The Aboriginal people whose homeland is the Great Boreal forest have fought hard to gain attention and respect for themselves, their communities – and their home.
These lands are an important source of food – along with spiritual sustenance -- for communities that are thousands of miles from the nearest supermarket (in fact, one study found that the Canadian boreal provides close to half-a billion dollars worth of “country food” for Aboriginal communities annually). Lakes and rivers provide travel ways and support healthy fisheries that can be used both for local sustenance and as a high-value resource to attract anglers and other visitors. Forests contain numerous spiritual places for people who have lived in harmony with the land for generations.
Allan Quachgen, trapper, drugs and alcohol counsellor, handyman and taxi cab driver from Moose Cree First Nation. In July 2008, Moose Cree issued a declaration for its homelands, “We are charged by the Creator with the duty of preserving and protecting the land for future generations....We are not opposed to all development but you must get our consent prior to any development occurring within our homeland.”
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The 24,000 inhabitants of this vast forest region have an intimate connection to its woodlands, waterways and wetlands. They know the stories of this landscape, stories that have been passed down from generation to generation. But despite this hard-earned wisdom, they have often been ignored when decisions about land-use have been made by governments and companies.
In the traditional territory of Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI) in far northern Ontario, for example, community leaders stood firm against mineral exploration undertaken without community consent. In 2008, six leaders chose incarceration as a matter of conscience, making the point that the Mining Act is fundamentally inconsistent with Canada’s constitution. The KI 6 stood their ground and were joined by conservation groups and Canadians from coast to coast in calling for reform to Ontario’s antiquated mining laws and its general approach to resource allocation in traditional lands.
Currently, under laws drafted in the 1800s, anyone with a simple-to-get prospector’s licence can stake a mining claim on public (and some private) land by marking the area. From this point, there is an equally clear right for mine development to proceed with little consultation or compensation if the claim proves valuable. It is a system that reflects an old frontier mentality based on the idea that lands such as the Great Boreal Forest were “empty.”
The responsibility to consult and accommodate the needs of Aboriginal people before making land use or resource allocation decisions has been firmly established by Canada’s courts over the past 10 years. Meanwhile, it is increasingly clear that it is simply bad for business for provincial governments and companies to ignore legal rights and operate like it is still 1890.
This makes Ontario’s ground-breaking decision to make Aboriginal people the leaders of community land-use planning for the Great Boreal Forest an important precedent. It also provides hope that the promised revisions to Ontario’s Mining Act will require community consent, accommodation and conformity with these community plans.
These new initiatives could be the start of a truly cooperative effort to develop a new vision for the Great Boreal Forest, drawing together First Nations, government, industry and conservationists around the goal of supporting healthy communities in a healthy landscape.
