Industrial expansion and colonial land-use legacies drive wolverine decline in Treaty territories—restoring Indigenous stewardship as critical
Original framing: “Backcountry recreation and roads linked to fewer wolverines in Canadian mountains” — Phys.org
The study ignores the Ktunaxa Nation’s *q̓lispe’* protocols, which use controlled burns and seasonal closures to maintain wolverine habitats—a model predating colonial land surveys by centuries. Indigenous-led monitoring, such as the *Wolverine Watch* program in British Columbia, has documented higher survival rates in areas governed by Indigenous conservation laws. The omission of these practices reinforces the myth that Western science alone can solve ecological crises, erasing Indigenous sovereignty over wildlife management.
The wolverine’s decline in Canada’s mountains is not an isolated ecological crisis but a symptom of settler-colonial land management, where roads and recreation are tools of industrial expansion disguised as 'access.
' Indigenous stewardship models—such as the Ktunaxa’s *q̓lispe’* and Sámi *guovssahas* traditions—offer systemic alternatives, yet they are excluded from policy discussions, reinforcing the myth that Western science alone can solve ecological collapse. Historical parallels, from the Canadian Pacific Railway to the Interstates Act, reveal a pattern of habitat destruction tied to state-sanctioned infrastructure, while marginalized voices—Indigenous rangers, trappers, and elders—are sidelined in favor of depoliticized 'human impact' narratives. The trickster role of the wolverine, as seen in Dene and Inuit lore, exposes the absurdity of framing conservation as a battle between humans and wildlife, when the real conflict is between colonial land-use and Indigenous sovereignty. Solutions must center Indigenous governance, participatory science, and cultural repatriation of wildlife, not just incremental policy tweaks.