Tyson Atleo

Why did you join Nature United?

For years, I’d been on the other side, working in partnership with Nature United to develop a land use vision for our traditional territory, our hahoulthlee. The two-year visioning process was empowering for our people. It is literally the first map created in recent history that shows sacred sites, renames places in our language, and pinpoints where and how we will generate income, support our families and build a sustainable future. It also identifies 150,000 acres of areas the Ahousaht would like to see protected. In fact, I’ve said over and over again that it is one of the most monumental undertakings for our nation in my lifetime.

Seeing how Nature United operated really impressed me—never forcing an agenda on our community but instead offering capacity-building and support so we could make our own decisions. More broadly, Nature United is what I would call a "conscious conservation organization," meaning they are aware of the impact of conservation not just on the environment but also on people. Working for an organization where I can advance protection of places like Clayoquot Sound while promoting the health and well-being of Indigenous communities is a childhood dream come true.

How did the partnership with Nature United come about?

My father, Shawn Atleo, invited Nature United to come to Clayoquot Sound after hearing about their work with First Nations in the Great Bear Rainforest. But the partnership has thrived because of the values we share and our respect for one another. The foundation of Ahousaht cultural values is heshook-ish tsawalk, meaning "everything is one." To me, that interconnectivity is the essence of conservation—the recognition that ecosystems are complex and that we have a responsibility to steward those ecosystems because we are part of them; they sustain us.

I’d even go further to say that Nature United’s act of acknowledging and valuing Indigenous peoples’ connection to land is an act of reconciliation. In Canada right now, the most common understanding of reconciliation is around residential schools, but during that era, the Canadian government also took away Indigenous peoples’ right to steward their territories. Nature United is working with their Indigenous partners to return that capacity and responsibility to whom it originally belonged.

In your view, how does economic development fit with conservation?

It’s simple: One is not possible without the other. Access to sustainable economic opportunities is critical to the well-being of local people. And community wellbeing is critical to conservation success. Large-scale conservation can only be successful and sustainable with the full endorsement and leadership of the local people who have the greatest stake in the outcome. Plus, the happier and healthier people are, the more capacity they have to care about and lead conservation.

Developing conservation strategies rooted in economic development is ground-breaking, challenging work. But there are a lot of great examples of success across the world that we can learn from. On a trip to Kenya I learned about how Indigenous grazing communities are working with the tourism industry and Kenyan government to establish new wildlife conservancies on land owned by Indigenous tribes. This can only be possible where industry, communities and government work together to ensure economic certainty for land owners into the future.

We are applying a similar strategy in my home of Ahousaht. Our land use vision protects 82 percent of our territory—a first major step in realizing the economic potential of conservation. The vision builds on a protocol agreement with the B.C. government, and provides certainty for tourism, carbon, energy, aquaculture, restoration, fisheries and other opportunities that may have not been available otherwise. We are leveraging this certainty by developing our own initiatives and working closely with existing businesses to realize mutually beneficial economic opportunities in a diversity of sectors. This provides our people with great deal of opportunity to improve quality of life and community well-being while protecting the local ecosystems.