the government has already engaged in talks with other First Nations about other parks.
“A number of nations have come to us and talked about co-managing some of our parks, working with us around cultural interpretive centres, being part of returning their presence to parks that were initially established without any discussion with them whatsoever.”
So far there have been no requests for closures on the same scale as the ones sought by the Líl̓wat and N’Quatqua First Nations.
“The only other closure requests I’ve ever seen were for very short periods of time to allow a traditional hunt, in which it would be dangerous for other people to be present,” said Heyman.
“That’s been more along the lines of a couple days than a longer period of time.”
For now maybe. But if the New Democrats are reelected, I would be surprised if some other First Nations don’t express an interest in gaining exclusive access to the provincial parks in their traditional territory.
vpalmer@postmedia.com
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