Working Group on Indigenous Peoples

18th  Session - 24 -  28, July 2000

INTERIOR ALLIANCE
Southern Carrier, St’at’imc, Secwepemc, Nlaka’pamux, Okanagan

STATEMENT ON AGENDA ITEM NUMBER 6:
STANDARD SETTING ACTIVITIES
Indigenous Peoples Relationship with Natural Resource, Energy and Mining Companies

PRESENTED TO THE UNITED NATIONS WORKING GROUP ON INDIGENOUS POPULATIONS,

18TH SESSION, GENEVA, July 24th-28th, 2000
By Chief Arthur Manuel, Neskonlith, Chairperson Interior Alliance
 

Dear Chairman,

        Sometimes the relationship of indigenous peoples with Natural Resource, Energy and Mining
Companies is called the new frontier. In the case of British Columbia it is actually one of the oldest
frontiers. The economic interests to pursue the exploitation of natural resources was the fuel to the machinery of colonization, it was the blind lust for gold (with the Gold   rushes in the Interior in the
1850s) that pushed the frontier into our lands and thereby opened the way to settlement. In the process of land-selection (that still characterizes the Canadian government’s dealing with indigenous land rights) Indians were slowly pushed onto very small reserves, to leave the larger and richer parts of the territories open for the exploitation of natural resources and settlement. The lands “granted” to our peoples were too small to sustain them. My own home reserve, Neskonlith, was set up in 1861 and by 1870 we had run out of natural resources on reserve.

        This process pushed our peoples into a cycle of economic dependency and relying on the provision of social services. We have heard the Canadian government speak about those programs and services in great detail. What they forgot to mention is that the 165 Canadian Dollars at present provided as social assistance per person, cannot even pay for a balanced  diet of my peoples. Many of them therefore still rely on the multifaceted use of our traditional territories for hunting, fishing, medicine gathering, berry picking etc. to supplement their diet. The multifaceted use of our territories, in the case of the Interior of British Columbia especially the once extensive forests, is strongly impacted by large-scale logging, mainly clear-cutting and other industrial activities, including mining.

        My peoples who still live in a mixed economy between social assistance and traditional food gathering have been monitoring those impacts with great concern, because they are the first to be directly impacted by them in their livelihoods. Commercial industrial forestry destroys the habitat of the animals and unbalances the whole ecosystem. Indigenous peoples have over  the generations adapted to and shaped those ecosystems and strongly enhanced the biodiversity of their traditional territories. Today our traditional ecological knowledge is the key to the sustainable use of our traditional lands and territories.

        Together with the companies and governments we can work out plans for the comanagement of our traditional territories. But we do not want our knowledge to be instrumentalized by the companies to maximize their profits and exploit us and our lands further. Our traditional knowledge has to be protected and most important our inherent rights to the land and resources have to be recognized. Aboriginal Title as recognized in the Supreme Court of Canada decision in Delgamuukw enshrines our proprietary interest in the land and natural resources, such as our forests and their multifaceted use.

        We are aware that in order for our people to break the cycle of economic dependency they have to have equal access to their lands and resources as the diverse natural resource, energy and mining companies. Profits have to be shared equally.

        We ask the Working group on Indigenous Populations, all other indigenous  and government delegations present to join us in condemning the non-recognition of Aboriginal Title as an unfair trade practice. The exploitation of indigenous territories without the consent of traditional owners, not taking the collective proprietary interest of indigenous peoples into account, violates our human rights as indigenous peoples and even mainstream international trade law.

        It is   economic racism. No other lands can be accessed without the consent of all its owners. As indigenous peoples we hold Aboriginal title over our lands and have inherent rights to access the natural
resources, but we are also under an obligation to protect our natural environment and livelihood. We
believe that only if indigenous peoples and the settler economies hare equally in the use and profits of
the land but also in the obligations to protect the land and its use for future generations, real  coexistence can be lived.


FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:

Chief Arthur Manuel   Cell: 01-250 314-7179
Neskonlith Indian Band
Chairman, Shuswap Nation Tribal Council
Chairman, Interior Alliance
or:
Nicole Schabus    Cell: 01-250 314-4507
International Relations
Interior Alliance
email:   Nicole.Schabus@interioralliance.org
 

INTERIOR ALLIANCE
Southern Carrier, St’at’imc, Secwepemc, Nlaka’pamux, Okanagan
c/o Shuswap Nation Tribal Council
Suite 304 – 355 Yellowhead Highway
Kamloops, British Columbia V2H 1H1
Phone: (250) 828-9789 Fax: (250) 374-6331
Email: cnelson@interioralliance.org 
  

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