Key component of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples calls for obtaining free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous communities regarding the use of their lands
While British Columbia slogs through reforms to comply with a United Nations resolution on Indigenous rights, the private sector has been quietly embracing the benchmarks of its own accord.
Nalaine Morin, Skeena’s vice-president of sustainability and the former lands director at the Tahltan Central Government, said the mining company had already been working with the First Nation for years on collaborative consent-seeking, laying the foundation that made the agreement possible. Morin said Eskay Creek is a redevelopment project of a “brownfield” site occupied by a previous mine, which came with pre-existing permits and an environmental assessment certificate. Skeena only needed to amend the permits to redevelop, but a consent-based agreement needed a new, full environmental assessment to be completed.
Skeena isn’t alone. Brian Sullivan, CEO of Conuma Resources based in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., estimated that more than 50 per cent of his duties now involve working on compliance with UNDRIP, First Nations communities’ interests and regulatory compliance. “Without that fundamental respect from the starting point, we don’t have that licence to operate in the Treaty 8 territory,” Sullivan said. He added that “we recognize that we have a period of stewardship on that land and that it takes the co-operation of the resource companies, and the nations, and the regulators in order to do it correctly.”
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