It was an emotional moment for Gillian Staveley when the B.C. government and five Indigenous nations announced earlier this month that they were embarking on new land-use planning across the northwest.
“To us, it was a huge milestone,” said Staveley, the director of culture and land stewardship at the Dena Kayeh Institute, a non-profit focused on protecting and empowering Kaska Dena language and Traditional Knowledge.
For decades, the Kaska Nation has been working to protect its homelands. The nation has proposed a four million hectare Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area (IPCA) called Dene K’éh Kusān. The hope is that the province will formally recognize the IPCA in the final land-use plan for the area.
“This isn’t just about protecting land and leaving it be, it is really, truly about protecting a way of life,” Staveley said.
“[Dene K’éh Kusān is] a promise to our ancestors and our children that we will uphold our role as land stewards. Formal recognition by B.C. would help give that promise the legal and political standing it deserves,” she said.
The B.C. government is simultaneously undertaking land-use planning processes with the Kaska Dena, Tahltan, Taku River Tlingit, Gitanyow and Nisga’a nations. The timeline is ambitious. Over the next year, they plan to gather broad input and develop plans that outline which areas will be protected and which will be open to new resource development. Online surveys to gather community input are now open. Mineral staking across a third of the area has been paused for one year as the planning process unfolds.
At a time when numerous wildlife populations in B.C. are declining in the face of increasing habitat loss, the land-use planning process offers an opportunity to conserve vast stretches of land and water home to salmon, caribou, grizzly bears and many other species — a move that would also support B.C.’s commitment to conserve 30 per cent of land and waters by 2030.
But the land-use planning announcement also came at a time of political tension in B.C., as the NDP government pushed through controversial legislation aimed at fast-tracking infrastructure and resource development projects it deems to be of significance amid an ongoing trade war with the United States. Both Premier David Eby and Mining and Critical Minerals Minister Jagrup Brar have positioned the northwest as key to B.C.’s economic prosperity moving forward.
“I, like so many others, share deep concerns about bills 14 and 15, but at the same time, we’re also very encouraged by the commitment that we are seeing in our region in particular,” Staveley said. “It’s not perfect, but I would say it is an example of what can happen when Indigenous leadership is respected.”
Here’s what Staveley had to say about Dene K’éh Kusān and the land-use planning process now underway.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Dene Kʼéh Kusān is the Kaska’s vision for an [Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area] that we have in the heart of our ancestral territory in northern B.C. It means “the people’s way we follow” in our language, and we named it that as a reminder of the responsibility that a lot of us as Kaska Dena feel that we have to the land and waters that we call home. So, it has a lot of meaning and reverence in our community.
It’s nearly 4 million hectares, so 40,000 square kilometers of land that we’re trying to protect. It’s a place with deep ecological and cultural significance. I think it’s important to emphasize the critical species that we’re trying to protect there, like the seven caribou herds that are in that region, but also our ancestral trails that have connected our communities for millennia.
There are so many. This land that we’re trying to protect is where my family is from. It’s where I’ve spent a lot of time learning about our history and listening to our Elders and reconnecting, really, with our responsibilities as Kaska Dena. Some of those places that I hold such deep reverence towards are where my family lives to this day, in an area called Moose Lake. My family is working towards developing a conservation-based economy in that area already. It’s such a beautiful example of what’s going to be possible.
Some of the integral watersheds within that region, the Kechika River, the Liard River and the Turnagain River — Tāhad̄źěhʼ, Tāghʼagah Tuēh and GāhʼCho in the Kaska Language — are all really special places to me, personally, having gotten to spend a lot of time there growing up. It’s in the heartland you could say of our IPCA proposal. And what I think is of a really deep reverence to a lot of people, is the Atse Dena Tunna trail that connects our communities. That’s something that a lot of our people want to see protected and want to reconnect to as part of this work.
I think we see it as this turning point. For decades the Kaska have been working hard to see our values reflected in how land is cared for and last week’s announcement showed that clear commitment from the province to walk on that path with us. It was pretty significant for us to see that the government’s willing to formally pause mineral staking in that area and commit to work with us to co-develop a land-use plan for our Traditional Territory in B.C. That’s not something we take lightly.
It’s totally ambitious. But I would say it’s not impossible. The Kaska Nation has already done so many years of work laying the groundwork for this, mapping, planning, consulting with our people. We’re not starting from scratch, and I think now we just need to make sure that the province is bringing that same readiness and capacity and urgency to the table.
The Kaska have been doing land-use planning for decades — 99 per cent of our territory in B.C. is covered in land-use plans. What’s different here is that we’re coming from a very shared land stewardship vision, which is the first time I’d say that we’ve been able to succeed in that work with the province.
We’re just going to need to make sure that when we’re updating those land-use plans that have already been developed that we’re reflecting on present day needs, but also future considerations, so that they can be more timeless. These plans that guide how the land is utilized and the relationship we have to it need to include ecosystem health, climate change, emergency response — all those elements that can help us address future challenges.
If we’re going to be sitting down together and talking about values and priorities and interests, we need to make sure that area isn’t under threat. So when we were able to get that tenuring pause that was huge for us because it basically eliminated the threat of new placer and mineral claims or issuance of new coal licenses within that year period, so that we can just focus on what needs to be done.
Obviously it doesn’t impact existing tenure holders, but it at least allows us to make sure we’re not having a staking rush in our territory, which is something we have dealt with in other parts of our Traditional Territory.
We thought through a lot of those elements when we were designing the IPCA boundaries and we netted out a lot of those huge resource development interests. So, there are very few mineral tenure holders in the IPCA area. The relationships we’ve developed with industry and stakeholders is also allowing us to feel a level of comfort, knowing that we’re doing this the right way, through communication and transparency and hopefully that will help us along as time goes on. Because that is always the biggest challenge with this work, and it’s what many other IPCA proposals are struggling with, is the mineral tenure buyouts.
One of my biggest hopes through this work is that we’re going to get some sort of formal recognition of Dene Kʼéh Kusān as an IPCA. That’s the ultimate goal.
When we’re updating these land-use plans, we can have conversations about what we need to do to protect cultural and ecological values for generations to come but also look at more sustainable economic development. A big thing that we’re trying to achieve is growing the conservation economy in our region, and I know our neighboring nations feel the same. We want to be able to showcase that we can actually protect the land and provide meaningful land-based livelihoods for our people and the communities in the north and maybe that’ll be the model to build from in other parts of the province and across Turtle Island.
Updated June 19, 2025, at 11:30 a.m. PT: This story was updated to clarify that 99 per cent of Kaska territory in B.C. is covered by land-use plans.
You may have noticed Canadians are in a bit of a mood ever since a certain somebody threatened our sovereignty and economic well-being. The impact...
Continue reading
‘I took an oath that I would risk my life for what Canada stood for’:...
Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. failed to deliver on a promise to deactivate thousands of inactive...
These companies say their tech could help engineer our way out of climate change. Will...
8 min. read