Reconsidering the Canadian Environmental Impact Assessment Act: A place for traditional environmental knowledge

Abstract

There is a fundamental assertion by indigenous communities, which is now beginning to be recognized globally, that “we belong to the land.” The position of indigenous people, both locally and globally, as traditional knowledge holders and legal entities with rights and title to lands is challenging the authority of nation states in the development and management of lands and resources. International bodies, such as the United Nations and World Bank, continually place emphasis on bridging the implementation gap between the inclusion and exclusion of indigenous communities in public policy. However, increasing tensions exhibited between indigenous nations and nation states continue to surface. Much needs to be written about the shortsightedness of state governments that continue to ignore indigenous rights and title and the perils that await them. This paper will focus on a small part of this larger question, examining the emerging struggle of legal recognition of indigenous title, rights and cosmologies into the Canadian body politics as it relates to environmental policy. In addition to broad policy implications associated with the acceptance of indigenous people's knowledge, there are also ethical issues of “integrating” traditional knowledge as well as practical problems with “implementing” traditional environmental knowledge (TEK) into legal and regulatory environmental regimes, practices and policies. A significant new way to examine these questions is to examine them through an Aboriginal resource planning approach. This approach will be formalized in relations to current activity in British Columbia, Canada, where Aboriginal communities and two levels of Canadian government are negotiating a balance between indigenous and state aspirations to find complimentary and sustainable mechanisms for environmental assessments.