ID: 1723
Presenting Author: Barry Wilson
Session: 725 - After the Assessment – Where’s the Value and What Happened in the End?
Status: pending
Reviews three Indigenous-led cumulative effects scenario planning studies in southern BC, Canada, to identify barriers preventing implementation & opportunities for improved stewardship
Cumulative effects scenario planning is a best practices approach to integrating operational & project-level decision-making with regional land use planning. As a key element of the adaptive management cycle, its value is amplified by a two-eyed seeing approach using Western science & Indigenous Knowledge. Despite government agencies contributing funding and expert participation to Indigenous-led scenario planning studies that inform major industrial infrastructure environmental impact assessments, provincial forest land management, and ecosystem reclamation and remediation planning, the valuable findings and recommendations of these studies may not progress beyond the reporting stage, failing to influence policy, permitting, or practice.This paper examines three Crown-funded, Indigenous-led cumulative effects scenario planning case studies in Secwepemcúl'ecw, the unceded and traditional territory of the Secwépemc Nation in southern British Columbia, Canada. Through a comparative review, the paper summarizes the level of implementation or lack thereof of recommendations across these studies, identifies systemic and structural barriers that may be preventing completion of the adaptive management cycle from assessment to action & ultimately adaptation.The paper discusses the opportunity costs of inaction and the contributions these studies could make toward improved land and resource stewardship, reconciliation, and economic certainty. Insights illustrate how holistic cumulative effects scenario planning can better inform decision-making at both project & regional scales.
Barry Wilson, RPF, chapter author in Handbook of Cumulative Impact Assessment (Edward Elgar, 2021), serves on ICCE Technical Advisory Committee in Canada, and paraglider pilot