Biodiversity workshop for aboriginal youth

23 June 2010. In 2010, Ikanawtiket organized the Aboriginal Youth ARISES workshop on Canada’s Federal Species at Risk Act (SARA) Listing process to educate and empower aboriginal youth to make an impact on species conservation decision-making.

In Canada, extirpated, endangered, and threatened species can be protected under the SARA through a detailed decision-making process. The first principle of SARA is stewardship and involvement of Canadians, especially aboriginal peoples in decisions about species at risk. Unfortunately, most aboriginal peoples do not know about the SARA Listing process and are therefore unable to meaningfully participate in SARA Listing decisions or species recovery.

The Youth ARISES 2010 workshop proposed SARA Listing of Cusk, an Atlantic groundfish regularly caught as by-catch in the groundfish and lobster fisheries. During the workshop aboriginal youth learned about the six main steps of the SARA process: species and habitat assessments, consultations, social and economic impact analyses, regulatory impact analysis statements and SARA Listing decisions, recovery strategies, and action plans. Young people also role-played as stakeholder groups to gain a better feel for the very real political element in species conservation in Canada.

In total thirty aboriginal young people from the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island completed the Ikanawtiket’s Youth ARISES 2010 course.

Through this workshop and others, Ikanawtiket educates and trains Canada’s aboriginal youth to become future leaders for species at risk. Through more and better participation of aboriginal youth in the SARA process, Ikanawtiket hopes to pressure the government of Canada to abandon its economics-only approach to enhance species conservation.