Ottawa places nearly one million square kilometers of northern territories under the protection of indigenous communities, but the conditions for the eventual exploitation of the resources of these territories have yet to be negotiated.
On the sidelines of COP15 on the protection of biodiversity, which is taking place in Montreal these days, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Minister of the Environment, Steven Guilbeault, announced on Wednesday the conclusion of agreements for four major projects conservation.
These agreements provide for investments of up to $800 million over seven years starting next year, sums to be used in particular “for territorial planning, community funding for stewardship and monitoring and to support jobs and of local growth”, in the words of the Prime Minister.
The four protection projects target the Great Bear Marine Area on the west coast of northern British Columbia, the territories of 30 Indigenous communities in the Northwest Territories, the huge near-polar region of Qikiqtani in Nunavut and the lowlands and western shore of Hudson Bay and southwestern James Bay.
A question of existence
“Our people have looked after the land for as long as we can remember and it’s only in the last 150 years that our ability to protect our lands and waters has been interrupted,” said Grand Chief Alison Linklater, of the council of Mushkegowuk, whose seven communities occupy the territory of northern Ontario and the shores of James and Hudson bays which are affected.
“Without our lands and waters, we don’t exist,” she said alongside the prime minister.
Dallas Smith, Chairman of the Nanwakolas Board, added: “We are not simply dependent on the ecosystems that we have been protecting and managing and maintaining for millennia. We are only a part of it and if these ecosystems are not healthy, we cannot consider our communities to be healthy. »
Open door to exploitation
The words of Prime Minister Trudeau indicate, however, that we are not aiming for absolute protection of the territories in question, which remain open to the exploitation of their natural resources: “It is a matter of recognizing that we cannot develop our resources without doing so in partnership, in an integrated way, with the First Nations, with the Inuit and the Métis. »
Justin Trudeau, however, acknowledged that we are still far from having finalized the conditions for economic development and environmental protection and the balance between the two: “It’s a new approach, but the details will be to watch, to negotiate, as we develop these protected areas to allow responsible development of the territory in an economic way, to create jobs in natural resources while ensuring the real and long-term protection of these vulnerable areas. »
Jurisdiction over the basement
These discussions could be more difficult than they appear. The subsoil — therefore the mining resources — is usually under federal jurisdiction. However, the words of the Grand Chief of the Tlicho Nation, Jackson Lafferty, suggest that this will no longer be the case: “With this partnership, we obtain greater recognition of our rights, our authority and our jurisdictions. […] We now own the surface and underground rights in our territories. »
Those of Justin Trudeau, although more vague in a context where the negotiations are not finalized, show a certain openness to this transfer: “That is why the partnership with the Aboriginal peoples is so important. When we talk about their territory, their rights, they have to be part of any exploitation or development work that is done on those territories. »
“By signing these agreements and these intentions and by developing the terms and specificities, they are the ones who will be part of the discussion on where we should protect more, where there would be room for development and under what conditions they will focus this development,” said the Prime Minister.
Still a lot to do
Justin Trudeau acknowledged that there is still a lot to do: “Protecting 30% of our territory (by 2030) will require us to form a lot of partnerships, first and foremost partnerships with the indigenous peoples who have protected these territories for millennia. »
The Prime Minister took the opportunity to salute the intention expressed the day before by his provincial counterpart, François Legault, to achieve 30% protection of Quebec lands by 2030.