EDITED VERSION KFAI Minneapolis - Saint Paul Image removed.FAR NORTH

JERRY REYNOLDS and REBECCA ADAMSON www.firstpeoplesworldwide.org The Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement is the reigning example of global conservation’s disregard for Indigenous Peoples. The CBFA and its enabling legislation, along with the funding that has poured into the project, represents the full playbook for dispossessing Indigenous Peoples in the name of conservation. As such it is worth a closer look.

The process of steamrolling more than 600 First Nations in the Canadian far north – not to mention spending millions of dollars to buy off opposition without the slightest investment in building the capacity of Indigenous communities to participate – had its official beginning in 2007, when 1,500 scientists worldwide petitioned Canadian governmental leaders to set aside at least 50 percent of the northern boreal forest as a “protected area.” Since then, the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement has come to include 21 forest-products corporations and their billion-dollar logging operations, nine environmental NGOs or nonprofit organizations, and not one First Nation.

The blatant disregard for more than 600 First Nations on their ancestral territories has earned the CBFA the united opposition of many Canadian First Nations.

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