It’s hard to comprehend how big Canada really is. At 1.5 million km2, Quebec Province alone is 25% larger than South Africa, yet it comprises just 15% of the country. With a total population of nine million people, of which almost 80% live in its cities, the province contains enormous areas of wilderness. About half of its land is forest, punctuated by more than a million lakes and rivers scattered across its expanse - a freshwater surface area of 177,000km2 or the equivalent of nine Kruger National Parks!
It’s no surprise then that Quebec is a highly sought-after destination for people who love the wild, and last month I was lucky enough to visit, following an invitation to speak on a panel at the Adventure Travel World Summit in Quebec City. Held annually, ATWS is a global gathering of industry professionals looking to buy and sell adventure travel to destinations around the globe. My panel discussed the opportunities and challenges tourism in protected areas presents for conserving these special places.
Arriving a day early gave me time to experience a small piece of Quebec’s magic on a trail run through the forest and along the rivers of the Jacques Cartier National Park. The contrast with running in the mountains of the Cape was stark. Dominated by a handful of tree species, it doesn’t have the diversity that we are used to, but it makes up for it in its cool, deep green canopy, soft trails and big, clean, fast-flowing rivers. My run was followed by an hour lying quietly on a rock in a stream, soaking it all in. Then the rain arrived, soaking me and sending me into the park centre for a hot coffee and an afternoon mesmerised by the downpour pummeling the river and trees through a huge window.
My day of shinrin-yoku (forest bathing) certainly delivered on its promise of calming and mental clarity (and nailed the jetlag!), leaving me ready for the conference. With almost a thousand delegates from around the world, it was somewhat surreal that one of the first people I met was wearing a Sealand cap! Trevor, the owner of a kayaking company in Ottawa, had fallen in love with the brand on a visit to Cape Town, buying his cap at the Noordhoek Village store! Needless to say, he was stoked to meet a fellow fan!
Then it was time for the panel. With most of my tourism experience being around wildlife tourism in Africa, it was great to share the stage with Mathieu Bourdon, founder of Noryak Adventures, a kayaking company that runs epic multi-day expeditions down the Magpie River in Quebec’s North Shore region. Known to its two resident Innu First Nation communities as Mutehekau Shipu (river of the rocky cliffs), the Magpie’s 280km of wild, pristine waters make it one of the top 10 stretches on the planet for multi-day whitewater trips for kayakers, canoeists and rafters.
For many years, and despite its enormous ecological, spiritual and recreational value, the Magpie faced the threat of a hydropower dam flooding its gorges and destroying its flow – an outcome that would see it join two-thirds of the world’s rivers that no longer flow unimpeded from source to sea.
This is where Mathieu’s story became fascinating for me. Having seen the damage done to the nearby Romaine River by a hydropower dam built in the early 2010s, the Noryak founder was desperate to save the Magpie from the same fate. In 2018, he partnered with local Innu leader Chief Piétacho to bring together local Indigenous and non-Indigenous governments and environmental groups to form the Muteshekau-shipu Alliance. Together, they approached Yenny Vega Cárdenas, president of the International Observatory on the Nature’s Rights, to take on the case of protecting the Magpie River.
Yenny’s proposed solution was one I’d never heard of before: granting the river legal personhood, a move which had been used to protect ecosystems in Ecuador, New Zealand, Spain and Colombia. If successful, it would mean that the river and its ecosystem could not be destroyed. It would no longer be an object to exploit, but a person to protect. This approach to conservation falls under the legal framework of the Rights of Nature, which recognises that natural phenomena like rivers and forests have the intrinsic right to exist outside of their relationship to humans.
Three years later, the Innu Council of Ekuanitshit and the Minganie Regional County Municipality declared the Mutuhekau Shipu a legal person. As a result, the river now has nine rights, including the right to flow, maintain biodiversity, be free from pollution, and to sue.
I loved this story and so did our audience. First, it shows how responsible nature-based tourism can support the conservation of the world’s wild places. Second, it reminds us of the power that a small group of passionate, dedicated people has to create enormous positive change. Last, but most inspiring to me, is the recognition in the legal system that humans are not the pinnacle of evolution, nor the only beings that have an inherent existence value.
Whilst this goes against the utilitarian ethic of much of Western culture, it’s always been the way of many Indigenous cultures. Quoted in a National Geographic article, Uapukun Mestokosho, a member of the Mutehekau Shipu Alliance, says it beautifully: “I see the river and the trees as ancestors. They’ve been here long before we have and deserve the right to live.”
With World Rivers Day being celebrated on 27 September, I left Quebec feeling equally inspired by my visit to the Jacques-Cartier River and my education on the rights of the Mutehekau Shipu.
