150,000 Sq. Miles To Be Protected In Canada’s Northwest By Coalition Of First Nations

150,000 Sq. Miles To Be Protected In Canada’s Northwest By Coalition Of First Nations

150,000 Sq. Miles To Be Protected In Canada’s Northwest By Coalition Of First Nations Signatories to the NWT Our Lands for the Future agreement – photo supplied by Angela Gzowski / Indigenous Leadership Initiative In the far northern reaches of Canada, an agreement has been made to give stewardship over an area twice the size of Florida to a coalition of First Nations. For the purposes of conservation, $375 million will help build sustainable, resilient local economies not based on extraction that will see 150,000 square miles of land and fresh water protected in the long term. Penned in Yellowknife, the largest settlement in the Northwest Territories, it’s called the NWT: Our Land for the Future Trust, and is the largest agreement of its kind in North America. “This document we signed today has been a long time in the making. It reflects years of collaboration and commitment from indigenous leaders across the North,” said Chief Ernest Betsina of the Yellowknives Dene First Nation, one of …