The remarkable story of how—in less than a decade—several distinct Guardian Watchmen programs became part of a nine-Nation network of resource stewardship offices, supported by stable funding and operating a robust regional monitoring system, has been making waves far beyond the Great Bear Rainforest and Haida Gwaii. Now known as the Coastal Stewardship Network, it inspires Indigenous peoples from across Canada and beyond. Researchers partner with Network members to tease out best practices in stewardship training for indigenous youth and fisheries monitoring. And the Network was recently cited in a recent New York Times feature about indigenous communities across North America forging new alliances to protect traditional territories. People who played major roles in the Network’s startup and critical build-out years from 2009 to 2012 have generously shared its history and lessons learned.

Funded Guardian Programs, Version 1.0

Although First Nations in B.C. have been involved in resource management and environmental stewardship for millennia, funded Guardian Watchmen programs took root in the early 1990s. That was when the Department of Fisheries and Oceans—responding to Sparrow, a Supreme Court decision that recognized First Nations’ right to fish for food, social and ceremonial purposes—began hiring people from a handful of First Nations along the coast and Haida Gwaii to “observe, record, and report” possible violations of environmental regulations in their traditional territories.

But funding for these early Guardian programs was sometimes scaled back over time for First Nations that wouldn’t sign agreements placing new limitations on their Aboriginal title and rights. Newly trained Guardian Watchmen were frequently lured away to DFO positions, which offered permanent work that Guardian programs couldn’t. The programs were also playing out in the increasingly charged political context of B.C. in the 1990s, when the “War In The Woods” raged between forest companies and conservation groups and First Nations were too often seen as one more stakeholder interest that could be traded off.

In 2000, far-sighted leaders in First Nations formed potent new alliances: the Na̲nwak̲olas Council, which comprised six Nations from BC’s South-Central Coast and Vancouver Island, and Coastal First Nations – Turning Point Initiative (later renamed Coastal First Nations – Great Bear Initiative), composed of nine Nations from the Central and North Coasts and Haida Gwaii. Together, they re-imagined the coastal economy as one that would empower First Nations to thrive while protecting the environment on which their cultures and quality of life depend.

Art Sterritt, the influential First Nations leader who co-founded Coastal First Nations, remembers how momentous changes in land-use planning at the time seemed to promise change for industry and conservationists while leaving First Nations strapped for resources and capacity to ensure that territories are properly managed. “We need to challenge [environmental organizations] to come up with some resources … a program whereby we can steward the resources in the territory in perpetuity,” he remembers thinking. “So we challenged the environmental community to come up with that … to put their money where their mouth is … And they accepted the challenge!”

After more than a decade of negotiations, First Nations, the Government of B.C., environmental groups and forest companies stood together in February 2006 to announce the Great Bear Rainforest Agreements. These agreements were the basis to secure investment of $120 million from philanthropic donors in partnership with the provincial and federal governments to create Coast Funds in 2007 (read more about the origins of that Agreement, and Coast Funds, here). It included more than $56-million for an endowment fund that would generate funds for First Nations’ ongoing stewardship work—forever.

Guardians Power Up

As Coastal First Nations developed new land-use protocols with the B.C. government to implement ecosystem-based management, one thing was clear: long-running Guardian Watchmen programs had an important role.

“[Guardian Watchmen] are our eyes and ears,” explains Sterritt. “They report back to the community, and get their mandate from the community. Their job is to make sure that our territories are protected.”

What better way to explore their collective potential than to bring them together? In 2005, Coastal First Nations convened a meeting in Port Hardy of people working as Guardian Watchmen and in Guardian-like technical roles. Claire Hutton, who helped organize the meeting while working with the Sierra Club, recalls it as transformative.

“When people came together, it was like fireworks went off,” she says, remembering “so many synergies” at that first of many such annual gatherings. Guardians affirmed their deep connection to their work in the face of unceasing pressures on their territories. They voiced their shared desire for recognition of their unique responsibility and comprehensive training, and identified and resolved overlaps in areas that they’d been monitoring. A new Network—the Coastal Guardian Watchmen Network—was born.

[Guardian Watchmen] are our eyes and ears. They report back to the community, and get their mandate from the community. Their job is to make sure that our territories are protected.

During the Network’s early years, member Nations conducted Guardian Watchmen activities through a patchwork of funding sources—like BC Parks, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, the Sierra Club BC, Nature United (formerly TNC Canada), the Rainforest Solutions Project—and volunteer effort. But that changed in 2009, when Coastal First Nations accessed a stable source of funding through Coast Funds’ conservation endowment. It also secured more than $1.3 million of investment from Coast Funds into Coastal First Nations efforts to develop a model for First Nations stewardship departments, to develop community-based Guardian Watchman programs on a regionally integrated basis, and to support establishment of integrated stewardship offices in each member Nation–a key element of which supported the crucial early phase that helped establish the Coastal Stewardship Network.

“That was a pretty radical change,” remembers Hutton, who was hired as the Network’s first coordinator. Finally, Guardian Watchmen got uniforms, flags, and logos to display on trucks and boats to announce their presence and ensure resource users understand the legitimacy of their work. Essential groundwork on governance development, funding strategies, communications, and strategic planning could get done. A short documentary was produced to raise awareness and interest in the work of Coastal Guardian Watchmen.

To meet the Coastal Guardian Watchmen-identified need for training in conservation work, partnerships were struck with academia, including a long-running collaboration with the Hakai Institute—which also provides space for annual Network gatherings and other meetings. The University of Victoria produced a field guide to environmental law for use by Coastal Guardian Watchmen in the field. Watchmen programs, through the Network, worked with Northwest Community College and later Vancouver Island University to develop a highly successful First Nations Stewardship Technicians Training Program (more on this below). It delivers university-accredited training to Indigenous people for work as Guardian Watchmen, and in other stewardship and resource management-related jobs.

Stable funding from the endowment helped leverage funding from many other entities (see ‘Partners’ below) to realize another Coastal Guardian Watchmen-identified priority that was fleshed out in multiple community workshops and conferences between 2009 and 2011: a regional monitoring system (see ‘Getting a high-level view’, below). It also created an outreach and regional monitoring system coordinator position and a Stewardship Network coordinator position.

“That was the shift to [renaming the Coastal Guardian Watchmen Network as] the Coastal Stewardship Network—still focusing on the Guardians, but also bringing everyone in the stewardship office on board,” says Hutton. The name change took place in 2012. For Sterritt, the change also reflected the inherent right of Guardian Watchmen to go beyond “observe, record, and report”, and addressed an arbitrary separation of water and land in planning. “We went away from ‘Guardian Watchmen’ [to Coastal Stewardship Network] simply because it wasn’t just the watching. It wasn’t just fish,” he remembers. “It was looking after the whole thing. Stewardship of the whole territories was how everybody was looking at it.”

Garry Wouters, who served as Coastal First Nations’ Senior Policy Advisor during this period, elaborates: “Over a period of time, First Nations leadership really wants [Guardian Watchmen] to take over, legally, the enforcement of stewardship plans that are done in the conservancies, particularly,” he says, referring to the areas set aside for conservation by members of Coastal First Nations when the Great Bear Rainforest was established.

Over a period of time, First Nations leadership really wants [Guardian Watchmen] to take over, legally, the enforcement of stewardship plans that are done in the conservancies, particularly

In the meantime, the Coastal Stewardship Network continues to amplify the work of Guardian Watchmen from nine Nations, and their respective stewardship offices—involved in everything from research and training to evaluating and responding to land- and marine-use proposals from government and industry.

 

Key Challenges & How They Were Overcome

Overcoming doubts

According to Sterritt, proponents of nascent Guardian programs sometimes “get some pushback, because people don’t quite believe that you can actually do this.” To bring people on board, he’s brought them to see successful First Nations-operated projects—like the hatchery run by the Gitga’at in remote Hartley Bay. “We have people that have a Grade 5 education that are amazing hatchery managers,” says Sterritt. “We knew, because we’d done it before, that we could transfer all of the technology we needed over to any of our people, to do any job that has been done by DFO or anyone else in our territory.”

Reducing impact on trainees

The first iteration of Guardian Watchmen training required people to spend up to four months away from home. Guardians, who range in age from 18 to 50+, found it tough to be away from home and family responsibilities so long. Now training has been re-arranged into shorter modules that rotate around students’ communities. Hutton feels this benefits everyone, and the Network as a whole. Students spend less time away, and get to see other Nations’ territories. There’s been an “incredible development of personal relationships between people from different Nations,” observes Hutton, noting that technical and “Guardian-esque” people across Nations are now “relating to each other in a way they didn’t before.” Today, grads of the First Nations Stewardship Technicians Training Program get so much more than university credits and new and highly marketable technical skills. They come home inspired and enriched by new connections.

Road-testing training

Students appreciate in-class and scenario-based training, but find there’s no substitute for road-testing it—with real-time guidance. A one-on-one component now brings trainers out to communities to work alongside Guardians. Students benefit from instructor feedback and evaluation, and instructors can offer additional, place-specific recommendations to improve safety.

Getting a high-level view

With vast territories to care for, Network members saw the need for monitoring that was regional in scale, standardized, but also adaptive. They wanted better tools to collect and analyze coast-wide data, and to cooperatively monitor things important to all of them. Between 2009 and 2010, the Network developed and launched a regional monitoring system. It allows Guardian Watchmen and others involved in stewardship activities to use tablets in the field to collect data offline, feed it into a coast-wide system for deeper analysis, and learn from all member Nations in the Network. It’s recently undergone an independent review and upgrade.

Jana Kotaska, the Network’s current program manager, emphasizes that the Network “continually evolves” to keep pace with changes in data management, the internet, and broader developments in planning—like implementation of the Marine Plan Partnership for the North Pacific Coast. She says the hiring of a regional monitoring system coordinator has been pivotal. “The Nations now get regular reports [from the system coordinator], and they’re getting more ideas,” says Kotaska. “We’ve been having data going into the system for a long time. Having data coming out of the system and being used is huge—I feel like we’ve turned a corner on that.”

We’ve been having data going into the system for a long time. Having data coming out of the system and being used is huge—I feel like we’ve turned a corner on that.

What Do Guardian Watchmen Track In The Regional Monitoring System?

Patrol effort * Sightings of wildlife, boats, prawn and crab traps * Tourists & their activities, including boating, fishing, and hunting * Impacts to cultural and ecological sites * Suspicious activities * Spawning salmon * Tsunami debris * Stream habitat * Evidence of climate change impact * Implementation of land and marine use plans, like the recently completed Marine Plan Partnership for the North Pacific Coast