Jordan Coble, Westbank First Nation Councillor and Chair of the ONA Natural Resource Committee, and Mackenzie Clark, ONA tmixʷ (Wildlife) Program Lead, were recently featured in The Narwhal in a compelling in-depth article exploring the future of grizzly bear restoration in the North Cascades.

The story follows one of the most endangered grizzly populations on the continent, where as few as six bears may remain, and examines a growing, Indigenous-led effort to bring them back. Led by the Okanagan Nation Alliance and partner Nations, the initiative blends Indigenous knowledge, science, and long-term stewardship to restore not only grizzly bears, but the ecological and cultural relationships they represent. While past recovery efforts have faced setbacks, the article highlights renewed momentum, careful planning, and a vision that may take decades to fully realize.

As Jordan Coble reflects:

We should do this, and we must do this, and we must do it together.

Suiki?st, Pauline Terbasket, Executive Director of ONA, further emphasizes that the article “raises the complexities of numerous issues faced by those working to right, restore, reintroduce, and ultimately rebalance the relationship between human social and economic impacts and the natural world.”

This is really the task, the responsibility of upholding the principles that challenge our Nation rebuilding in every facet of our work. I have shared over and over, decolonization is messy work if truly committed to “the people to be” and as this article shares for the 20 Grizzly bears that may survive in this Area in the next 20-50 years.

— Suiki?st, Pauline Terbasket
Executive Director, ONA

To read the full article click HERE: B.C. First Nations are bringing grizzlies back to the North Cascades | The Narwhal