Defending the Territory

As Hereditary Chiefs we are charged with the responsibility of protecting our people, our territory, our culture and our traditional system.

We are taught that we are not inheriting the land and resources from our ancestors but borrowing it from the future generations.

We are taught that we cannot tell another man what to do on his side of the creek - we can only look him in the eye and tell him our history.

We are taught that recognition of Wilp boundaries and Ayookxw are key to certainty on the land.

We are taught that the only way to move forward is true reconciliation of traditional and government law. As Hereditary Chiefs it is our responsibility to answer the door when opportunity knocks as we were also taught that in order to survive we need to sustain ourselves from the resources on the land, our Haa'nii tokxw. We cannot deny the fact that the BC government is trying to bulldoze through our respective territories, each impacted with various types of development - this only proves that the policies we require to survive have not been developed yet. Provincial and Federal legislation has led to the unsustainable harvest of forest, fish and wildlife on our territories.

It is indeed up to us as Hereditary Chiefs to sit down with government to define these new policies we need to survive; policies that will allow for traditional laws around Canada to function along side Provincial and Federal laws. If we sit back and try to turn away all resource development we essentially accepting the status quo and allowing current flawed policies to govern our respective territories. If we turn away all resource development already established we are then announcing to the world that all hope is lost and we are unwilling to move toward true reconciliation. Neither of these scenarios have any remnants of what we were taught and neither of these scenarios is in the best interests of our people, the very people we are accountable to. "The fate of the planet lies in the hands of the aboriginal and the white mans willingness to stand beside him." We can prove to the world that with First Nations partnership in ANY resource development we bring value to the table with certainty and land title and along with this come benefits. Benefits that we do not use to line our pockets. Benefits we use to ensure that the land impacted today will still be intact by the time our children take over our fight. Benefits that we can use to invest into green energy. Benefits that we use to reverse climate change so that by the time the LNG starts moving through the pipeline our environment will be able to handle the pollution. Each of us has development of some kind on our territories, each of us have trespassers that have gotten comfortable on our respective territories, and each of us have traditions and culture to protect. More than likely, each of us will at some point have to deal with the fact that we are responsible. We are the people put in place to do the work and we are the right people for the job. We have elders alive today that have witnessed the push off the territory onto the reserve and we have to send them to the other side with the message to our grandmothers and grandfathers that have gone before us: we are pushing back onto the territory and we will once again occupy the territory we were forcefully removed from.

Simogit Gamlakyeltxw.