Shellfish harvesting in Boundary Bay - Governing Transboundary Waters: Canada, the United States, and Indigenous Communities - page 112

regulation by the State and has significant political consequences (Demeritt, 2001).
As Hannah (2000) observes, the politics of calculation tend to have greater impacts
on under-represented and marginalized populations such as Indigenous people living
on reservations. Such disproportionate impacts demonstrate how the internalization
of borders can manifest itself into ecocolonization.
Identifying the techniques of ecocolonization (such as enumeration of catch
and contamination levels) is an important step towards decolonizing space (Harris,
2002), both for the tribes and bands themselves and for the external agencies
involved in resource management.
Regulations and resistance
As described above, the politics of calculation impact Indigenous communities
differently, depending on which side of the international border they reside. The
divergent policies put in place after the demarcation of the Canada-U.S. border
also complicates intertribal negotiations. In Boundary Bay, the communities face
many hurdles to working cooperatively, despite their historical connectedness.
Divergent policies in the U.S. and Canada have perpetuated an internalization of
“foreign” borders in Coast Salish communities, where differential access to limited
resources based on political borders accentuates divisiveness (Thom, 2010). This
division is exacerbated by the limitations to physically crossing the Canada-U.S.
border and divergent resource management practices, both of which are complicated
in a post-9/11 context (Miller, 1996-1997, 2006). The difficulty of crossing the
border is continually referenced as an impediment for living and working within
the traditional Coast Salish territory. For example, it is common for community
members to travel many kilometers out of their way to go through what is
considered “a more friendly border post” than the main point of entry. Over the
years, I have heard many reports that the harassment and feeling of unease that
people feel while crossing the international border has greatly limited their travel.
This is particularly important for Coast Salish community members, with regard
to their sense of connectedness between tribes and bands that span the border.
Furthermore, the nesting of tribal governance systems within a nation-state
framework intensifies this divisiveness. One tribal employee reflected on her
experience participating in a transboundary environmental committee:
Right now, [our tribe] is recognized by the [U.S.] federal government as having
treaty rights to harvest shellfish in what we call the usual and accustomed
location. . . . And that's very important to the tribe that these rights are
protected and that we want to ensure that they continue. So when I've reported
back that the [Canadian band] is trying to make overtures to work in the
waters on this side of the border, too, there's a strong reaction with respect
to the fact that they do not have those same federally recognized rights on
this side of the border. And if they wish to secure those rights, which is not
a small task, they need to be making overtures and meeting with the tribes
themselves. A discussion with me, at that table, is not adequate to do that.
They have to be talking to our leaders.