Photos: 35-Year Anniversary of the Meares Island Tribal Park.

Here are photos from the April 17th event celebrating the 35-year anniversary of the Meares Island Tribal Park, Wah’nah’juss Hilth’hooiss! In April of 1984, the Tla-o-qui-aht and Ahousaht First Nations and local environmentalists came together in an historic show of solidarity to protest the logging of some of Canada’s finest ancient forests by MacMillan Bloedel on Meares Island in Clayoquot Sound. The blockade marked the first protest against old-growth logging in Canadian history as well as the creation of BC’s first Tribal Park with the declaration of the Meares Island Tribal Park by Tla-o-qui-aht Chief Moses Martin.

Thanks to this collaborative effort, Meares Island’s extraordinary natural and cultural heritage remains intact to this day. It also inspired the expansion of the Tribal Park model throughout Tla-o-qui-aht territory and beyond with the establishment of Tribal Parks and other Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas expanding across Canada.

For more info see: https://www.iisaakolam.ca/
Photos by TJ Watt