BC aboriginal title claims escalate upward in attempt to ‘decolonize the sky’

VANCOUVER — Recent court rulings and agreements in BC have recognized Aboriginal title over vast areas of land and water in the province, prompting a provocative if not peculiar question: can indigenous groups also claim title to the airspace above?.Some indigenous groups, advocates, scholars and stakeholders argue “yes,” asserting that their Aboriginal title encompasses not only the ground and waterways, but also the skies and clouds passing overhead.A notable example emerged last summer when members of a Gitxsan Nation house group (Wilps ‘Wii K’aax, Wolf Clan) in northern BC demanded "free, prior, and informed consent" for helicopter flights over territory they claim under Aboriginal title.The group argued that their title extended not just horizontally but vertically — into the sky.They took action, too.The group deployed drones for "monitoring and mapping" of the area without prior Transport Canada approval — an activity that resulted in its own litany of regulatory and safety concerns.Drone technology is increasingly prevalent worldwide, including in BC’s claimed “unceded territories.”CBC and others have described aspects of this trend as a broader movement to “decolonize the sky.”.The Gitxsan drone experiment ended abruptly last fall, however, when Ottawa said “no.”On December 12 2025, Transport Canada issued a formal letter reaffirming its sovereignty over the elevated space above the surface of the earth within its national boundaries..Nonetheless, some experts and advocates maintain that indigenous groups might still have a legal leg to stand on when it comes to British Columbia.Aboriginal title, as defined by courts in BC and elsewhere, grants indigenous peoples exclusive use, occupation, and economic benefits from "the land.” But British Columbia's Land Title Act adds an intriguing twist by defining "land" to include airspace, which could theoretically allow registered parcels to have vertical boundaries extending upward indefinitely.Furthermore, some indigenous groups and advocates say it fits within the broader wave of reconciliation efforts under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and BC's Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA).Neither UNDRIP nor DRIPA explicitly mention airspace.Nonetheless, several provisions in UNDRIP concern lands, territories, and other resources, which couldb— some say — be interpreted, depending on the legal argument, as indirectly touching the space above land.Article 25 of UNDRIP, specifically, recognizes indigenous peoples’ spiritual relationship with their traditionally used lands, waters, coastal seas and other territories. Some scholars have argued that ceremonial or cultural relationships with the sky could theoretically be framed within this language.New Zealand Māori academic and UN chair Valmaine Toki goes even further than the sky when discussing the subject in a 2021 paper titled “Is there an Indigenous Right to Space?”.In that paper Toki argues that when read together with the “key right to self-determination,” Article 25 “clearly provides the right for Indigenous peoples to maintain and strengthen their distinctive spiritual relationships with their traditionally owned or otherwise occupied and used lands,” which, she says, could “extend to land and territories within the celestial or non-earthly realm.”“This is ridiculous” said BC independent MLA Amelia Boultbee when discussing the issue exclusively with The Western Standard.“I can't think of a worse political crisis in my lifetime,” Boultbee said of the issue of private property being deemed "defeasible" by the BC Supreme Court, with the independent MLA adding that indefeasability of title was one of the first things she learned in law school.These arguments, while a bit ‘spaced out,’ aren't hypothetical though — they're very real. Even further west from the Wilps Wii K’aax Wolf Clan, the BC NDP government and the Haida signed the fairly recent 2024 “Rising Tide” Haida Title Lands Agreement, formally recognizing Aboriginal title over all 10,000 square kilometers of Haida Gwaii's “terrestrial lands.”The Haida assert that these “terrestrial lands” encompass not just the surface but also the airspace above it.A subsequent 2025 “Big Tide” agreement specifically lists "airspace" as one of six key areas for future negotiation between the Haida Nation and Canada, meaning this debate remains — like so many other issues related to BC’s "reconciliation" project — up in the air.

BC aboriginal title claims escalate upward in attempt to ‘decolonize the sky’

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