ON AMENDING THE 1916 MIGRATORY BIRDS CONVENTION: Indigenous Reflections and Priorities
ON AMENDING THE 1916 MIGRATORY BIRDS CONVENTION: Indigenous Reflections and Priorities

Summary/Abstract: This article is the result of a collaboration between Philip Awashish, Eeyou leader, and anthropologist Jasmin Habib. It provides an account of the process by which the people of Eeyou Istchee, also known as the James Bay Cree, sought and, in the end, succeeded in obtaining an amendment to the Convention for the Protection of Migratory Birds in the United States and Canada (1916). The James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement signed in 1975 expressly permitted the goose hunt at all seasons and therefore conflicted with the 1916 Convention and the Act and regulations that enforced it. A protocol drawn up by Canadian and American negotiators in 1979, allowing exceptions to the closed season for Indigenous populations, was rebuffed by conservationists. However, the 1982 Canadian Constitution Act affirmed the primacy of treaty obligations of the Governments of Canada and Quebec and Indigenous peoples, and the courts ruled that it, therefore, permitted the harvesting of migratory birds. Eeyou’s attitudes respecting the economic and spiritual importance of the hunt are explored in the article. The article describes how this conflict of law was successfully resolved with a new protocol in 1995.

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