There is only one national, Indigenous-directed environmental non-profit in Canada and it’s the Centre for Indigenous Environmental Resources. Founded in 1994 by 10 First Nation Chiefs from different corners of the country, they recognized that for Indigenous communities to protect and sustainably develop their lands, a foundation of technical environmental capacity was needed. Blending western science and traditional knowledge, conservation and economics, Indigenous and non-Indigenous staff, the Centre has worked on 450 projects with over 300 Indigenous nations across Canada. The organization isn’t just advancing Indigenous rights and working on the front lines of the environment-economy debate: the Centre is demonstrating how meaningful community consultation can create the buy-in needed to advance good ideas.
We spoke with Shianne McKay – who served as a senior project manager before moving on to continue her advocacy for Indigenous environmental decision-making in other spaces – by Skype from her office in Manitoba to better understand consultation, reconciliation, economic development and biodiversity.
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What do you think?
- Shianne showed us a pathway for truth and reconciliation that includes balancing conservation and economic development. Will we follow it? Can we? Should we?
- Can we make money and do good?
- Should we do a better job of coupling land and people, social justice and the environment, economic development and conservation?
- Are two seemingly competing ideas bound to cause friction or is finding compromise in work and in policy how we generate better results for all?
- One person’s compromise is another person’s sell-out. How do we not only reconcile differing ideas, but also differing cultures – and differing cultures and beliefs within individual cultures and peoples?