Community health depends on clean water and healthy environments. Food systems rely on an intact ecosystem and a protected watershed. The HDI Six Nations Conservation Division is committed to ensuring that the water sources and resources of the future can be preserved and managed sustainably.
Clean water access
The quality of its water determines a community’s success or failure. There is a greater burden on health services when water is contaminated. Pollutants are filtered out of watersheds before they enter waterways and wells. Sediment and chemicals are intercepted by forests around water sources. Hazardous substances are broken down in wetlands by biological processes. Through buffer zones, agricultural runoff filters fertilisers and pesticides. These protective systems reduce treatment costs, despite technological advances. Protected areas have cleaner water than areas surrounded by development or degradation. During droughts, maintaining aquifer levels requires protecting land with intact soil and vegetation.
Food system foundations
Resources outside of farmland provide reliable food production. Keeping rivers and aquatic systems clean and stable helps fish populations survive. Efforts to conserve wild animals require trails and breeding areas that are quiet. A rich natural environment attracts pollinators, which support nearby crops. Healthy soil contains organic matter from surrounding wildlands. Residents of protected areas collect plants and berries. The recharge of rivers and aquifers by irrigated land is less efficient. Crops are resistant to pests, diseases, and climate change due to the genetic strength of wild plants. The balance of local weather is also harmed by strong winds and heat in forests.
Resource renewal capacity
Protected areas allow resources to regenerate at rates matching or exceeding human use. Forests produce timber, but only if harvest rates don’t exceed growth rates maintained through conservation practices:
- Fish stocks recover in protected zones where spawning occurs undisturbed, then populate fishing areas beyond reserve boundaries through natural migration patterns
- Medicinal plants regenerate when harvesting follows seasonal cycles and quantity limits that leave sufficient plants for reproduction
- Groundwater refills through infiltration in areas where soil structure remains intact rather than compacted by heavy use or paved over completely
- Wildlife populations maintain healthy numbers when habitat protection provides breeding areas, food sources, and shelter from excessive hunting pressure
- Soil fertility rebuilds through natural processes in fallowed areas, allowing rotation systems that prevent permanent degradation from continuous use
Cultural continuity preservation
Resource protection keeps the bond between communities and the lands that shaped their culture over many centuries. Traditional practices developed for local ecosystems and formed systems of care suited to each landscape and species. Knowledge of seasonal plant uses and careful harvest methods passes from one generation to the next through direct contact with protected places. Ceremonies and cultural gatherings linked to certain locations depend on those areas remaining open and unharmed. Language carries ecological wisdom within place names and words that describe natural events seen only in preserved environments. To achieve food sovereignty, access to traditional foods grown in natural habitats is required. The soil and water of ancestral lands continue to be important to communities. Sacred sites protect ecologically sensitive areas as well.
Maintaining cultural practices tied to healthy ecosystems is possible by protecting water and resources. Natural systems can regenerate resources indefinitely as a result of conservation efforts.
