Grant Amount: $50,000
Intake Year: 2024
Region: Fraser Basin
Project Theme: Land & Water-based Learning, Knowledge Sharing and Watersheds & Food Systems
B.C. Nature and the Tsal’alh First Nation are partnering together to undertake first-of-its-kind work on a salmon stock unique to St’át’imc territory. In Anderson and Seton Lakes, there is a unique population of Kokanee Salmon found nowhere else on earth and known to the St’át’imc People as Gwenis.
Despite Gwenis’s significance to the St’át’imc people and ecosystems of Anderson and Seton Lakes they are barely known outside of local communities and have been consistently ignored in local land use planning, industrial impact mitigation and monitoring and collaborative water use planning. A challenge in and of itself, this reality is made all the more challenging due to the rapid and recent decline in Gwenis numbers, as identified by elders and traditional harvesters. Because of this, the Papt Ku Gwenis aims to achieve three goals:
1. Work with St’át’imc community members to document the significance of Gwenis, the threats they face, and community priorities for restoration action.
2. Raise awareness of this fascinatingly unique salmon and its significance to the surrounding human and ecological communities, both regionally and provincially.
3. Fill in key gaps in the understanding of Gwenis ecology to guide future restoration work aimed at ensuring the long-term sustainability of Gwenis.
Work will be centred in and around the community of Tsal’alh (Seton Portage), west of Lillooet.