Power-sharing in Canada: "A wild experiment is under way in British Columbia, Canada’s westernmost province: the government is rewriting its laws to share power with Indigenous nations over a land base bigger than France and Germany combined.

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The legislation is dauntingly complex, involving distinct negotiations with more than 200 First Nations and the dismantling of a system built to protect industrial profits over any other interest.

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6% of the world’s population is Indigenous; so is 6% of BC’s. That’s 300,000 people speaking 34 languages, spread across coastal fjords and misty rainforests, subalpine meadows and semi-arid desert and dense boreal forest. Most have been here since the last ice age.

Almost their entire land base – about 97% of most of what’s now “British Columbia” – was seized without a treaty or any pretence of legality. Since then, four-fifths of the province’s primary forest has been logged. Wild salmon and herring are down to a 10th of their once-spectacular abundance. Habitat destruction from mining and fossil fuel development have pushed another 2,000 species to the brink of extirpation." - theguardian.com/world/2024/oct…

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