Respect the protectors: Bloodvein’s duty to the land

Bloodvein River First Nation did what responsible governments do when a species faces decline.

They acted.

In late summer, the community erected a checkpoint on the Rice River Road to protect moose and to assert their duty as caretakers of the land. The Manitoba Wildlife Federation responded with a court application. Their request for an injunction reflects a persistent failure to see Indigenous law as law and Indigenous protection as governance. It also speaks to the Wildlife Federation’s apparent lack of interest in sustainable wildlife populations.

The moose population in Manitoba has been in crisis for years. The province itself confirms that 15 game hunting areas are now closed or partially closed because of low numbers. Last year, only 574 tags were issued to non-Indigenous hunters.

Bloodvein’s concerns align with ecological indicators and with the responsibilities held by Treaty harvesters, whose constitutionally protected rights hold the highest priority for food and ceremonial use.

The Manitoba Wildlife Federation often speaks of reconciliation. In a recent interview they stated, “We fully recognize the First Nations’ first right to the resource, but it is not an exclusive right.”

That framing betrays a fundamental misunderstanding. Indigenous rights are not privileges that fade when non-Indigenous interests are inconvenienced. If the organization truly recognizes the first right, then it must also recognize that those rights include the authority to decide how, when and by whom the resource will be taken.

It is also worth recalling that this same federation has worked co-operatively with Waywayseecappo First Nation on wildlife stewardship initiatives. Such partnerships prove that mutual respect is possible. Why then, when Bloodvein exercises the same principle of care, does respect become replaced with litigation?

Even the government’s own response underscores the legitimacy of Bloodvein’s concerns. In September, Manitoba announced a temporary conservation buffer zone for the 2025 season, prohibiting licensed non-Indigenous hunting within 500 metres of Rice River Road, the Bloodvein River and several surrounding creeks.

The province presented this as a conservation measure, but it was also an indirect acknowledgment that Bloodvein’s stewardship assessment was accurate.

Beyond the courtroom, this controversy has ignited a more troubling phenomenon. The social media pages of the Manitoba Wildlife Federation and the Canadian Firearms Association, even the page of media mogul Kevin Klein (yet another settler), have become gathering spaces for overt racism and violence.

Under posts about the Bloodvein checkpoint, one can read an alarming catalogue of racial hostility — calls to “teach them a lesson,” to “remove the blockade by force” and to “take back Crown land.” These comments are part of a broader social legacy of colonization, where Indigenous land protection is viewed as an obstacle and conservation efforts are often mistaken for opposition criminality.

The failure of these organizations to moderate such rhetoric is a failure of leadership and ethics. In this context, silence serves as an endorsement.

The deeper question for Manitobans is not about who has the legal authority to open a road.

It is whether we can envision a system of governance where Indigenous and non-Indigenous stewardship are not in conflict. The Framework Agreement on First Nation Land Management offers an example. It allows First Nations operating under land codes to create and enforce laws on their lands, including those related to the environment and natural resources.

This model shows that collaborative governance is not only achievable but essential. It replaces confrontational disputes with negotiated coexistence.

Since colonization, this province has historically been viewed through a settler lens that prioritizes access over relationships.

However, the health of our ecosystems depends on relationships that are ceremonial, reciprocal and lasting. Indigenous knowledge systems recognize that taking without permission breaks the bond we share with the land and water and with those who call it home. To protect is to uphold one’s duty to Creation.

If Western science, settler hunters or representatives from the MWF cared to ever learn about our knowledge systems, our worldviews, our ceremonies, sciences and teachings, perhaps this intergenerational ignorance would eventually dissipate and we could actually work together on the lands and waters that are and have never been owned, but mutually cared for. Ownership of land itself is a colonial construct, a system imposed through assimilation that sought to replace shared stewardship with possession.

Bloodvein’s choice to monitor entry into its territory reflects that duty.

To the members of the Manitoba Wildlife Federation, I extend this invitation: If the organization truly believes there are “enough natural resources in Manitoba for all of us to share,” then it must redefine what sharing means. Sharing is not the assertion of equal access to a diminishing resource. It is the recognition of unequal histories and of those who have already lost more than they can replace. It is the humility to learn from those who have sustained the land since time immemorial.

As a graduate student in environmental science and as a citizen of Brokenhead Ojibway Nation, I study the intersections of Indigenous law, conservation and policy. The evidence is clear.

Species survival, climate resilience and ecological restoration are highest in regions with active Indigenous governance. When Indigenous communities lead, ecosystems recover. When they are silenced, ecosystems decline.

Manitoba can choose to set a precedent that reconciles law with life. It can recognize Bloodvein’s stewardship as an act of conservation rather than confrontation.

There is a phrase often shared in our ceremonies: take care of the land and the land will take care of you. The moose that move through the forests of the east are not resources to be allocated. They are kin — relatives integral to the ecological and cultural fabric that sustains us all.

Protecting them is not a privilege; it is a responsibility.

If we cannot respect Indigenous laws when they protect life, then conservation becomes nothing more than a public performance.

Manitobans deserve better. The moose deserves better.

And the future of this province depends on our willingness to listen, not litigate.

Taylor Galvin is an environmental scientist, water protector and graduate student in Environmental Sciences at the University of Manitoba. She is the director of the Brokenhead Wetland Ecological Reserve.