How First Nation communities are addressing climate change

The Tít̓q̓et Heat Team held community meetings like this one to raise awareness of heat preparedness.

Tít̓q̓et, a community part of the St’át’imc Nation in B.C., has been severely affected by climate change and extreme weather events such as wildfires and heat events.

These events have disrupted traditional livelihoods such as fishing, hunting and gardening. With funding support from Health Canada, a consultant worked with a local Tít̓q̓et Heat Team to develop a heat response plan that integrates existing emergency plans and builds on local knowledge.

The Tít̓q̓et Heat Team has raised awareness of heat preparedness through various means, including a video made by Chief Sidney Scotchman, social media posts and community meetings. During heat events, staff regularly check in on Elders and the most vulnerable, delivering water and distributing air conditioners. Cooling spaces were also established in two community buildings through the installation of tinted windows and a heat pump.

When developing the heat response plan, both the consultant and the Tít̓q̓et Heat Team saw immense value in engaging with community members and Elders to align temperature and weather data with lived experiences and local knowledge.

Healthy wetlands provide an abundance of benefits to communities and the environment, including water filtration, the recharging of ground water, reduced flooding, water storage during spring freshet, and significant carbon capture.

During the 20th century, many landscape modifications were made in the Creston Valley, located in unceded Ktunaxa ɁamakɁis territory, to compartmentalize and separate wetlands and agricultural fields.

The wetlands near the confluence of the Kootenay and Goat Rivers are thousands of years old. Healthy wetlands provide an abundance of benefits to communities and the environment, including water filtration, the recharging of ground water, reduced flooding, water storage during spring freshet, and significant carbon capture. Hydrated soils can also retain green vegetation and mitigate the risk of wildfire.

In 2017, the Ktunaxa people who reside at Yaqan Nuʔkiy, the Lower Kootenay Band, began planning a comprehensive wetlands restoration project and have had great success in correcting changes made more than 50 years ago.

By bringing them back to their natural state, these wetlands can once again provide habitat for dozens of species, including waterfowl, elk, moose, grizzly bear, mule deer and amphibians. Contrary to settler-colonial ways of thinking, the seasonal ebb and flow of water levels through this wetland offer precisely the kind of stability that is needed in a changing climate.

Yuneŝit'in and Xeni Gwet’in First Nations and their partners are using traditional practices of cultural burning to prevent wildfires from spreading quickly.

Yuneŝit'in and Xeni Gwet’in First Nations are working together with First Nations Emergency Services Society, BC Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations, and Rural Development, and the BC Wildfire Service to revitalize traditional fire management on Tsilhqot’in title lands.

Traditional practices of cultural burning in early spring have a protective effect on the forest by reducing the fuel load—brush, grass, dry twigs and leaves—on the forest floor. This prevents wildfires from spreading as quickly when the season becomes hotter and drier, mitigating their worst effects. Indigenous-led programs like this, which give communities autonomy over forest management programs and land stewardship, are important to community resiliency.

Kanaka Bar Indian Band (KBIB) is one of 15 First Nation communities that make up the Nlaka’pamux Nation. The community of Kanaka Bar is located near Lytton and has been engaged in comprehensive climate planning and action since 2016. KBIB has dedicated leadership related to climate action, resilient governance structures, and a community vision that states, “Kanaka Bar is committed to using its lands and resources to maintain a self-sufficient, sustainable and vibrant community.”

Some of KBIB’s completed projects include a permaculture initiative, a beekeeping initiative, a community solar project, the Siwash Creek hydroelectric project, a climate change vulnerability assessment, and a community resiliency plan. Kanaka Bar is also deeply involved in ongoing work to address heat, drought and wildfires which are particularly threatening in their area.

A member of the ʔaq̓am community of the Ktunaxa Nation lights a test fire ahead of a prescribed fire burn on the community’s land. (Photo credit: Jesse Winter, accessed from The Globe and Mail)

On a 30-degree day in mid-July 2023, two power lines went down in the Ktunaxa Nation community of ʔaq̓am near Cranbrook. A major wildfire began to burn and continued for weeks.

ʔaq̓am has had fires in the past, but noticeably different this year was how quickly the fire grew and spread. The fires devastated some families who lost their homes and still have no way to return. Thanks to many agencies and firefighters from near and far, houses were saved even when everything around them burned. Community members are grateful that nobody was injured or killed, despite the severity of the wildfire.

Just a few months earlier, in April 2023, the Ktunaxa Nation worked in partnership with personnel from ʔaq̓am, the BC Wildfire Service, fire departments from the City of Cranbrook and the City of Kimberley, as well as other contractors, to conduct a major prescribed burn at ʔaq̓am. About 1,200 hectares (12 square kilometres) were part of this prescribed burn, sometimes known as cultural burning or traditional burning.

The partnerships developed during the prescribed burn facilitated a cohesive response to the wildfire that occurred summer 2023. Michelle Shortridge, ʔaq̓am's director of operations, reflected on the many benefits of the prescribed burn which had been more than five years in planning. “It turned out to be a great opportunity to build connections, because the same people who helped with the burn came back to our community to help with the wildfire,” says Shortridge. “Folks knew each other, and who did what. It made our response operations run much smoother than you would expect in an emergency.”

Additionally, the City of Cranbrook fire chief noted that the prescribed burn helped to significantly ease concern with respect to the directions that the wildfire could grow and risk to homes in those areas and allowed crews to focus response efforts in areas where a prescribed burn had not yet been conducted. “Ktunaxa people were known to use burning as a tool, so taking back cultural practices to have healthy forests and ecosystems is important,” says Michelle.

While the community continues to deal with the traumatic physical and emotional impacts of the wildfire, a research project has begun to study the effects of the high-intensity wildfire vs. the low-intensity prescribed burn and offers hopeful evidence of the value of prescribed and cultural burning practices in maintaining forest health and building community partnerships.

“ʔaq̓am has so much gratitude for partners like the Regional District of East Kootenay and BC Wildfire Service, and for our close relationships with our neighbours, the City of Cranbrook and the City of Kimberley,” adds Michelle. “Those agencies truly care about our community. We feel that.”