Innu continue hunt in Labrador protected area

[Animal 0]

Innu continue hunt in Labrador protected area

Tuesday, February 23, 2010
CBC News

Quebec Innu hunters have killed dozens of caribou in a protected area of
Labrador.

As many as 150 hunters from five Quebec-based Innu groups began a weeklong
hunt Sunday that crossed the provincial boundary, a move the hunters say is
a protest over a contentious land deal struck between Newfoundland and
Labrador and the Innu in Labrador.

Standing near dozens of caribou carcasses, Chief Real Mackenzie, of the
Matimekush-Lac John community in Quebec, told CBC News Monday that the
hunters have so far killed more than 100 caribou, in a closed zone halfway
between Happy Valley-Goose Bay and Churchill Falls, in central Labrador.

"What you see is to feed our communities and families, men and women and
children," Mackenzie said.

The area is home to the George River caribou herd, but also to the much
smaller Red Wine caribou herd, which the provincial government said is
endangered, with fewer than 100 left. The Quebec Innu dispute the claim that
they pose a risk to a threatened caribou herd.

Mackenzie said the hunt inside the protected zone is a protest against the
exclusion of the Quebec Innu from the deal called the New Dawn Agreement,
which gives Labrador Innu economic benefits from the hydroelectric
development of the lower Churchill River.

Regional Innu Chief Ghislain Picard said his people in Quebec have "a lot of
concern about the impact of this agreement on their rights."

Newfoundland and Labrador's Justice Minister Felix Collins said he doesn't
understand that argument.

"To wipe out an endangered herd flies in the face of everything that's
reasonable in that agreement," Collins said.

Officials from both the Quebec Innu and the Newfoundland and Labrador
government said they are willing to sit down and talk out the problem, but
so far no talks are scheduled.

The New Dawn Agreement offered the Labrador Innu hunting rights within
34,000 square kilometres of land, plus $2 million annually in compensation
for flooding caused by construction of the Churchill Falls hydroelectric
project 40 years ago.

Its signing in 2008 was hailed by Premier Danny Williams as heralding a new
era of partnership with the Innu people of Labrador. Last week, the Innu
Nation signed an agreement in principle that brings the province a step
closer to developing the Lower Churchill megaproject and gives legal weight
to the New Dawn Agreement.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2010/02/23/nl-innu-caribou-230210.html