Board of Directors

David Williams, President

A native British Columbian, David has inherited a profound sense of place from his mixed native and pioneer ancestry. He grew up in small town B.C. and has worked and travelled in many areas of the province in land surveying and as an ardent outdoorsman. He has also homesteaded and raised a family, developing skills as a log house builder and farmer. He has degrees in Anthropology and Library Science and was a library administrator at Simon Fraser University.

David's evolution as an environmentalist and aboriginal rights activist has been fostered by his observation that the native experience in Canada has much to teach us about how to live in this land. The understanding thus brought about will enable us to resist and transform those negative economic and social forces that, left unchecked, will turn “the best place on earth” into an industrial slag heap.

Ronald J. Lameman, Vice-President

Ronald J. Lameman of the Beaver Lake Cree Nation, Treaty No. 6 Territory, Alberta, Canada is the Director of Justice & Legal Affairs of the Beaver Lake Cree Nation located 9 miles southeast of the town of Lac La Biche in east central Alberta, Canada. The Beaver Lake Cree Nation is one of the Treaty No. 6 Nations who entered into Treaty No. 6 in 1876 and Ron Lameman has been a lifetime proponent of the Treaty focusing on upholding and enforcing the Rights of the Indigenous Nations of Treaty No. 6 in Alberta and Saskatchewan, Canada.

Ron has been the Executive Director of the Confederacy of Treaty 6 First Nations and has spent over 30 years working diligently for Treaty Rights, Land and Natural Resource rights, environmental protection, traditional subsistence rights, cultural rights, children’s rights, health and Self-determination for Indigenous Peoples in Canada and around the world. He was a delegate to the second UN Conference on Indigenous Peoples in 1981 at UN European Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland and attended the founding session of the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations in 1982, also in Geneva.

Ron has actively participated in a wide range of UN fora and international gatherings since that time, including the First Global Consultation on the Right to Food, Food Security and Food Sovereignty for Indigenous Peoples in Solola, Guatemala in 2002. He worked with other Indigenous representatives to bring about the “United Nations Study on Treaties, Agreements and Other Constructive Arrangements between States and Indigenous Peoples” in 1989, and has continued to be active in Canada and internationally to ensure the implementation of its recommendations for international oversight of Treaties between Indigenous Peoples and states as Nation to Nation legally binding agreements.

Ron was also active in each phase of the development of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and has also attended a majority of the sessions for the development of the OAS “American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples”. He is currently a Board member and Board officer of the International Indian Treaty Council since 2000 although his involvement with Treaty Council spans over 3 decades.

Glenn Parker, Treasurer

Glenn graduated with a Masters Degree majoring in Guidance and Counselling in 1980. He has enjoyed a variety of experiences that have enriched his life and feels it is time to give back.
Glenn has enjoyed a positive working relationship with First Nations and Métis. His experiences, over the past thirty one years, have provided him with an in depth knowledge of the struggles they have gone through since the European influence.

Glenn has successfully negotiated many Child and Family Service Agreements with First Nations and the Métis Nation British Columbia. He was instrumental in negotiating the Métis Nation Relationship Accord between the Métis Nation British Columbia and the Province of British Columbia. This Agreement outlined the relationship between the provincial government and the Métis Nation British Columbia in establishing child and family services to the Métis citizens of British Columbia.

Glenn is committed to working with First Nations in supporting their inherent right to protect their land and cultural heritage against government intrusion and corporate interests.

Carla Funk, Director

A first generation Canadian, Carla was raised by European parents with a reverence for wild natural places. Summers and weekends spent in northern Ontario's Lake of the Woods with her six siblings ensured this love affair would live on. Ojibwe and Cree friends during her youth fostered a strong sense of understanding and respect for First Nations people.

She studied Plant Sciences at the University of Manitoba, and equipped with a Masters in Plant Agronomy and Genetics, she lived and worked abroad for ten years in Ethiopia, Zimbabwe and Switzerland before settling in Victoria, BC.

She has served as a Director of the Board of World University Service of Canada, is currently a Director of the Board of Canadian Association of Gift Planners (VI Roundtable), and is an advisor to the Board of Directors of Friends of Nemaiah Valley, whose key initiative is supporting the Xeni Gwet'in (Tsilhqot’in) First Nations fight for aboriginal rights and title in the Victoria law courts. Her past four summers have taken her to the spectacular Nemaiah Valley, a place largely unspoiled.

Carla has a passion for the outdoors, travel, reading and photography. She currently holds the position as Director of Development, BC Cancer Foundation, Vancouver Island raising funds for cancer research and improved patient care.

Lynn Hunter, Director

Lynn was elected to Victoria City Council in November 2008. She has lived in Greater Victoria for more than thirty years. She graduated from the University of Victoria and raised her family here. She currently lives in Fairfield.

Her experience includes:

Member of Parliament for Saanich-Gulf Islands (1988-1993).

• Deputy Environment Critic Islands Served on the federal Parliament’s Constitution Committee on democratic reform, the External Affairs committee to relieve debt in the developing world and the Environment Committee that made recommendations on climate change and global warming.

• Protecting British Columbia’s wild salmon resource as an Aquaculture Specialist and Spokesperson for the David Suzuki Foundation, the Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform and the Pacific Northwest Pure Salmon Campaign. (1995-2006)

• Vancouver Island Coordinator for Oxfam Canada (1985-88) Participated in a fact-finding tour of conflict zones in the Sudan and Eritrea.

• Chair, Board of Directors Multiple Sclerosis Society, BC –Yukon Division, Chair of the South Vancouver Island Chapter of the MS Society and Chair of the National Government Relations Committee.
• Member, Board of Directors (1997-2001) Fisheries Renewal British Columbia, a Crown corporation created to help revitalize the province’s fishery and fishery-dependent communities. 
• Member, Board of Directors, (1995-2001) Sierra Legal Defence Fund, now called Eco-Justice, Canada’s leading non-profit environmental law firm. 
• Vice-Chair, Board of Directors (1997-2001) OXFAM Canada – an international development organization

JP Laplante, Director

JP Laplante is the Mining, Oil and Gas Manager for the Tsilhqot'in National Government. His primary duty is to coordinate the Tsilhqot'in's engagement and activities aimed at protecting Teztan Biny and the surrounding region from the proposed Prosperity Mine. He is also responsible for developing improved processes and mechanisms to deal with the unparalleled amount of mineral exploration in the Tsilhqot'in traditional territory.

JP brings experience working for First Nations seeking to protect their homelands from unwelcome resource extraction projects - most notably the Takla Lake First Nation and the Tse Keh Nay in their successful fight to save Amazay Lake from the Kemess North mine. When not at work, JP is gratefully exploring the wild places of B.C.on foot, canoe and ski.

Marilyn Mahan, Director

Marilyn has made Canada her home since 1973. Until then she had lived in the United States. She received a BA in Mathematics at UC Berkeley where she also learned the values of thinking critically (and sometimes questioning authority, and always questioning the media.)

While studying linguistics at McGill University, Marilyn was part of a team investigating the Algonquin language. This experience gave her an appreciation for our First Nations Peoples' respect and love of their land and their ability to live on it without exhausting its resources.

Marilyn has been involved in a wide gamut of volunteer work. This includes working with a neighborhood group to improve children's safety; spearheading a project to adopt a Vietnamese boat family; initiating a group at her workplace whose mission was to increase women's participation in upper management positions; and hospital visiting.

A more recent interest has been the use of ICT (Information and Communications Technology) in developing regions of the world to disseminate information about, e.g., crop prices, agricultural techniques, or migrant worker rights using cell phones, mp3 players and internet kiosks.

For many years, Marilyn worked as an information systems and business consultant, mainly in the areas of health administration and finance systems. Now she is looking forward to using business planning and analysis tools to assist RAVEN's efforts to protect both the constitutional rights of aboriginal peoples as well as the environment from inappropriate industrial expansion.

Linda Stanton, Director

Linda has lived on the West Coast all her life and loves the outdoors; hiking, camping, kayaking and organic gardening.

With a Masters in Social Work from UBC, Linda worked as Clinical Director for a not-for-profit agency (NEED Crisis and Information Line) for over 20 years, and believes in the capacity and skills of volunteers and their critical place in the fabric of a caring society. 

Linda has travelled to many places in the developing world and spent time in Guatemala the past two years, where the indigenous Mayan population struggle to maintain their culture and cope with grinding poverty and the aftermath of political oppression. 

She respects the deep connection that indigenous people have to the land and knows that supporting their efforts to preserve their culture and environment is critical for the future of all of us.

Clayton Thomas-Muller, Director

Clayton Thomas-Muller, of the Mathias Colomb Cree Nation also known as Pukatawagan in Northern Manitoba, Canada, is an activist for Indigenous rights and environmental justice. With his roots in the inner city of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, Clayton began his work as a community organizer, working with Aboriginal youth. Over the years Clayton work has taken him to five continents across our Mother Earth.

Based out of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, Clayton is involved in many initiatives to support the building of an inclusive movement for Energy and Climate Justice. He serves on the board of the Global Justice Ecology Project and Canadian based Raven Trust. Recognized by Utne Magazine as one of the top 30 under 30 activists in the United States and as a Climate Hero 2009 by Yes Magazine, Clayton is the tar sands campaign organizer for the Indigenous Environmental Network. He works across Canada, Alaska and the lower 48 states with grassroots indigenous communities to defend against the sprawling infrastructure that includes pipelines, refineries and extraction associated with the tar sands, the largest and most destructive industrial development in the history of mankind.