Fish-WIKS News

Update provided by Terry Dorward Seit-cha (one who swims in the water), Tla-o-qui-aht Fish-WIKS Coordinator

Currently, the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations is involved in an ongoing court case to have our Indigenous rights recognized thru the court system to fish all species commercially in a modern day livelihood. Our Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations strongly believe that with our inherent fishing rights come great responsibilities to ensure the well being of all natural resources. Both our elected and traditional government systems support the ongoing discussions and welcome the recommendations from our newly established Traditional Resource Committee.

The Traditional Resource Committee that is directly supported and created from our Tla-o-qui-aht Fish-WIKS project better helps our knowledgeable Tla-o-qui-aht citizens to organize ourselves and discuss how Tla-o-qui-aht historically managed our fisheries. Our Tla-o-qui-aht leadership values the knowledge being gathered from the Traditional Resource Committee because traditionally our people asserted a Best Practices approach in the fishery resource management.

Our goals and objectives in the Tla-o-qui-aht Fish-WIKS project are being manifested in the establishment of the Traditional Resource Committee to discuss current and historical fishery issues, resurrecting traditional fish weirs, discussing traditional laws such as conservation measures, monitoring, distribution and traditional fishing practices of spiritual preparations as well as supporting Fish-WIKS students to better enhance the overall Tla-o-qui-aht Fishery program. We feel that the Tla-o-qui-aht Fish-WIKS program has been a great asset in mobilizing traditional knowledge into modern day solutions in the west coast Fishery regime.

Thank you Fish-WIKS!