Science and Research committee  Thank you for the question. For sure, they can make an excellent contribution. I know that Margaret Kovach, who is a leading scholar in Canada, has mentioned that for indigenous knowledge to really live, it needs to exist in several different parts, and it needs to be uplifted.

Science and Research committee  Thank you. I know one example right now is they just started an indigenous knowledge committee of the Yukon River Panel, and this is bringing elders and knowledge-holders together to really impress upon people just how important salmon are to the indigenous people here. That's part of what science loses, or dominant forms of science.

Science and Research committee  You're jumping the gun. I'm not a doctor quite yet, but soon, hopefully. How do indigenous traditional practices contribute to conservation practices? One thing that really works—and I've been sitting on a caribou management board for several years—and brings people from multiple different perspectives together is when our perspectives start to centre on what we want to preserve and protect.

Science and Research committee  The big one is cultural education and the fact that it does take a lot of cultural education from us, as first nations people, to make others understand what it's like to come from our world view. People really fall back into what's written in policy and what's written in law, and that can lead to a lot of challenges because all the laws and all the policies are currently written from a more Eurocentric, western perspective, just based on long histories there.

Science and Research committee  Thank you, committee members, for taking the time to hear from me and many others on this important topic. I am first nations with deep family ties to Carcross/Tagish First Nation and Taku River Tlingit, with relations from Fort Liard to Whitehorse. My status is with Taku River Tlingit.