Manitoba wildfire impacts on First Nations prompt calls for environmental justice

During the past month of wildfires in Manitoba, thousands of people were displaced from Northern First Nations. For climate disasters, this is not unusual.

Clayton Thomas-Müller, co-founder of Indigenous Climate Action, says First Nations are often located near both environments vulnerable to climate change and the industries that contribute to it.

“When we look at where Canada’s most toxic, climate-wrecking, water-poisoning industries tend to be, they tend to be adjacent to Indigenous communities,” says Thomas-Müller. “So, when we think about environmental racism in our country and systemic racism, Indigenous peoples are most certainly at the top of impacts.”

What’s more, First Nations often don’t have the firefighters or equipment to respond to a massive blaze. Researchers call this a lack of environmental justice: when people bear the effects of climate change without being meaningfully included in climate response and policy.

Deborah McGregor, who leads the Indigenous Environmental Justice project at York University in Toronto, says Indigenous peoples are often inserted into policies, but not at the centre of them.

“They don’t seem to be geared toward supporting actual First Nations governance — what I call First Nations climate governance — which is you’re going to have agency in terms of how you’re going to address climate change in your community and what those impacts might be,” says McGregor.

She adds there are plenty of programs and grants that nations can apply for, but there’s a desire for deeper collaboration.

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MacGregor says there should be more initiatives focusing on Indigenous knowledge, such as Parks Canada’s advisory circle on cultural burning for forest management.

“You can’t manage forests in the way that you did. Indigenous peoples are not even part of forest management in most places in Canada.”

Grand Chief Kyra Wilson of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs says as fire seasons start earlier and become more destructive, it is no longer enough to deal with disasters when they happen. Governments must take a more proactive approach, with First Nations at the table.

“We’ve been saying, we understand the lands and we understand what we need in the communities, and we don’t want to be reactive anymore,” says Wilson.

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