- [Karl Smith] For thousands of years there was people that did exactly the same job as we're doing today.

Guardians are the stewards of the land and the sea.

We're out there to preserve and protect the environment and the wildlife and the sea life.

I'm working for my people once again.

(waves crashing) (bird squawking) (traffic buzzing) So we're just on our way to Nunns Creek.

It's one of the first areas that we put up the ecological fencing.

(birds chirping) I like the quietness here.

I was born and raised in Vancouver in a big city, so I moved up in '93 here to get away from that and be with my relatives up here on this land.

(soft melodic music) I was originally a commercial fisherman for over 20 years.

Back in 2000, I decided to leave the fishing industry, getting into habitat restoration.

This particular estuary, it was subject to about 60 years of forestry practices.

All the vegetation was destroyed.

So in the last 20 years or so, it's reestablishing itself.

So we are helping in that also.

(soft piano music) We're trying to bring it back to its natural state of years past.

For the goose exposures, like, some of the material was taken from right around here.

So, like this type of stuff here, we would take and we'd use this for the horizontal fencing part.

We put fencing up using a traditional fish weir design.

It's cultural fencing.

First Nation's relatives ancestors use this technology.

(soft piano music) In the 1960s, DFO introduced the Okanagan geese to this area.

So their population has dramatically increased.

They forage on the Carex sedges.

So when they do that, they remove all the cover for the juvenile fish and they destabilize the river banks.

Inside the fence here, this was all mudded area like three years ago.

And now you can see the carex sedges are starting to take hold here.

They're growing nicely.

They're filling in that whole area inside the fence.

The juvenile fish can swim in and out fairly if they go inside our fences.

We're helping to protect the juvenile pinks, coho and chinook smoke for sure.

People, the animals, the sea life, all rely on that salmon.

How are we going to see what you guys are doing today?

Is everybody down here?

Hello Jordan.

How's it going?

- Pretty good, thanks.

- [ Karl] It's important that we have as much community involvement as possible because we're from here.

We should be the stewards.

How's it going guys?

- Hi.

It's going good?

Hard work.

- How's the ground?

It's not too hard?

- It's getting a little solid here.

- Yeah.

- Yeah a little bit of clay on the top.

- It's not too bad.

- [Karl] Okay.

- [Jordon] There's a lot of estuary down here, so there's a lot to do.

- [Karl] It brings back visions of how it was way back when.

- I think it's important for us to be here because if we're not here, then who is here?

And if we're not here, then no one's here.

And if no one's here, then we're not making a difference.

- Lift it up.

- [Jordon] It's kind of an honor to work for your people, to represent them.

Hopefully we set example for everybody else.

Not just the first nations.

Like other people that are in BC here.

Everything's out here for everybody to enjoy it.

So we should all take part in helping preserve and protect it and revitalize it.