“First Nations and government partners are holding a workshop to develop a course of action to restore and protect the Bras d’Or Lakes…”
So began the invitation to the 2004 Bras d’Or Lakes Collaborative Environmental Planning Initiative workshop. This workshop would bring together representatives of federal and provincial government agencies; municipal councilors and planners; First Nations Elders, Chiefs and community members; members of community groups and non-profit organizations; university instructors and students; representatives of local industries; and residents from all around the Bras d’Or Lakes who were concerned about this unique ecosystem and its future.
This workshop was the first time such a broad spectrum of community representatives gathered together, but not the first time an effort had been made to create a strategy to manage the Bras d’Or Lakes as a unit.
For almost 30 years, various government agencies and interested parties made efforts directed at overall planning and management of the Bras d’Or Lakes. In 1975, the Bras d’Or Institute at the College of Cape Breton [now Cape Breton University, or CBU] proposed the development of a management plan for the Bras d’Or Lakes. This was the first recognition of the need to manage the Bras d’Or Lakes and its watershed lands as a whole. Over the years, many workshops, task forces, conferences, and reports focused on the need to better manage the Bras d’Or. They raised awareness about the pressures on the system and the interconnectedness of the surrounding communities, both human and natural.
In 1995, a report out of the University College of Cape Breton [now CBU] recommended that a central body, The Bras d’Or Stewardship Commission, be created. This commission would take control and responsibility for planning, management, and enforcement in the Bras d’Or Lakes watershed from various government departments unto itself. This was impossible under current legislation. Therefore, the idea was dropped.
The university’s report underlined the need to search for new ways for all concerned to work to protect the Bras d’Or Lakes and watershed lands. Many government departments had active programs addressing social, economic, and environmental issues in the area, and a number of groups and organizations were working to address sustainability issues. Many of these groups and even government initiatives or programs had similar or overlapping objectives/mandates; there was cooperation amongst them, but no coordinated effort to pool resources or work jointly.
The drive to preserve the Bras d’Or into the future came from the people most deeply rooted in its past: the Mi’kmaw of the District of Unama’ki. There are five First Nation reserves in the Bras d’Or watershed, as follows: Eskasoni; Waycobah; Wagmatcook; Potlotek [Chapel Island]; and Malagawatch. There are few permanent dwellings at Malagawatch; it is used seasonally by all the Unama’ki First Nations for recreation, hunting and fishing. Residents of Membertou First Nation also have rights to access to lands, etc. at Malagawatch. The waters of the Bras d’Or and its wealth (or poverty) are a common bond and concern of all the Mi’kmaw of Unama’ki.
The Mi’kmaq population is growing, but their lands are not. Pressures for housing, infrastructure, drinking water, sewage treatment, and employment are increasing in these communities. Deeply connected to the ecosystem through culture as well as proximity, the Mi’kmaw sensed growing distress in the Bras d’Or as they watched fin- and shellfish populations decline as the health of the Lakes deteriorated, and their own way of life became less sustainable. Their communities could not thrive into the future if there were no oysters to harvest, no eels for celebrations, no commercial fishery to provide jobs.
Aware that the problems of the Bras d’Or went far beyond their own communities, the Mi’kmaq Chiefs of Unama’ki called on the provincial and federal governments to account for what was happening in the lakes. In October 2003, more than 100 senior government officials were brought together at the invitation of the CEPI to ensure that government was unified in its support. This workshop resulted in the Unama’ki Institute of Natural Resources at Eskasoni being tasked as the lead agency to continue to bring together various partners and develop a management plan for the Lakes, and to house the Secretariat for the coordination of the CEPI. In 2004, they would bring the governments together with the communities.
The unique and complex effort to ensure the health of this unique and complex ecosystem had begun.
