Natural Resources
A key component of creating healthy Hul'qumi'num communities depends on having access to the natural resources both within and beyond our core traditional territory. Marine and forest resources have always provided food for our people and played a key role in our social and cultural lives. These resources are essential to sustaining our economies and generating wealth for our communities. Our once rich ecosystem has been depleted over the years by the over-harvesting, pollution and ongoing development. Accordingly, the Hul'qumi'num people have lost opportunities to practise and prosper from our traditional ways of life.
We will work in treaty to gain access to resources that sustained our traditional way of life, both within our traditional territory and beyond, as well as to gain a meaningful say in the management of the shared ecosystem. We will also work to ensure that the treaty provides mechanisms for the recovery and restoration of the abundance and diversity of natural resources in our territory.
Forests
Forest lands and the timber and non-timber resources on them will form an important component of the treaty. Hul'qumi'num lands will provide our communities with expanded ownership of access to timber areas for economic development. Throughout our law-making authorities, our people will be able to control the way forestry is practised on our lands, protecting the environment while allowing for much needed economic development.
Of all the forest lands in Hul'qumi'num territory, 12% are currently Crown lands and 88% are privately held. This creates some serious challenges at our treaty table. We are developing approaches to co-management, revenue sharing and harvesting rights — including the harvesting of non-timber resources — on other Crown and privately owned forest lands to meet our objectives of getting to 100%.
Fish
Fishing remains an integral part of Hul'qumi'num culture and economy. Our people have traditionally fished and harvested sea resources within a broader area than that defined by our core traditional territory. Our fishing territory extends north to Cape Mudge, east to Yale on the Fraser River, south into Puget Sound and west along the Juan de Fuca Strait. Our commercial fishermen have travelled still farther in pursuit of their traditional livelihoods. We have always traded and sold our marine resources with our neighbours and respected each other’s territories.
The treaty must provide opportunities for our people to continue this way of life into the future. Fish allocations will provide certainty and priority for our traditional needs by defining the number and types of fish we will have a right to harvest. The allocations will carve out a secure place for our people’s food, social and ceremonial needs, and opportunities to make what the courts have called a moderate livelihood.
For non-allocated species, we feel that Hul'qumi'num people still have a priority right. This means that when a species is in decline, other users, such as sport and non-aboriginal commercial fishermen, would be restricted from harvesting that species before restrictions are placed on Hul'qumi'num fishers.
Agreements for commercial fishing and aquaculture capacity will provide opportunities for Hul'qumi'num communities to generate wealth. We are negotiating for an agreement regarding access to fish and marine resources throughout our fishing territory that will provide wealth producing, commercial fisheries opportunities.
In areas where sedentary intertidal and marine species — such as clams and crabs — live, we are developing ways the treaty can provide the same kind of strong management of and access to marine resources as our people have traditionally practised.
Wildlife
As they did with fish, our ancestors travelled extensively to harvest wildlife resources, a practise that is continued today by our hunters. Our hunting territory is therefore greater in scope than our core traditional territory. Furthermore, economically-driven land use decisions by governments and land holders have increased the need in recent years for our people to hunt far away from our homes and core traditional territory.To reflect the historic and present realities, we are negotiating for the recognition of a harvest area which ensures that Hul'qumi'num hunting rights can be exercised throughout the Coast Salish world. Protocols with our First Nations neighbours will inform the way we exercise our right to harvest and manage wildlife resources throughout this area into the future.
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