Keeping a watchful eye on development
Low-impact power generation – the way of the future
Fraser River Salmon Table Society looking for new long-term strategies
Remote Ontario First Nation communities get first Energy Conservation Kits
Keeping a watchful eye on development
The Mackenzie Valley, Northwest Territories is known worldwide for its vibrant Aboriginal cultures, pristine rivers, spectacular air and amazing wildlife. It is also hosts some of the world’s largest diamond mines, a variety oil and gas developments and many other intense development activities. This is why there is a great deal of pressure to make good resource management decisions in the north. Environmental impact assessment – a critical look at the effects developments might have on the land, water air and people – is a major component to resource management.
The environmental impact assessment process in the Mackenzie Valley is run by a network of co-management boards – boards made up of an equal number of Aboriginal land claim organizations and territorial/federal government nominations. This co-management regime fulfills commitments made by the federal government in regional land claims that were settled in the Northwest Territories.
According to the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act, the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board (Review Board) is the board responsible for environmental impact assessment in the Mackenzie Valley. For example, if a developer has applied for a water license or land use permit and it is determined that the proposed development might have a significant impact on the environment or might be a cause of significant public concern, the Review Board is obligated to do an environmental assessment of the project. The environmental assessment must be run as efficiently as possible and while doing so, the Review Board must consider the potential impacts the development could have on the biophysical environment and the social, cultural and economic well-being of residents and communities in the Mackenzie Valley.
As part of its overall responsibilities, the Review Board needs to monitor developments applying for licenses and permits near the borders of its jurisdiction. By keeping an eye on potential transboundary impacts, such as upstream impacts on the Mackenzie River, the Review Board is ensuring good decision making is happening.
Transboundary concerns can come up if a proposed development is entirely in one jurisdiction with impacts that could be felt in a neighbouring jurisdiction, or when a proposed development is straddling the border. Joint efforts to coordinate reviews of such developments and share information are vital to running quality environmental impact assessments that are timely and expeditious.
Over the past few years, the Review Board has entered into cooperation agreements and memorandums of understandings with some of its neighbouring jurisdictions. The agreements encourage cooperation between the different agencies involved when reviewing proposed development. The agreements foster coordination and communication on environmental impact assessment responsibilities, and develop a framework for negotiating project specific joint environmental impact reviews.
So far the Review Board has entered into agreements with the Inuvialuit Environ-mental Impact Screening Committee and Environmental Impact Review Board, the National Energy Board, the Nunavut Impact Review Board and most recently the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Board. The Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board is also working with Alberta Environment and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency to develop cooperation agreements with them as well. The Review Board hopes to continue its work in this area by beginning talks with other regions such as British Columbia and Saskatchewan as well.
For more information about the Review Board, visit the Review Board’s website at mveirb.nt.ca
Low-impact power generation – the way of the future
By Xavier Kataquapit
Low impact power generation developments are becoming alternatives to large hydro electric projects, coal fired plants, nuclear energy development and gas fired power production. More and more the public is demanding more clean, efficient and less invasive ways to produce power. At the same time power demand in North America is at an all time high and governments and industry are scrambling to make sure the lights stay on.
As a result of this environmentally driven trend, smaller power generation projects are developing across Canada and in some cases they are doing so with the participation and scrutiny of First Nations. As governments and industry consider the opportunities in more environmentally friendly power generation some of this development has to do with revitalizing projects from the past and creating new and more efficient hydro power plants with less invasive construction and production. Some of this development is occurring now on traditional First Nations lands with their active participation. As this trend grows, there should be more opportunities opening up for First Nations all across the country.
One example points to a partnership in Northern Ontario near Kapuskasing. This partnership involves Wabun Tribal Council based in Timmins, Ontario, two of its First Nations, Chapleau Ojibwe and Brunswick House, and Hydromega, a company based in Montreal, and the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources. The partnership will see the creation of three waterpower projects and four powerhouses on Old Woman Falls, Big Beaver Falls and White Otter Falls along the Kapuskasing River. This $70 million dollar development will produce a total of 20 megawatts of power in run of the river, low environmental impact power generation.
Wabun Tribal Council has had a prominent role in the development of this partnership. The council worked with the Ministry of Natural Resources in the creation of a Waterpower Site Release and Development Review Policy with the foresight that potential development would take place on Wabun First Nation territories. The new policy which was established in 2004 by the provincial government includes a requirement for potential waterpower developers to contact First Nations whenever development will affect First Nation territories. The council also worked with its two member First Nations to establish a partnership with Hydromega on the development of waterpower projects on the Kapuskasing River. As part of an Agreement in Principal that was signed by the two First Nations and Hydromega, the communities will have the opportunity to increase ownership as their investment in the project grows.
“This is a win-win situation for everyone involved and for the first time ever, we as First Nations are enjoying an active partnership with the idea of ownership in hydro power development happening in our traditional lands,” said Shawn Batise, Executive Director of Wabun Tribal Council.
This type of small scale and more environmentally friendly power development appeals to the First Nation leadership at Wabun and it is a good fit in terms of First Nation sensitivity and stewardship of traditional lands. In addition to actual control of development on traditional lands the First Nations will also benefit economically with the aim of proprietary ownership.
Fraser River Salmon Table Society looking for new long-term strategies
By Malcolm McColl
The Fraser River Salmon Table Society is working toward consensus, said Richard McGuigan, PhD, co-chair of the salmon table (along with Marcel Shepert, Pacific Salmon Treaty) during the meeting in Prince George, BC, September 18th at the Prince George Native Friendship Centre.
Dr. McGuigan said, “Cooperative Decision Management is the way to achieve consensus,” for the fledgling table society.
By this emerging method interest-based negotiations are conducted through (three) stages and everybody abides by a final consensus. Cooperative Decision Management allows no veto to any party, and is not co-management, which, “has a negative reputation and gives regulators a lot of power,” said co-chair McGuigan.
The salmon table process must respect the ability of First Nations to represent their constituencies, said Doug Kelly, Sto:lo Tribal Council, “especially regarding the inter-tribal treaty process.” The table is open as long as Aboriginal rights and title are respected.
David Moore worked on table planning. “One goal of the salmon table is to create transparency in marketing, ultimately to resolve problems like selling caviar for as low as 11 cents per pound and finding out it fetches $15 a pound in the US food market.”
This transparency is the goal of a Siska First Nation demonstration project, to, catch, process, and sell their fish harvested from a fish wheel, with approval of CFIA, BC Food Safety Act, and BC Centre for Disease Control.
Salmon is a commodity from the wild realm, and salmon is still largely misunderstood in terms of behaviour and even physiology.
Moore explained, “We have learned colour of the flesh is not determined by how far up the river the fish has gone,” a previous assumption, “rather, maturity is the determinant in quality and colour of the flesh.”
This is interesting because the old view was the farther up the river salmon were caught the less red and more dark the flesh would be (and dark is inedible). Now upstream fishers can join the mainstream market.
“The key is flexibility in marketing,” said Moore to the table society meeting.
He said, “Micro-processing can be done profitably without over-capitalization.” A boondoggle may exist in the changing provincial management of food health via Regional Health Authorities in BC.
The BC government says on the internet, “This structure, introduced in December 2001, modernized a complicated, confusing and expensive health care system by merging the previous 52 health authorities into a streamlined governance and management model.”
Today, said Moore, “these regional health authorities are charged with supplying permits required for the catching, processing and selling of fish.”
The commercialization of fresh caught salmon may be advanced through a new process, noted Moore, now including a specific container for storing a fish – a cardboard, wax-coat that preserves ice and fish together for the few hours required to get a fish a proper larder.
The problem is, however, a lack of fish to market. Teresa Ryan works in Vancouver as a fish biologist on the Pacific Salmon Commission and a scientist representing coastal First Nations and often hears the same question: where have all the fish gone?
A report in the Prince George Free Press said low salmon returns found along the Fraser River this year show nets producing a tenth the expected catch. As a result people are not going fishing.
Obviously this is a major concern in Canada’s North West Pacific, where often the First Nations are losing of a way of life. Traditional salmon harvests unite communities, but this year nobody goes to the river.
These people are facing a disappearing cultural diet, a staple food for the poor, and a lack of control over problems associated with the loss.
Remote Ontario First Nation communities get first Energy Conservation Kits
The delivery phase of "Mana-cha-toon Wash-ti-ni-gun," or the "Conserve the Light" project, began September 7th at Thunder Bay Airport. A Wasaya Airways plane was loaded with Energy Conservation Kits (ECK) prepared for delivery to remote First Nation communities without road access.
This initiative is part of the Provincial Energy Efficiency & Conservation Measures for Aboriginal Communities (EEMAC) program launched in Thunder Bay at the Mana-cha-toon Wash-ti-ni-gun (Conserve the Light) Gathering last May. The Gathering was attended by over 130 representatives from 65 First Nation communities; EEMAC is funded by the Ontario Power Authority (OPA).
The first load of 1,400 kits are going to the residents of the remote communities of Kasabonika, Kingfisher Lake, Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (Big Trout Lake), Weagamow (North Caribou) and Wunnumin Lake (each is 300 to 400 miles north of Thunder Bay) in Northwestern Ontario. The ECKs are transported on a regular Hydro One flight used to transport service technicians into remote locations.
For more information on this initiative and a list of communities, visit www.nativejournal.ca.
Nancy Turner brings together decades of experience working with First Nations in the Pacific Northwest. In The Earth’s Blanket, she explores the wealth of ecological knowledge and the deep personal connection to the land and its history that is encoded in indigenous stories and lifeways, and asks what they can teach all of us about living in harmony with our surroundings.
Scholarly in its thinking but accessible in its writing, The Earth’s Blanket combines first-person research with insightful critiques of Western concepts of environmental management and scientific ecology to propose how systems of traditional ecological knowledge can be recognized and enhanced. It is an important book, a magnum opus with the power to transform our way of thinking about the Earth and our place within it.
Nancy Turner is an ethnobotanist and Distinguished Professor in the School of Environmental Studies at the University of Victoria, British Columbia. She is also a research associate with the Royal BC Museum. She has authored or co-authored more than fifteen books in the areas of ethnobotany, traditional ecological knowledge and sustainable resource use.