Think conservation threats to the trans-boundary Flathead drainage have settled down? Maybe not…

The leader of one of four Ktunaxa First Nations in B.C. says she’s lost confidence in ongoing discussions between the nations and the federal and provincial governments over land management and potential conservation measures in the Elk and Flathead valleys.

“It boils down to trust,” Yaq̓it ʔa·knuqⱡi’it First Nation Nasuʔkin (Chief) Heidi Gravelle said in an interview. “We definitely do not have that sense of trust right now with how this process has broken down.”

Recent discussions have centred on two parcels of land known as the Dominion coal blocks, which together cover 200 square kilometres in the Elk and Flathead valleys in Ktunaxa Nation territory in southeast B.C. The Flathead Valley, in particular, is an area where Gravelle wants to see Indigenous-led conservation.

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