Canadian land governance must respect Indigenous rights

Canadian land governance must respect Indigenous rights

Indigenous Peoples make up less than five per cent of the total human population, but support about 80 per cent of global biodiversity.

Yet the impacts of the biodiversity and climate crises are most heavily borne by Indigenous and other racialized peoples, who are far more likely to live near polluting industries such as landfills, trash incinerators, coal plants, toxic waste facilities, industrial resource extraction projects, hydroelectric dams, nuclear power plants and other environmental hazards.

To right the scales of environmental justice — and meet international human rights standards — Canada’s federal and provincial governments must properly implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The David Suzuki Foundation has a long history of supporting Indigenous-led conservation and land governance. As David Suzuki says, “The only people with a track record of living sustainably in place for thousands of years are Indigenous people, and despite all that has been done to get them out of the way, they are still here fighting for their land.”

Please take a moment to tell Canadian government decision-makers you want systems of land governance that respect Indigenous rights, title and law, and incorporate Canada’s commitment to implement UNDRIP.