Wabanaki Connections Gathering
In early March, Phil Huffman, QLF’s Senior Vice President, Regional and Global Programs, had the honor of participating in the ground-breaking Wabanaki Connections Gathering in St. Andrews, New Brunswick. The gathering, orchestrated by former QLF staff member Patricia Nash, was designed “to reunite Wabanaki Nations [across the US-Canada border] and identify opportunities to work together to connect sky, lands, and waters for sovereignty and self-determination”. Hosted by the Unama’ki Institute of Natural Resources, the meeting brought together about 25 Wabanaki leaders and non-native conservation colleagues from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Maine, and neighboring areas.
Phil was invited to co-present on the big picture of transboundary connectivity work in Northeastern North America/Turtle Island with Mikael Cejtin, Coordinator of the Staying Connected Initiative (SCI). Together, Phil and Mikael described SCI’s innovative, multi-pronged approach to conserving and restoring ecologically connected lands and waters for all life in the region. They also highlighted SCI’s efforts in recent years to elevate Indigenous knowledge, perspectives, and priorities through the 2024 Connectivity Summit in Montréal/Tiohtià:ke, Québec and the resulting publication Pathways to an Ecologically Connected Transborder Landscape, both of which were spearheaded by QLF.
The gathering in St. Andrews was an inspiring opportunity to build relationships, share information and ideas, and explore potential collaboration to enhance biocultural connectivity and accelerate land return, access, and stewardship authority for Wabanaki Nations. It is too soon to say where it may lead, but we are eager to help support further efforts in whatever ways we can.
QLF’s involvement in this dialogue with Wabanaki colleagues extends our long history of working with Indigenous leaders, communities, and organizations to help meet their needs and advance stewardship of natural and cultural heritage in our home region and beyond. This traces back to our earliest days of community service in rural communities in eastern Canada, the initial vision for QLF of our Founder, Robert A. Bryan.
This deeply rooted tradition continues across our current programs – from the increasing attention to Indigenous aspects in the connectivity work described above, to on-the-ground stewardship activities in partnership with Mi’gmaq organizations in New Brunswick, to helping ensure Indigenous-led conservation and rights are fully integrated in nation-by-nation implementation of the Global Biodiversity Framework and “30×30” conservation commitment. We look forward to further building our alignment and collaboration with Indigenous colleagues from local to global in the coming years.
