Blueberry is proud to present a new short documentary highlighting the Nation’s ongoing land restoration work. 

In this video, Blueberry community members and staff from Blueberry’s Restoration Department and Grandmother’s Greenhouse explain the practicalities and impacts of their ongoing work restoring lands disturbed by the oil and gas industry, forestry and wildfires. 

From dormant wellsite reclamation to native plant seed collection and production, Blueberry is working to restore vital habitat for wildlife to support both ecosystems and Blueberry Members’ Treaty rights.

Guided by the principle of Two-Eyed Seeing, where Indigenous knowledge meets Western science, Blueberry is giving health back to the land for future generations.

For more information, please visit the Treaty Case & Implementation Agreement page of the Blueberry website. 

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BRFN Restoration Staff are hosting a film screening of Changing Course: A River’s Journey of Reconnection. We hope you can join us! This is not a paid event, but we expect to have popcorn and great conversation.

Please register here if you would like to attend remotely.

Description from the organizer:

The 2000-kilometre Columbia River flows through the heart of the Pacific Northwest, beginning its journey in British Columbia’s Rocky Mountains and emptying into the Pacific Ocean in Oregon. This transboundary river is critically important for its cultural, social, economic, and ecological values. Telling the story of this majestic river, Changing Course offers a deep sense of the importance of freshwater management—and the complexities added when a river flows across human-defined borders.

The film explores the degradation of what was once one of the most productive salmon rivers in the world. It looks at the dams and storages that eliminated wild salmon from the main stem of the river in Canada, and how this loss cut the heart out of Indigenous culture throughout the basin. The film also touches on the Columbia River Treaty, which came into force between Canada and the United States in 1964. At the time, it had a very narrow focus on flood control and hydropower. Sixty years later, however, new thinking is needed to ensure a sustainable future for this important river.

In Changing Course, leading voices from Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities eloquently express the need for new approaches to water management and governance that are more connected to nature, account for climate change, and meaningfully include First Nations leadership.

Join us for the premiere of Changing Course: A River’s Journey of Reconnection (2024) to celebrate World Water Day, followed by a conversation with Mark Thomas (Councillor, Shuswap Band and Chair, Columbia River Salmon Reintroduction Initiative Executive Working Group), Larry George (Director of Lulumexun (Lands & Self-Governance), Cowichan Tribes), and Katrina Adams (Senior Aquatic Biologist, Peninsula Streams & Shorelines).

Event presented by the POLIS Water Sustainability Project and Centre for Global Studies with support from Creatively United, University of Victoria Sustainability Project, Watershed Watch Salmon Society, University of Victoria Environmental Law Centre, and the Borders in Globalization Lab.

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11527 Alaska Rd. S, Fort St. John

BRFN Restoration Staff are hosting a viewing party for a webinar presented by the Society for Ecological Restoration. This is not a paid event, but we will have popcorn and great conversation. Please join us at the new Restoration office in Fort St. John if you’d like to participate.

To view on your own, please register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/3717074027525/WN_YiJtYI7zQHusLKoYX3HPaA#/registration

Description from the presenter:

Please join the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the Society for Ecological Restoration (SER), and IUCN’s Commission on Ecosystem Management for the official launch of Standards of practice to guide ecosystem restoration: A contribution to the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021–2030. The Standards of practice present a common lexicon for all types of restorative activities under the UN Decade, from reducing societal impacts to ecological restoration, and includes over 300 recommendations to improve benefits of ecosystem restoration to people and nature, across all types of ecosystems from forests to oceans. To celebrate the publication, the collaborative team is hosting two 30-minutes sessions with individuals involved with the development of this important document.

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