Lake Babine Nation Treaty Office

Hello to all the Lake Babine Nation members, My name is Roger Patrick and I am employed with the Lake Babine Treaty Office as the Land Use Plan Senior Facilitator.

The Lake Babine Treaty Office is at the begining stages of developing a land use plan for the Lake Babine Nation (LBN) traditional territories. The purpose of the land use plan is to document and map areas that are used for; hunting, fishing, gathering of plants,areas of spiritual interests, and place names. This traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) will be used for educating the LBN youth as well as assisting treaty negotiations with provincial and federal governments. In addition, the (TEK) information provided by LBN members will provide direction for proposed LBN settlement areas, areas proposed for agriculture, resource extraction (ei. Timber harvesting and mining), and areas set aside for protection.

In June 2009, 2 positions for project facilitator assistants was advertised in the LBN newsletter. As one of the successful applicants I began my duties in August 2009. These duties include collecting TEK from community elders, conducting information workshops in remote communities, retrieving and compiling archival data from past projects.

All data collected from interviews, workshops and archives will be kept strictly confidential and any participants wishing to withdraw may do so at anytime during the course of the project.

Once the workshops are completed our intentions are to schedule interviews with the elders. All LBN members are encouraged to attend one of the three workshops. At the workshop you will learn what a land use plan is, how you can contribute to it and why it is important for you and your family. At the workshop LBN members will be given an opportunity to contribute to the land use plan or set up a time at their convenience.