Foreword

Jody Hilty, President and Chief Scientist, Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative

William (Bill) Snow, Acting Director of Consultation, Stoney Tribal Administration

Majestic and towering and yet uniquely fragile, mountains in Canada sit at the forefront of discussions about cultural regeneration, reversing biodiversity loss, and addressing climate change. Mountains are places of inspiration and rejuvenation for the mind, body, and the soul. For many Indigenous Peoples, they are also places of cultural sites and practices, and areas where cultures would meet and spend time together, to forge alliances and mark celebrations. Indigenous Peoples have long been stewards of mountain environments, and mountains have provided much in return. Today, questions about the guardianship of the mountain areas remains contentious as Indigenous Peoples assert their territories while the Government of Canada refers to much of these lands as “Crown Lands.” In this context, Indigenous Peoples and the federal government are forging new ways forward that enable joint agreements on how lands should be cared for, consistent with the government’s commitment to the United Nation’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation framework.

Mountains in Canada are also important centres of biodiversity; they are home to iconic species such as grizzly bears, wolverine, and mountain caribou, as well as less prominent but no less important flora and fauna. Historically, the general inaccessibility of mountains has meant that human development in the mountains—be it homes and towns, agriculture, or extractive activities—has been slower and less extensive than in more accessible valley bottoms and less topographically diverse regions. However, today mountains across Canada are seeing an increase of human activities and development, as population growth and new technologies result in development reaching ever further into the interior of mountains, up their slopes, and across their many folds. Given Indigenous Peoples’ unique and significant knowledges of mountain ecosystems, it is promising that biodiversity conservation efforts are now advancing in more collaborative ways, leading to conservation efforts that are informed by both Western scientific and Indigenous knowledges of mountain environments, as well as the establishment of Indigenous-led protected areas in mountain regions.

Despite auspicious governance developments, climate change is rapidly transforming mountain areas in Canada, leading to growing concern about impacts on water resources, the structure and function of mountain ecosystems, and the safety and wellbeing of communities in and downstream of mountain areas. This, in turn, is raising awareness about the urgent need for both the mitigation of greenhouse gases as well as adaptation to emerging challenges and potential opportunities of climate change in mountain areas. However, changes are currently outpacing understanding of viable paths forward for mountain areas in Canada in a changing climate.

For these reasons and more, the timeliness of the Canadian Mountain Assessment (CMA) could not be better. It is more imperative than ever that we have clarity about what we know, do not know, and need to know about mountains areas across Canada. It is only with such knowledge that we can make prudent decisions about how we as a society—in all our diversity—can move forward to care for mountains into the future.

The CMA represents a tremendous effort to advance understanding of mountains in Canada, and assessment practices more broadly, through the respectful inclusion of multiple ways of knowing. This involved developing new approaches to bring together Indigenous knowledges with insights from Western academics, including by organizing project governance through a ‘Stewardship Circle’; convening a ‘Learning Circle’ with First Nations, Métis, and Inuit individuals from across mountain areas in Canada; ensuring that chapters were co-led by Indigenous and non-Indigenous authors to support equitable knowledge co-creation; and sharing oral knowledges through embedded videos to respect and support oral knowledge sharing traditions. It also involved significant attention to the protection of Indigenous knowledges, including by developing a publication model that allows for the removal of content into the future, if deemed necessary, consistent with the principle of ongoing consent. Another welcome aspect of the CMA is that those involved with the project explicitly recognize the limits of their individual and collective understanding across different mountain regions, Indigenous territories, and ways of knowing and connecting to mountains. This extends to the overall contribution of the CMA, which is framed as a beginning rather than the final word. Those involved with the CMA should be commended for their humility, and for leading the way in demonstrating how to engage respectfully with a diversity of knowledges in such a major assessment.

Given the many issues facing mountain areas in Canada, it is necessary to both broaden and deepen our understanding of mountains in the country. The CMA’s thoughtful examination of diverse knowledges of mountains in Canada gives us an opportunity to do just this. It also gives us reasons to be hopeful about the future; it provides a very real example of how embracing multiple ways of knowing can enhance our collective understanding of mountains, while also leading to new insights about how we might move forward together in a good way. We are reminded of the words by the late ecologist E.O. Wilson who stated “We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom.” The Canadian Mountain Assessment provides ample food for thought.