Reviewing First Nation land management regimes in Canada and exploring their relationship to community well-being

Abstract

The presented paper synthesizes and reviews the history of Fist Nation land management, forming the background of three land management regimes types; the Indian Act land management (IALM), First Nations land management (FNLM) and frameworks of self-government land management (SGLM). The three regimes are compared to the Community Well-Being (CWB) index, being a measure of socio-economic development of communities across Canada. Statistical analysis was done on CWB scores by land management regime to determine if there are significant differences between land management regime and CWB scores, and where rates of increase in CWB are found. Results of these efforts identified five key findings; 1) while higher levels of CWB score are found in all three land-management regimes, there is an increasing trajectory in CWB average scores from IALM, to FNLM, to SGLM communities; 2) there is a significant statistical difference between CWB average scores of the IALM with FNLM and SGLM land management regimes, 3) higher levels of CWB scores were found among communities having a formal versus an informal land tenure system; 4) rates of increase in CWB scores were found in higher scoring communities, however, the rates were higher at the lower quartile; 5) increase in CWB scores was observed in FNLM communities both prior and after transition to FNLM, however, the rate of increase slowed down after transition.