00:02:33.920Someone to lean on and someone to trust
00:02:38.560Who needs your assistance and finds your disgust
00:02:43.100Hello and welcome to For the Wild podcast. I'm Ayanna Young.
00:02:58.200Today we will be speaking with Ian McAllister.
00:03:01.500Ian is co-founder and executive director of Pacific Wild,
00:03:04.700a non-profit located in the heart of the Great Bear Rainforest,
00:03:08.980committed to defending wildlife and their habitat on Canada's Pacific coast.
00:03:15.020He is an award-winning photographer and author of six books,
00:03:18.520and his images have appeared in publications around the world.
00:03:23.100Ian is a member of the International League of Conservation Photographers
00:03:26.940and a recipient of the North America Nature Photography Association's Vision Award
00:03:32.580and the Rainforest Action Network's Rainforest Hero Award.
00:03:37.260He and his wife, Karen, were named by Time Magazine amongst leaders of the 21st century
00:03:42.920for their efforts to protect British Columbia's endangered rainforest.
00:03:47.380He lives with his family on an island in the heart of the Great Bear Rainforest.
00:03:52.280Well, hello, Ian. My warmest welcomes to you. Thank you so much for joining us on the show.
00:03:58.320Thanks for having me and my pleasure to speak with you today.
00:04:02.480Well, it's an honor to be speaking with somebody who knows as intimately as you do the rugged coast of northern British Columbia, a land where mountain and sea are inseparable and ancient relationships that benefit the whole such as salmon and bear or wolf and raven still hold on.
00:04:23.700and we at For the Wild feel a call to rally for the protection of these northern lands and waters
00:04:30.640that shelter the last intact stretches of temperate rainforests on the planet. And we're soon launching
00:04:37.360a campaign to end old-growth logging in the Tongass National Forest of southeast Alaska,
00:04:42.440for we believe it's our public responsibility to protect these irreplaceable ancient forests,
00:04:49.280especially as U.S. taxpayer dollars continue to fund their slaughter and in this time where human
00:04:55.520civilization is quick to suffocate any land that still clings on to their wildness we're truly
00:05:01.540devoted to multi-species justice and the protection of as much wild land as possible
00:05:07.420and the temperate rainforest is just so dear to our hearts so you know Ian you have devoted your
00:05:15.920life, to being a voice for the incredible species that call these disappearing slivers of old growth
00:05:22.200home. And I'm so grateful for your work and the work of everyone at Pacific Wild. So truthfully,
00:05:28.600there is so much we would love to ask you about in this interview, from current logging practices
00:05:33.780in the Great Bear Rainforest, to ecosystem health amidst the death throes of oil development,
00:05:39.600nuclear fallout and climate change, salmon farming, even the recent ban on the trophy
00:05:44.680hunting of grizzlies, marine protection of great bear waters. Honestly, the list goes on. It feels
00:05:51.640right to let the wolf cultures that gifted you their trust steer this conversation. So with the1.00
00:05:59.080help of their salmon kin, these island wolves, they blur the boundaries between marine and terrestrial
00:06:04.560and are the ultimate testament to wild functioning ecosystems. The lives of these wolves are
00:06:10.660astonishingly rare for they have persisted on this coastline uninterrupted for thousands of years
00:06:16.200despite the murderous fear of colonizers that led to the extirpation of wolves throughout the vast
00:06:21.800majority of turtle island so ian would you begin by telling us a bit about the wolf families you
00:06:28.800hold dear what are the island territories of these apex predators look like and how have their pack
00:06:35.600traditions, behavior, and morphology been shaped as much by the sea as by the rainforest?
00:06:43.440Yeah, those are wonderful questions and something that we've been
00:06:47.500studying and trying to really better understand. What's incredible about this whole
00:06:56.000central or north coast of British Columbia, what's known as the Great Bear Rainforest,
00:07:01.740is that it very much is a massive archipelago.
00:07:05.660It's probably over a thousand islands uninhabited by humans today
00:07:11.500that have been functioning very much in an unbroken, unfragmented way
00:07:17.900since the glaciers receded from this coastline.
00:07:22.800And wolves have been a dominant apex species, predator species, on these islands.
00:07:29.340Other than the offshore islands of Haida Gwaii, where wolves have not existed historically, virtually all of the other islands up and down this entire coast are inhabited or at least claimed by packs of wolves.
00:07:43.080So the ocean influence on these terrestrial mammals has been significant and also longstanding.
00:07:53.060And I think it's probably one of the more surprising ecological attributes of these wolves that still remains largely unstudied, largely unknown.
00:08:02.320but how much of the ocean actually influences the behavior and morphology and culture of these
00:08:11.980extended families or packs of wolves. And what we've observed over the last 20 or so years is
00:08:17.080that it's significant. For some packs, over 70% of their diet comes from the ocean. So in the fall
00:08:24.460season, these wolves are showing up on the same salmon rivers almost at the same time, coinciding
00:08:30.720with the annual salmon spawning migration and they're feeding on salmon almost exclusively for
00:08:38.340as long as the runs last which is sometimes two and a half or three months so salmon is a huge
00:08:44.660part of their diet we just come in from three weeks on the herring spawning grounds documenting
00:08:50.580the this incredible natural history event where tons and tons of herring come in shore to spawn
00:08:57.660in the intertidal zone. And one of the great treats of documenting this season is being on
00:09:05.340the beaches at the same time that packs of wolves emerge from the forest to feed on
00:09:09.740the little tiny herring eggs that are exposed at low tide. And they'll be feeding, even today,
00:09:16.980they're still out there feeding on herring eggs. Every time the tide goes down, they're feasting
00:09:22.240on them. And that will go on for at least three weeks to a month. So just another example of how
00:09:28.500the ocean is influencing and feeding terrestrial life. And of course, there's offshore packs of
00:09:35.220wolves that live on these really rugged, windswept islands, and they walk the perimeter of their
00:09:39.440islands every day or every few days searching for beached whale carcasses. And they're also
00:09:45.640preying successfully on seals, harbor seals, and even sea otters and, you know, mink. And there's
00:09:53.500some wolves that specialize in digging for clams and flipping over rocks for intertidal critters
00:10:00.280like, you know, small crabs and chitons and blimmies and all kinds of other intertidal life.
00:10:06.420And, you know, what at first I thought that this was maybe sort of incidental or
00:10:12.240opportunistic behavior and you know why not why wouldn't a wolf eat marine marine food but as
00:10:20.500years have gone on and we've done more intensive studies and and spent much more time in the field
00:10:25.980directly observing these wolves we realized that there's nothing opportunistic or incidental about
00:10:33.080this behavior that this is a very long-standing relationship between wolves in the ocean and
00:10:38.980And it's, in fact, one of the reasons that has shaped the very DNA of these animals.
00:10:47.560And we've documented individual wolves swimming over 10 kilometers of open ocean.
00:10:51.540This is cold water with a lot of current and other packs that are swimming a few miles of open ocean on a weekly basis as they explore their home territories, which is often comprised of numerous islands.
00:11:06.100So, you know, we used to think that islands were maybe a barrier or a natural boundary for a pack's territory, but again, not the case there. Individual packs are claiming archipelagos of islands and islets as part of their home territory.
00:11:21.200So the ocean has been very much a key contributor to the health and prosperity of these wolves.
00:11:28.920And one of the reasons why these coastal wolves maybe have some of the highest pup survivorship rate of any wolves in the whole Arctic or where wolves exist in the northern hemisphere is partly because of this predictable and nutritious and quite easily accessible food.
00:11:45.280So if you consider salmon swim right to the wolves, and they don't kick back like a deer or a moose, so it's easily accessible, nutritious, and predictable, which is another contributing factor to the fact that these wolves may be supported in the temperate rainforest and some of the highest densities of any wolves in the world.
00:12:09.920So there's lots of superlatives and unique ways to describe these amazing predators.
00:12:18.060These island wolves, they also are guardians of genetic diversity.
00:12:24.880Can you speak about the human cod genetic bottleneck faced by wolves elsewhere on Turtle Island
00:12:31.420and why the genetic diversity carried by these island wolves is crucial
00:12:36.140for the longevity and resilience of wolves everywhere?
00:12:39.920Yeah, I think this is the most fascinating parts of the molecular research that has been conducted on this wolf population.
00:12:51.040This is a collaboration between Canadian universities and universities in the United States and Sweden.
00:12:56.800And after exhaustive hair collection and scat collection and genetic analysis of these
00:13:03.780wolves, scientists were astounded to find this incredibly high level of genetic diversity
00:13:10.680that was still present within these wolf populations.
00:13:14.980And it's not to say that these wolves deserve to be a separate subspecies, which would be
00:13:21.920But they certainly have maintained and held the genetic diversity that has been lost in other wolf populations.
00:13:30.000Wolves have been extirpated in so many parts of their former range and have been just viciously persecuted in the most brutal, unimaginable ways by humans ever since they landed in North America from Europe.
00:13:45.420because of this huge loss and because of this constant annual mortality wrecked upon wolves
00:13:52.340by humans, the genetic diversity has been lost. And so, you know, imagine 30, 40, 50 percent or
00:13:59.440even higher mortality rates of wolves, wolf populations every single year. We've really
00:14:05.740been forcing them through a genetic bottleneck. And it's no different than if someone came to
00:14:11.020planet earth and started killing 30 to 40 to 50 percent of the human population every year we
00:14:17.580eventually would lose our our languages and our our skin colors and the genetic diversity that
00:14:24.780makes humans so diverse on this planet and it's no different with what has happened with wolves
00:14:30.020so unfortunately the genetic diversity has been lost in wolves from the prairies to the north to
00:14:35.940almost everywhere even in southeast Alaska in the Tongass because of the high level of roads
00:14:41.440the density of roads that have been built there is given humans access to unprecedented amounts
00:14:47.720of the Tongass National Forest and those wolves even have been reduced in levels of genetic
00:14:54.360diversity. Yet here on the BC coast because the road density at least on the north coast
00:14:59.620has been relatively sparse. And First Nations are still living within their traditional0.97
00:15:05.640territories. And there's been a long history of respect between First Nations here and wolves.0.59
00:15:13.200Wolves have been very much revered and is showcased in their culture and their totems
00:15:19.420and stories and art. And wolves are described in these ancient stories as protectors and
00:15:28.120providers. So very different worldview of wolves than what Europeans have brought to North America.
00:15:35.900So wolves have been protected for a long time here, have been respected, but also Europeans
00:15:41.900have not had access to them because this forest is still largely intact. The roads have not been
00:15:47.920built into these last wild areas. So wolves have been able to avoid the complete disharmony and
00:15:54.600and persecution that their continental kin have been suffering for hundreds of years.
00:16:01.380And so they've been able to harbor and safeguard the genetic diversity that's been lost in other
00:16:06.600wolf populations. So these wolves, in many respects, really give us a window or entry point
00:16:13.600into understanding wolves of the past and in an unbroken, unfragmented lineage.0.92
00:16:20.160Thank goodness for them. Thank goodness for these places that have been left unroaded. And I know that's a big topic in the Tongass National Forest with the roadless rule and the fear that our current administration could topple that over and what that would do to wolf populations and intact old growth forest is indescribably frightening.
00:16:47.640So thank you for bringing up those points. And I'm thinking about you in these places and that you've spent hundreds and hundreds of days in this forest alone, contending with drenching rain and hurricane force winds, really gaining the trust of these elusive wolf packs.
00:17:10.160and i imagine that you you know crossing a threshold from the realm of conditioned civilized
00:17:17.820human into the world of animal a world that relies on heightened senses and intuition and
00:17:24.440a real delicateness of how you carry yourself yet the fact that you were accepted as you know just
00:17:32.720another resident of the watershed like the cranes or the kingfishers speaks to the fact
00:17:38.760that these wolves have not been heavily spoiled by human civilization. So I'd love to hear about
00:17:44.600how the wolves kept you in check, and how you kept your boundaries, knowing that habituating
00:17:51.120wolves to humans inherently endangers them. Yeah, really good points. Fortunately,
00:17:57.940many of the wolf packs that I've been spending time with over the last couple of decades live
00:18:04.260really remote, difficult to access locations and have very little impact with or cross paths very
00:18:12.340seldomly with humans. So there's less of a concern with habituation. But what seems consistent with
00:18:21.480the relationship that I have with individuals and with packs of wolves is that there's something
00:18:27.480far deeper and more profound about the idea that they're merely tolerating a human in their
00:18:35.060presence. It's something I think that has just existed on this coast for well over 10,000 years
00:18:41.840and if you think about like all of the prime areas where the traditional village sites are located
00:18:48.160they're still in the same present day home core territories of packs of wolves so the
00:18:55.120And some of that is just simple biological needs, that the needs of wolves overlaps that with the needs of humans.
00:19:03.200So humans are always looking for access to fresh water and old growth forests and clam beaches and salmon rivers and protection from the winter storms and basic ecological values that overlap between human and wolves.
00:19:20.880But there's something also much deeper than that, and I think that wolves and humans once shared this landscape seamlessly, and that has largely been broken today.
00:19:35.360And the interest and the long-held behavior of wanting to share this territory with humans is still very much part of the culture of wolves today.
00:19:50.880And it's really remarkable that we've had many, many researchers working for us over the years who have been out collecting hair samples or scat samples or doing transects for deer and different things in the field.
00:20:05.360And some of them are, you know, 100 pound females and suddenly they find themselves in right unexpectedly in the middle of a den site with pups, you know, running around at their feet.
00:20:17.180and there may be somewhere between seven and ten adults who just move away and um like literally
00:20:25.020you know abandon their pups hopefully the pups hide in in a den but um but the point being that
00:20:30.400this has happened so many times and and i've had the same experience countless times but i've never
00:20:36.280ever been you know attacked or you know shown aggression by wolves even going into their most
00:20:41.840sacred spots such as a as their pup rearing areas and you know that's really remarkable when you
00:20:48.340know we've i've seen wolves without even thinking twice attack you know a full-grown grizzly bear
00:20:54.240that wandered into one of their den sites or a black bear or a moose and these are animals that
00:20:59.320are you know capable of protecting themselves inflicting far more damage than you know an
00:21:05.220unarmed human being ever could, the natural reaction, almost without fail, is for wolves to
00:21:12.820not attack. And that, again, I don't think that's learned behavior because these are wolves that
00:21:19.060have not had close encounters with humans, but it's something, again, that's within. And I often
00:21:26.420think that wolves are just waiting for humans to really get their act together and to start to
00:21:33.220look at the natural world in a different way and in one that is based much more on on respect and
00:21:39.240and you know wolves uh unfortunately have suffered from some of the worst marketing of
00:21:46.060almost any animal maybe next to sharks on the planet and you know people fear them they many
00:21:53.500people just hate them and and want to rid them of the landscape and we certainly see that with
00:21:58.800provincial government policies here in British Columbia where wolves are treated virtually like
00:22:05.000vermin. So open season hunting, open season trapping, there's no mandatory reporting or
00:22:11.440compulsory inspection of wolves that are killed. You don't need a special license to kill wolves
00:22:16.260in British Columbia. Anyone with a hunting license can just go out and kill a wolf or in many parts
00:22:22.840of bc as many wolves as they want so wolves are are treated virtually like like vermin still today
00:22:29.600uh not respected at all for the for the function that they play in in the ecosystem and as such
00:22:37.120highly social incredibly intelligent animals that we could learn a lot from
00:27:06.120So they are putting snipers in helicopters, and it's actually worse than either.
00:27:11.860It's one of the most insidious things I think I've ever heard of, but they actually trap,
00:27:17.160they'll trap a member or two from a pack of wolves, and they'll put a radio collar on
00:27:22.380it and then they'll follow that when the winter snows come they'll follow that wolf by radio
00:27:28.500collar through satellite beacons and whatnot and they call them judas wolves because the wolves
00:27:34.580when they rejoin the rest of their pack then the helicopters go in the air and they shoot them from
00:27:40.200the air and kill them in the deep snow many of them are wounded left to suffer but this is how
00:27:46.820they're killing hundreds and hundreds of wolves in British Columbia right now. So yes, extremely
00:27:53.740offensive way to one of the most cruel methods of killing wolves is being conducted right now.
00:28:00.040They're in year four of a five-year kill program, and they're saying that they'll probably just
00:28:04.580continue it for years to come. But what's so tragic about this is that wolves are being
00:28:11.320scapegoated for, you know, government negligence and habitat protection for these woodland caribou
00:28:18.440herds. These are old growth dependent animals that eat the lichens of old growth trees. And it's
00:28:25.340these trees that have been systematically cut down for fiber. They've been, all the roads have
00:28:31.140been accessed for mines, for oil and gas, for countless industries, even helicopter skiing
00:28:37.520operations. All of this critical high elevation habitat has been modified. And so at the end of
00:28:44.120the day, when the federal government says, because of our Species at Risk Act, you've got to do
00:28:50.560something to save these endangered caribou herds, the only real substantive action that the
00:28:56.300provincial government is taking here in British Columbia is to spend millions of dollars to kill
00:29:01.680wolves. And that's their answer to saving ungulates. And by all accounts, by independent0.99
00:29:07.140scientists, this simply will not save these remnant herds. They are doomed to destruction
00:29:12.720in the absence of substantive habitat protection. And unfortunately, that's not what's happening
00:29:19.200right now. And wolves are paying the ultimate price for government in action.
00:29:23.340Gosh, how many countless times do we see species or even indigenous peoples being scapegoated for really what extractive industries is to blame for, say, you know, what you're talking about, the old growth forest, it's not the wolves that are killing the last ungulates.0.54
00:29:44.920It's the fact that industry has slaughtered the homelands of these ungulates.0.98
00:29:53.360And it's so incredible to see this human supremacy and the invasiveness of it coming in and blaming everything but industry, everything but development, everything but habitat destruction.
00:30:12.380Another thing that you brought up was the radio collaring. And in your book, Following the Last
00:30:19.780Wild Wolves, you describe how before you grew a relationship with wolves, you thought that they
00:30:26.800couldn't be studied except by invasive radio and satellite telemetry techniques. But your mind
00:30:33.080clearly changed. And I loved reading about the holistic approach of the Rainforest Wolf Project
00:30:38.980that was not only grounded in the oral history of the helizduk,
00:30:44.460but also that the team used observational and molecular techniques
00:30:49.240that you've been speaking about so far,
00:30:51.220the analyzing scat and hair that the wolves left behind.
00:30:55.000Since then, the team has minimized its impact even further
00:30:58.600with the advent of remote-controlled video cameras.
00:31:02.040But radio collaring is still commonplace,
00:31:04.800whether that's with wolves, bears, etc.
00:31:07.120And I'm wondering, why is radio collaring so widely accepted, not with so much the helicopter killing, but why is it so accepted in wildlife biology? And have you seen radio collaring traumatize individual animals or disrupt pack dynamics or lead to information that is inconclusive or even misrepresentative?
00:31:29.360another great question and in the inception when we started more formal studies of coastal wolves
00:31:38.280you know we asked ourselves those questions you know would would we learn more doing you know
00:31:43.300telemetry or satellite based radio collaring with wolves and would we learn more than sort of this
00:31:49.700molecular approach where it's non-invasive and you know at the end of the day the main point was
00:31:56.240that we know through other studies both with grizzly bears or other large carnivores that
00:32:01.580they frequently die in the traps or you know misuse of drugs sedatives there's all kinds of
00:32:09.980things that can happen in the trapping process that would be could could lead to to death and
00:32:15.180and I think that that would be just unacceptable when there's an alternative and and through you
00:32:21.900know intensive and it means a lot more people days it means a lot more people in the field over a
00:32:27.300longer period of time but the information gathered is essentially the same we're learning where
00:32:31.880animals are moving through the landscape when you're able to test tell so much about their
00:32:36.680diet from a single follicle of hair or of course through scat analysis we're able to tell stress
00:32:42.980levels and and there's so many things that can now be told through non-invasive techniques such as
00:32:48.860mark recapture methods and DNA extraction from hair scat.
00:32:55.000So it just seemed like a logical way to go.
00:32:57.100Having said that, it's an incredible amount of fieldwork that's needed.
00:33:00.580But we've just worked with incredible people and with the support and direction of local First Nations.
00:33:07.380We've uncovered a tremendous amount of information about local wildlife.
00:33:12.340And wolves are, you know, as an apex predator that is awake, rather, year-round, unlike, say, grizzly bears that are asleep for half the year, they're telling us about the health of the rainforest and the health of even the ocean environment.
00:33:27.740So we're learning much more about broader ecosystems than just wolves themselves.
00:33:34.160Well, speaking about more than just wolves, I'd love to turn the conversation to salmon, this life-giving thread that weaves and feeds the watered and forested tapestry of Cascadia.
00:33:49.940And in Following the Last Wild Wolves, your book, you write, quote, the salmon-wolf relationship is one that should be measured in evolutionary timeframes, end quote.
00:33:59.880So I'd love if you could elaborate on this ancient relationship and how it's faring as industrial logging, industrial fishing, and human development have chopped, degraded, and disconnected the great marine-terrestrial interface of the Northwest Coast.
00:34:16.540A secondary question would be, how are the small streams and watershed diversity indispensable to the longevity of all species of the bioregion and the Northwest Coast?
00:34:28.140When you consider how important salmon as a food source is for these coastal wolves, and the fact that that behavior and association outside of these indigenous communities is largely unknown until recently, it makes me realize how many mysteries are left to uncover in the rainforest.
00:34:54.020And, you know, again, it's similar to the association between herring and wolves and seals and wolves and other marine sources.
00:35:04.860The relationship between salmon and wolves is a very ancient one.
00:35:09.600You know, even some of the behavior or catching methods that wolves deploy to actually catch a salmon has been studied.
00:35:17.920And what it shows is that, again, the way the wolves move and the way they swing their tail and arc their back when they actually catch a salmon has been shown to be something that could not have evolved in a short amount of time.
00:35:31.140That, you know, this is something that has been playing out in these remote creeks and river valleys for thousands, thousands of years.
00:35:38.980So it's incredible to think of how the ocean has been feeding so much life in the rainforest here for such a long period of time.
00:35:50.860And especially because we see that even with jurisdictional governance of the marine environment and the terrestrial environment here on the west coast of Canada.
00:36:01.460because the provincial government has jurisdiction over land decisions in the rainforest,
00:36:07.540but the federal government have jurisdiction over everything in the marine environment.
00:36:13.300And they rarely see eye to eye or agree.
00:36:17.320But the idea that we have actually delineated this clear political boundary
00:36:22.720and jurisdictional boundary between the ocean and rainforest,
00:36:25.860when everything that we witness here shows sort of this interface that is seamless.
00:36:32.780It's like this marriage and interaction that just flows back and forth with the currents and tide
00:36:38.440and how terrestrial animals go into the ocean to feed
00:36:43.360and how marine life like salmon penetrate hundreds and even thousands of kilometers into the interior to spawn,
00:36:50.620bringing all of that marine-based nutrients into the terrestrial world
00:36:55.220and how even nutrients being carried in the wind is fueling productivity in the old growth forests themselves.
00:37:04.300And there's just this constant conveyor belt of nutrients going back and forth.
00:37:10.100So the idea that we can somehow separate these two worlds just no longer makes any sense.
00:37:15.560And we really should be protecting more of the ocean environment
00:37:19.400in order to protect more of the rainforest species that exist there and vice versa.
00:37:26.600What do you see the biggest threat being to the salmon, the wolves,
00:37:31.920and their relationship to one another and to the greater web of rainforest species?
00:37:36.860And do you find one of these threats to be
00:37:39.560nuclear fallout from the explosion at Fukushima a few years ago?
00:37:45.660Traveling and living and working in this area,
00:37:48.380there's been just this non-stop roller coaster of massive industrial threats that face this place
00:37:57.360and you know perhaps that it's such a beautiful place that everyone wants a piece of it and
00:38:03.460and that's certainly been the case here and there's whether it's you know the fish farming
00:38:08.220industry wanting to expand throughout this whole area putting you know harmful impacts on
00:38:14.820on wild salmon or offshore oil and gas exploration or pipelines bringing bitumen and massive
00:38:21.440tanker traffic that would follow to the ongoing deforestation to there's just been so many
00:38:29.980big threats that have have come here and then of course yeah the incredible tsunami that happened
00:38:36.020and you know what are the impacts on on the coast from from the radiation i don't think anybody
00:38:42.260really fully understands it I certainly don't but people certainly question you know is it safe to
00:38:47.600be eating the seaweed here is the fish safe is what what are the the long-term impacts from that
00:38:53.540kind of a environmental catastrophe so there's there's certainly unknowns and and it's I think
00:38:59.720very very challenging because it's hard to imagine what we could do about it other than being forced
00:39:06.120not to eat from the ocean which would be devastating for for local communities here
00:41:10.740Last summer, I interviewed Jody Holmes about the Great Bear Agreement and how this immense
00:41:29.080effort of diverse coalitions worked to fully protect 30% of the Great Bears' monumental
00:41:34.620river valleys and islands, yet you've seen the brutal alteration of these forests continue.
00:41:42.180And in response, specific wild calls for greater protection of the great bear, noting how the
00:41:48.260original agreement fell short of adequately protecting wolf territory as well as the marine
00:41:54.260environment like you've been speaking of. So from what I understand, the remaining 70%
00:41:59.300that is not under full protection is managed under an experimental process called ecosystem-based
00:42:06.220management. And while EBM is said to protect cultural and ecological values, roads are still
00:42:13.140built, sport hunting and mining are still allowed. And to be honest, I question the reality of on-the-ground
00:42:19.940surveying and operations. Anecdotally, I've heard that it is often more profitable to turn a blind
00:42:26.480eye to cultural or biological artifacts whose notice would actually prohibit logging operations.
00:42:33.280With all that in mind, could you speak to why the conservation of large intact roadless areas
00:42:39.700is vital for wildlife, which you've mentioned about the wolves and the salmon, but also for
00:42:45.700climate change? And perhaps if you'd like to describe your feelings about EBM and the need
00:42:52.760to protect more of the Great Bear and maybe even ways in which you see that being possible.
00:42:59.960Incredibly, as I've been just talking about some of the relationships between the ocean and the
00:43:05.620terrestrial environment, today we still have protected only about 1% of our marine ecosystems
00:43:13.580in our jurisdictional waters of the west coast of Canada. So we've got so far to go in order to
00:43:21.520adequately protect the marine environment we're still bottom trawling which is virtually like
00:43:27.220open pit mining of the of the bottom of the ocean we are are the unsustainable fisheries whether
00:43:33.960it's shellfish or salmon or herring continues there's so many issues facing our oceans right
00:43:41.320now and by all accounts the oceans have far exceeded their their ability to be resilient
00:43:48.220given what is happening throughout the world's oceans but it's no different here on the west
00:43:53.280coast of Canada so certainly a lot of work left to be done on that front and it's something that
00:43:58.080Pacific Wild and other organizations First Nation communities are focused on in the near
00:44:03.800near future. When it comes to protection of the rainforest this is an area where there's been a
00:44:10.380tremendous amount of work to bring attention to the plight of these old growth forests you know
00:44:15.060temperate rainforests only historically occupied about 0.1 percent of the earth's land mass and
00:44:20.000most of what's left intact and unprotected is found here on the west coast of the north coast
00:44:25.980of british columbia and southeast alaska but the the fallback position that unfortunately was
00:44:33.920reached was that there would be about 30 percent of the coast put into solid protection the kind
00:44:42.320of protection you would expect out of like a national park or a conservancy area so you know
00:44:48.460not off limits to logging mining road building etc but then there's 70 percent that was placed
00:44:54.740into what's called ecosystem-based management and this as you said really is an experimental way
00:45:00.860of managing humans in the landscape and it's still long-term rotational forestry there's still
00:45:08.700old growth logging allowed to occur in it, and road building, salmon watersheds can still be
00:45:15.520logged. It should not be considered a surrogate for core protection, and that's been one of our
00:45:23.360main criticisms of the EBM approach. And it also hasn't been carried out over an appropriate amount
00:45:31.700of time in other jurisdictions, so we could actually look at those places and agree, you know,
00:45:36.720is that a model that we would like to follow? So there's a lot of problems still, a lot of
00:45:41.980outstanding issues left to protect adequate levels of old growth forests here on the BC coast.
00:45:48.520Well, we're with you on that. And I yearn for a ferocious conservation, more land conserved,
00:45:57.380because I'm just watching the development in rural areas where I live, and honestly, all up
00:46:04.080to alaska from northern california and it's it's really devastating to see places that were once
00:46:12.000wild then turned into logging lands and then turned into parking lots basically especially
00:46:17.020in southern british columbia vancouver island and and such and the other part though of me
00:46:23.380thinks about conservation in a different lens and some people think that conservation should include
00:46:30.000land or wilderness that is completely untouchable to humans. But then this is contentious as
00:46:35.820conservation can be a form of modern colonization, restricting ancient lifeways of indigenous
00:46:42.120peoples. Conservation on BC's coast seems to be a space for reconciliation in recent years
00:46:48.580with initiatives led and guided by First Nations. But I'm wondering in your experience,
00:46:53.960how have you seen conservation be imperialistic or regenerative for relationship building between
00:47:00.400indigenous and non-indigenous peoples? I think that is certainly one area that
00:47:06.000has certainly played out and continues to play out here. And when I think of the first years that
00:47:13.120began exploring this part of the coast and getting to know some of the First Nation communities,
00:47:18.680The difference then to now is dramatic. First Nations were seen as an impediment to industry accessing trees and marine resources to the point today where, backed by so many important precedent-setting cases that have shown clearly through the court systems, the highest court of Canada supporting First Nations rights and title, that this is unceded territory,
00:47:45.740and that the government has an obligation to not only consult
00:47:51.560but basically listen to First Nations and how marine and lands are managed.
00:47:57.680And so there's been a transformative era that has taken place here
00:48:05.080where First Nations are now driving their own respective marine and land use plans.
00:48:11.820And that's been a huge step in the right direction.
00:48:16.580Reconciliation is a term that is used loosely by the federal government and probably industry.
00:48:23.420I would say, based on what I hear from First Nation communities, is that there is such a long ways to go on that front.
00:48:31.540But it is heading in that direction, not quick enough.
00:48:36.020The land use plans that were agreed to here have been largely supported by First Nations, so that I think is extremely positive.
00:48:43.760But I think the one thing that is consistent and that we should all be grateful for is that the mutual interest and desire of each of these indigenous communities on the coast is very much about protecting their traditional territories.
00:49:05.920And, you know, when you look at these small communities in the Great Bear Rainforest, they're still situated in the heart of their traditional territories that they have claimed ownership over for many, many thousands of years.
00:49:20.320And the health of these areas is directly related to the health of the human communities.
00:49:30.140So I think that's what has to give us the most hope for this coast.
00:49:33.940And we've seen when these places are threatened, whether it's by pipelines or offshore oil companies or fish farm companies, etc., we have seen the strength and resilience of these communities in protecting their lands and waters.
00:49:53.320The cultural strength of these indigenous communities is getting stronger and stronger.
00:49:58.640And so if there's a part of planet Earth that we can be hopeful for, I'd have to think that this is this is one of them because of its relatively low population, human population, because of its strong indigenous population and still the full suite of flora and fauna that exists here still functioning, albeit at a less abundance than historically would have been found here.
00:50:27.500But nevertheless, the pieces are still here. So we're not talking about having to try to rebuild something or figure out how to make an ecosystem that has been destroyed come back again. It's not about restoration or revival. It's about really just protecting what we have here.
00:50:45.000And that is the most cost effective and, in fact, the only way that we can protect ecosystems because, truthfully, we don't understand how this entire web of life actually works and functions.
00:50:58.960What we do know is that if we can protect it and protect enough of it, and that's why protecting more rainforest, more of the marine environment, is essential to the long-term resiliency when things that are coming to this coast from other parts of the world, such as radiation from tsunamis and nuclear facilities, etc., etc., acidification and ocean temperature regime changes and a host of other things that are affecting this coastline from outside.
00:51:28.960the more we can protect of this place, the more resiliency and tolerance will be built into it. So
00:51:35.180protecting as much as possible is the key to the future here.
00:51:40.360I couldn't agree more, Ian. And as we come to the close of this incredible conversation,
00:51:46.280the wolves are back in my mind. And at the beginning of this conversation, you contrasted
00:51:52.620the misguided and ruthless way that colonizers viewed and still view wolves compared to the
00:51:58.580First Nations cultures of the coast that have lived in reverence alongside them for millennia.
00:52:04.400Wolves, like you said, were honored as messengers, providers, and protectors.
00:52:08.800And perhaps one of the most visceral pieces from your stories is when you
00:52:12.060tell of the beyond coincidental findings of the den sites within the old Halutsduk village sites.
00:52:18.580Then more than 50% of the den sites your team identified was within or in very close proximity
00:52:25.060to ancient villages. And although humans and wolves do have similar requirements for food and
00:52:30.880shelter as top-level animals, you pose that it's not that simple. And you wrote, quote,
00:52:37.120I don't doubt that the ancestors of these wolves lived with the ancestors of the Hlutstuk people
00:52:43.300here. When these wolves led us into their lives, are they waiting for us to rediscover that0.99
00:52:49.560relationship, end quote. It's just such an incredible feeling to sit with after this
00:52:54.960conversation. And my heart wants humans to rekindle that relationship, to find once again
00:53:01.440our humble role as fellow companions of the forest. But I wonder if this wolf-human relationship will0.99
00:53:07.680ever be possible in light of the current trajectory of modern civilization. And I'd love to hear your0.91
00:53:13.620thoughts on that? Yes, well, you can only hope so. And, you know, sometimes it, especially when
00:53:20.280you sort of view the, what is happening on this planet through the eyes of a species like the
00:53:26.780wolf. Yeah, it's heartbreaking, really. But then I also think of, you know, where we were 20
00:53:32.560something years ago, or 30 something years ago, in terms of societal values, and how we judged and
00:53:38.840valued species like wolves. And it's changed dramatically. And I know in our own conservation
00:53:44.960work, there are an incredible amount of people around the world who have a very deep, strong
00:53:52.640affinity for animals like wolves and want to see them protected. And when you think about the
00:53:59.700advances in science and our understanding of wolves and how they actually facilitate and protect
00:54:07.440and provide critical function for broader ecosystems.
00:54:12.860And if wolves are removed from the landscape,
00:54:14.780then we see this cascading, this cascade of impacts that happen within the ecosystem.
00:54:21.840And so, you know, there's much greater recognition of wolves
00:54:27.020and the important role that they play in ecosystem function today