About Us

Purpose of Ha-ma-yas Stewardship Network

The Ha-ma-yas Stewardship Network serves to support a regionally consistent and effective approach to stewardship across all of our territories, and to coordinate, strengthen and build our stewardship capacity and capability in areas such as compliance monitoring and enforcement capabilities.

The Network also serves to:

  • Support the protection of our cultural, economic, and the ecological values throughout our territories;
  • Support research related to key priorities in our territories;
  • Coordinate and provide standardized training;
  • Ensure a consistent data collection system is in place and that recognized data gathering methods are used so that the information can be incorporated into our respective decision making processes.

What the Guardians do:

Each Nation’s Guardians and stewardship staff monitor the condition of our territories and gather information about activities occurring in them. In collaboration with federal and provincial government agencies, we monitor compliance with environmental laws by the public and by companies operating in our territories. Currently we hold positional authority passed on to us by our respective Chief and Councils.

We also work with other First Nations up and down the coast to protect our marine and terrestrial resources. 

A Togetherness of Guardians

The 2019 annual gathering of the Ha-ma-yas Stewardship Network involved watershed planning, “deep time” archaeological surveys, eDNA, the ICO, story-telling, karaoke and more. A gathering on Quadra The latest gathering of the Ha-ma-yas First Nations Guardians took place over four days in May this...

Read More

HELPING THE KELP

The giant and bull kelp plants that grace British Columbia’s waters are not only beautiful to look at; they are important indicators of the province’s coastal ecosystem health. First Nations Guardians are part of the vital and exciting work taking place to learn more about them. “Some of the areas...

Read More

2016 Annual Ha-Ma-Yas Stewardship Guardian Gathering

2016 Annual Ha-Ma-Yas Stewardship Guardian Gathering “I thought it was just great that everyone is able to get together like this in the heart of their territories. Each Nation is quite different, with different personalities involved and different ideas to offer, but there are also a lot of...

Read More

LEARNING THE ROPES

LEARNING THE ROPES Through a Vancouver Island University (VIU) community-based program, Ha-ma-yas Network Guardians and stewardship staff are learning hands-on skills to take out into the field. “These courses are providing us with incredibly valuable knowledge,” observes Brad Seward, Projects and...

Read More