Demonstrating lost navigational access using an Indigenous rights-based monitoring trigger - implications for flow-needs policy

The Peace-Athabasca Delta, Canada, is the largest freshwater delta in North America, and the traditional territory of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, Mikisew Cree First Nation, and Fort Chipewyan Métis Nation, who rely on water-based access to exercise rights and maintain their Way of Life. Non-inclusion of Indigenous Knowledge in development planning has resulted in cumulative water quantity impacts to the Peace-Athabasca Delta, constituting a loss of rights. Navigational losses are partly due to the Crown governments’ management of oil sands exploitation and water withdrawals from the Athabasca River. No meaningful navigational protection exists along the Athabasca River corridor and in the Peace-Athabasca Delta. The Nations apply a rights-based monitoring trigger, known as the Aboriginal Extreme Flow, which is the Athabasca River discharge below which widespread and extreme disruption of Traditional use occurs. The Nations require a depth of four feet (122 cm) to sustain access. Ten years of sampling established the Aboriginal Extreme Flow to be 482 m3/s, using Water Survey of Canada gauge 07DA001. This indicator was developed using a braiding of Indigenous and Western knowledge systems, with broad acceptance and shared validation. We describe alterations in river flow over time, apply the Aboriginal Extreme Flow indicator and examine how navigation loss changes during weeks 33–41. Our analysis of the Athabasca River flow dataset reveals a statistically significant increasing trend in lost access of approximately two additional days every five years. Elders who grew up using these rivers to access rights in the fall have experienced lost access of almost three weeks in their lifetime. Governments need to apply the Aboriginal Extreme Flow in their approvals and policies related to the cultural flow needs of the Athabasca River and Peace-Athabasca Delta. Without measures in place, Indigenous rights will continue to be infringed as cumulative impacts grow ever greater in this region.