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The Edehzhie is known as the Jewel of the Dehcho. (Credit: Northwest Territories Protected Areas Strategy).
Imagine a landscape of vast boreal forest, wild rivers, rugged peaks and abundant wildlife, like moose and caribou. Many Canadians are privileged to have this landscape as their national "backyard." For the Dehcho First Nations of the Northwest Territories, however, this is much more than a backyard; it's their ancestral homeland.
In 1998, to protect special parts of the Arctic from industrial development, the governments of Canada, the Northwest Territories and First Nations like the Dehcho launched the Protected Areas Strategy (PAS).
This collaboration worked well for over a decade. But in 2010 the federal government did an about turn and suddenly opened the area to mining, removing the protection afforded by the strategy to exceptional places like Edehzhie (also called "Jewel of the Dehcho"). The Dehcho were not warned in advance, even though they had been involved in the decision-making to protect this extraordinary part of Canada.
On April 15, 2011, Grand Chief Samuel Gargan of the Dehcho wrote to the three main federal election candidates in the Northwest Territories to ask what they thought should happen to Edehzhie. To find out what the candidates had to say, please read this document from the Dehcho.
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