Faculty Colloquium with Douglas Harris & Robert Clifford: Deer Eradication, Ecological Restoration, and Local Government in a Propertied Landscape on Indigenous Lands

Abstract

In December 2023, sharpshooters from helicopters killed 84 deer on SḰŦÁMEN Sidney Island as the first phase of the Parks Canada funded project to remove invasive species and to restore a more indigenous ecology to the Island. The following November, the second phase – a ground-based hunt involving fences and dogs – was about to be begin, but Parks Canada halted the operation when reports surfaced that deer were getting tangled and dying in the struggle to free themselves from the old aquaculture netting that the hunters were using as fencing. Nearly nine square kilometres in area, SḰŦÁMEN Sidney Island is within W̱SÁNEĆ territory. The Island is currently divided between the Gulf Islands National Park Reserve in the north and the Sallas Forest bare land strata property subdivision, comprised of 111 private waterfront lots and a large inland common area, in the south. Dispute among the owners within the Sallas Forest subdivision over the deer eradication project led them to the Civil Resolution Tribunal, and an analysis of these proceedings and the ecological restoration project more generally reveal the profound connections in British Columbia between property ownership and land-use decision making. This paper begins with a discussion of SḰŦÁMEN within W̱SÁNEĆ territory and of the sets of relationships that characterized this space before the arrival of Europeans and settlers from many other parts of the world. It then turns to the production of Sidney Island as a propertied landscape with Parks Canada and the members of the Sallas Forest Strata Corporation as its current owners. It is this propertied landscape, the product of a particular colonial history, that has produced the conflict over the continuing presence of fallow deer and that reveals sites of decision-making, recently established and possibly re-emerging, that require attention. In the concluding section, we reflect on the consequences of these propertied landscapes for land-use decision-making and what might emerge from understanding the Island as within Indigenous territories.

For Zoom details, email: eventassistant@allard.ubc.ca

Speakers

Robert Clifford is WSÁNEĆ and a member of the Tsawout First Nation, his home community; he carries the name YELKATŦE, which was passed to him by his late grandfather, Earl Claxton Sr.  His PhD research uses community participation methodologies to explore the ways WSÁNEĆ laws are generated by and reflect the values, philosophies, lands, and worldviews of the WSÁNEĆ people. The research is equally important in terms of practical application for the WSÁNEĆ community and as a contribution to theoretical understandings of what it means to responsibly engage WSÁNEĆ law, and Indigenous law more generally, within complex contemporary power structures and dynamics.

Douglas Harris joined the Allard School of Law in 2001. He teaches and writes in the areas of property law and legal history. His earlier published work focussed on the regulation of Indigenous fisheries in British Columbia, and he is the author of two award-winning books Fish, Law, and Colonialism: The Legal Capture of Salmon in British Columbia (U of T Press) and Landing Native Fisheries: Indian Reserves and Fishing Rights in British Columbia, 1849-1925 (UBC Press). Recorded public lectures include “Property & Sovereignty: The Kitsilano Indian Reserve and the City of Vancouver” and his Inaugural Lecture as professor at the Allard School of Law – “Condominium Property Stories”.