From First Nations Wildcrafters, BC: "It is good to see the Crown include consultation with First Nations as part of this process. However, this does not address the capacity needs of First Nations to be able to adequately engage in review of these permit applications. The current Consultation and Revenue Sharing Agreements negotiated for forestry related activities did not include the costs for reviewing mining related reviews and referrals. Additionally, the consultation contribution of the Crown in the existing MARR agreements for forestry referrals were capped at $30,000 (which is not adequate at all for assessing impacts on forests, non-timber, cultural resources or fisheries related effects). For First Nations to be able to fully engage in referral submission evaluations and consultation the Crown simply has to provide the funding for this process to be meaningful. The intent of referrals and consultation is to not only determine effects, but is also to lead to better decisions being made. We cannot have a process to produce informed outcomes without the funding required to do so. First Nations just cannot be continued to be put into a situation of footing the bill for the mining or forest industries."
Posted on: Fri, 06 Sep 2013 15:44:36 +0000
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