Innu continue hunt in Labrador protected area

Quebec Innu hunters have killed dozens of caribou in a protected area of Labrador.

As many as 150 hunters from five Quebec-based Innu groups began a weeklong hunt Sunday that crossed the provincial boundary, a move the hunters say is a protest over a contentious land deal struck between Newfoundland and Labrador and the Innu in Labrador.

Standing near dozens of caribou carcasses,Chief Real Mackenzie, of the Matimekush-Lac John community in Quebec, told CBC News Monday thatthe hunters have so far killed more than 100 caribou, in a closed zone halfway between Happy Valley-Goose Bay and Churchill Falls, in central Labrador.

"What you see is to feed our communities and families, men and women and children," Mackenzie said.

The area is home to the George River caribouherd, but alsoto the much smaller Red Wine caribou herd, which the provincial government said is endangered, with fewer than 100 left. The Quebec Innu dispute the claim that they pose a risk to a threatened caribou herd.

Mackenzie said the hunt inside the protected zone is a protestagainst the exclusion of the Quebec Innufrom the deal called the New Dawn Agreement, which gives Labrador Innu economic benefits from the hydroelectric development of the lower Churchill River.

Regional Innu Chief Ghislain Picard said his people in Quebec have "a lot of concern about the impact of this agreement on their rights."

Newfoundland and Labrador's Justice Minister Felix Collins said he doesn't understand that argument.

"To wipe out an endangered herd flies in the face of everything that's reasonable in that agreement," Collins said.

Officials from both the Quebec Innu and the Newfoundland and Labrador government said they are willing to sit down and talk out the problem, but so far no talks are scheduled.

The New Dawn Agreement offered the Labrador Innu hunting rights within 34,000 square kilometres of land, plus $2 million annually in compensation for flooding caused by construction of the Churchill Falls hydroelectric project 40 years ago.

Its signing in 2008was hailed by Premier Danny Williams as heralding a new era of partnership with the Innu people of Labrador. Last week, the Innu Nation signed an agreement in principle that brings the province astep closer to developing the Lower Churchill megaproject and gives legal weight to the New Dawn Agreement.