“I’m just humbled,” said Dehcho First Nations Grand Chief Herb Norwegian on being awarded the $10,000 Glen Davis Conservation Leadership Prize on May 24.
World Wildlife Fund Canada and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society awarded Norwegian, 66, the prize for his decades of work on the Dehcho Land Use Plan, which is in development to protect 100,000 square kilometres of land in the region.
“When you do this type of work, especially in the whole conservation area, you, you just go all out and just take a very humble approach,” said Norwegian.
“You go out there and do your work, uh, working for mother earth as much as you can, get out there harvesting, trapping and doing everything you can to make sure that the land is intact. I'm humbled that something like this would happen.”
Norwegian said his big focus has been on the land use plan, which he said is “95 per cent complete,” with protections on half of Dehcho territory and the rest open for development.
Another big conservation measure has been lobbying for protections of Edehzhie, the Horn Plateau. The Dehcho First Nations took the federal government to court in 2010 for not renewing subsurface protections for the area and won in 2012.
Since then, the DFN – along with the Tlicho Government, the GNWT and the feds – have been working to establish the Edehzhie National Wildlife Area, which Norwegian said he expects to be finalized “within the next few months.”
“It’s an exciting time for all of us,” he said.
Opening up session in the legislative assembly on Thursday, Premier Bob McLeod confirmed that a new offer in the Dehcho Process was made to the DFN on May 3 in Fort Simpson and that the GNWT expects the offer to be formally considered at the DFN’s annual assembly in Wrigley in July.
“Our negotiators have done some innovative and forward work with their counterparts from the Government of Canada on this offer,” said McLeod. “We are hopeful this work will help us get beyond past disagreements and old ways of thinking and result in the settlement of this claim.”
Norwegian said he’s optimistic about the process and how things are moving along.
The Glen Davis Conservation and Leadership Prize is awarded in honour of its namesake, a Canadian businessman and philanthropist who was murdered in Toronto 11 years ago.
“Everyone talks about bringing together traditional knowledge with western science, but under Grand Chief Herb Norwegian’s leadership the Dehcho have actually done that through their land-use plan,” stated Monte Hummel, president emeritus of WWF-Canada, in a press release.
Calling Norwegian a “visionary,” Hummel went on to state that, “He is responsible for deploying conservation action on the ground at the scale of achievement that inspired the life of Glen Davis.”