Yesterday, a tiny First Nation community called Lutsel K’e Dene, nestled along the shore of one of the world’s largest lakes, Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories of Canada, gave the world a massive gift: The permanent final establishment of a new Indigenous Protected Area that encompasses a landscape of astonishing size—more than six million acres. That’s an area more than twice as large as Yellowstone National Park or the Adirondack Forest Preserve. In fact, it is one of the largest land protection actions in recent history. More than 10 million birds rely on this area. And now, because of the leadership of the Lutsel K’e Dene First Nation, they will never face the prospect of returning north in the spring to find their habitats destroyed or degraded by industrial activities like mining and its spider web of supporting infrastructure. The Lutsel K’e Dene First Nation has been working for many years with both the Government of the Northwest Territories...