Native wildlife benefits studied

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Native leaders, trappers, hunters, fishermen,. provincial government leaders, and world renowned biologists were all brought together at a three-day conference sponsored by the Alberta Society of Professional Biologists. The symposium was set up to address the issue of Native people and renewable resource management.

Judith Smith, the symposium chairman, says that the conference had three main themes to work with: How the use of natural renewable resources influences the cultural, social and economic sphere of the Native community; how to incorporate Native people into the management of our natural renewable resources, and how natural renewable resource are influenced by management.

The opening address for the symposium was made by Alberta Native Affairs Minister Milt Pahl. Pahl told the delegates that the provincial government, like the

biologists, recognizes the importance of the provincial renewable resources to the traditional lifestyles of the Native people. He commended the effort of the biologists for examining their role in partnership with Native people, through the symposium..

The conference included a number of Native speakers, and speakers from the professional biology forum. Bill Wilson former vice-president of the Native Council of Canada, was the first keynote speaker, and he spoke on the importance of Native people having input on the management of the renewable resources, and his experiences of management of the British Columbia coast with the salmon fishing.

Another Native speaker was the Deputy Minister of Renewable Resources in the Northwest Territories, Jim Bourque. Bourque spoke on what his government was doing in regard to issues that directly related to the Native people of the north, such as the seal hunting, trapping and a host of other issues in the renewable resources area.

Bourque is also a former president with the Metis Association in the Northwest Territories, and is a former trapper.

The symposium was held from April 29 to May 1, at the Westin Hotel in Edmonton.

All the information for stories had not been gathered by the time that WINDSPEAKER went to press, and more in-depth stories will follow in next week's issue.