Bourgouin: ‘The province should be at the table with Mushkegowuk Council’
A proposed marine conservation area in the James Bay Coast is being hindered without the support of the province, Mushkegowuk Grand Chief Leo Friday says. The Mushkegowuk National Marine Conservation Area (NMCA) would protect 86,000 square kilometres of federal waters in the Hudson and James Bays and 20 kilometres of coastal buffer zones under provincial jurisdiction.
The federal waters have been approved for conservation by the Ministry of the Environment, but without Ontario’s approval of the 20-kilometre buffer zone, the NMCA could still proceed but will be “very limited,” according to Lawrence Martin, director of Mushkegowuk Council’s lands and resources department.
Benefits of the Indigenous-led project include protection of fish, beluga whales, polar bears, Indigenous treaty rights, and job opportunities for Indigenous communities in the environmental research and sustainable tourism sectors. A wide diversity of bird species depend on the northern Mushkegowuk area as a breeding ground and it is also home to peatlands that absorb carbon out of the air, mitigating climate change.
According to Mushkegowuk Council, the coastal area, known as “Tawich” in Cree, is home to the southernmost population of polar bears in the world. A conservation area could help preserve polar bear habitats on land and sea ice.
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