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Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/411627
48 BCBusiness december 2014 This is a peace-accord ceremony, intended to promote goodwill among neighbouring bands that had long ago fought wars against one another, but it's also a call to arms as they prepare to confront the B.C. government over resource development on their ances- tral lands. For two days, aboriginal leaders have met amidst the spruce forests of Nadleh Whut'en territory west of Prince George to draw up nego- tiation plans for a key meeting with the government. "It's time we stood up. It's been too long that we never stood together," Louie exhorts his peers. He speaks in a calm, defiant voice that remains steady despite gusts of wind that threaten to drown him out. "We used to fight with weapons. Now we fight with paper." First Nations across B.C. are gearing up for a series of land-title claims and resource negotiations that could deter- mine the fate of the province's ambi- tious plans to turn B.C. into a global energy powerhouse. Markets in Asia are hungrily eyeing vast, newly viable natural gas reserves in northeastern B.C. and northwestern Alberta, with some estimates indicating the shale basins surrounding Dawson Creek could yield a quarter of the world's marketable natural gas—nearly 3,000 trillion cubic feet (Tcf). Getting that fuel to paying cus- tomers will not be easy. The shale gas boom in the U.S. has imploded demand for the fuel in Canada's tra- ditional markets south of the border, and cashing in on Asian demand will require building a web of pipelines crisscrossing B.C. from wellheads near the Alberta border to liquefaction and shipping terminals on the coast near Kitimat and Prince Rupert. Those plus the contentious Northern Gateway bitumen project and a dozen other pipelines are now under consideration in B.C., with the extraction, transport and shipping all affecting land and water resources that First Nations have used for millennia. Three of the gas pipelines, plus Northern Gateway, are proposed to run through the Nadleh Whut'en's traditional territory. In the old days, companies plan- ning pipelines—or other industrial projects, for that matter—would simply avoid building on the small fraction of land designated as reserves under the federal Indian Act and ignore any stake First Nations may have had on other areas. But over the past 50 years, B.C. First Nations have won succes- sive court decisions that increasingly recognized their authority over their traditional territories—not just the small parcels set aside as reserves. Most of B.C. is unceded territory that has never been surrendered by First Nations in treaties. This June, the Supreme Court of Canada handed B.C. First Nations a landmark victory when it decided, in Tsilhqot'in Nation v. British Columbia, that aboriginal title over territory the group has traditionally controlled must be recognized. The Tsilhqot'in had been contesting a logging licence the province issued to Carrier Lumber Ltd. in 1983, on land near Williams Lake the Tsilhqot'in claimed as its own. Three decades later, and after an epic 339-day trial, the Supreme Court declared the First Nation had the "right to use and control the land and to reap the ben- efits flowing from it." The decision has not re-written the laws that govern land rights in the province. The Tsilhqot'in First Nation may have earned recognition of their title rights over a 1,750-square-kilome- tre section of their traditional territory, "I am not against development; I am not against anything. It's how it's done. In my laws, you keep something for the kids after you're gone" —Martin Louie