Impact and Benefit Agreement (IBA) Scholarship and Knowledge Gaps

Transcription

1 ReSDA 2nd Annual Workshop, Nov 22-23, 2012 Impact and Benefit Agreement (IBA) Scholarship and Knowledge Gaps Ben Bradshaw, Adam Wright, Ginger Gibson, and Peter Siebenmorgen Acknowledgements: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council 1

2 Impact and Benefit Agreements (IBAs) voluntary Supra-regulatory designed to (further) mitigate project impacts and deliver benefits to local Aboriginal communities Impact and Benefit Agreement (IBA) For Aboriginal Communities Typical Content For Mining Firms Financial payments Employment and training (added) Environmental protection and monitoring Cultural preservation Education Community development Dispute resolution processes In-kind provisions Other community-specific interests Establishes formal, long term relationship with Aboriginal community (which can be publicized to all stakeholders) Assurance that mining activities will not be disrupted Access to community infrastructure and workforce 2

3 Community Condition 22/11/2012 What s in a name? Impact Benefit Agreement or Impact and Benefit Agreement Project w/ I&BA Project w/ EA mitigation Project w/o EA mitigation 3

4 Mining Agreements in Canada NRCan, 2012 The Con Mine Shaft as visible from Dettah, NWT Ben Bradshaw Oct. 30,

5 YK. N.W.T B.C. ATLTA. MAN. Gwich in SASK. ONT. Kugluktuk Sahtu Ekati Tlicho Diavik Nunavut Deh Cho Yellowknife Snap Lake Dettah Akaitcho Project Ekati Diamond Mine Diavik Diamond Mine Snap Lake Diamond Mine IBA Signatories Tlicho Government (Dogrib Treaty 11) (Oct. 1996) Lutsel K e Dene FN (Nov. 1996) Yellowknives Dene FN (Nov. 1996) North Slave Métis Association (Jul. 1998) Kitikmeot Inuit Assoc. and the Inuit of Kugluktuk (Dec. 1998) North Slave Métis Association (Mar. 2000) Tlicho Government (Dogrib Treaty 11) (Apr. 2000) Yellowknives Dene FN (Oct. 2000) Kitikmeot Inuit Association (Sept. 2001) Lutsel K e Dene FN (Sept. 2001) Yellowknives Dene FN (Nov. 2005) Tlicho Government (Mar. 2006) North Slave Métis Association (Aug. 2006) Lutsel K e Dene FN (June 2007) 5

6 > 22/11/2012 & Practice Identifying IBA Knowledge Gaps as they emerge from existing scholarship as they emerge from IBA use as identified by communities, firms and regulators Draft Summary of Existing IBA Knowledge and Gaps Organized into five themes: 1. Legal Basis of IBAs 2. IBA negotiation and implementation 3. IBA effectiveness 4. IBA interaction with regulatory processes and institutions 5. IBAs and social justice 6

7 Existing Knowledge: Legal Basis of IBAs The legal and quasi-legal basis of IBAs is generally well understood, at least historically: Aboriginal law Successful Land claims EA Decisions Evolving cultural norms/ Industry CSR What is less known is the contemporary legal basis of IBAs given evolving definitions of the Crown s Duty to Consult and Accommodate and growing quasi-legal demands for Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) (Draft) Knowledge Gaps: Legal Basis of IBAs 1. Does legal context from region to region impact the content of an IBA? 2. Are IBA negotiations recognized as de facto replacements for the Crown s Duty to Consult and Accommodate? If so, what are the implications for Aboriginal communities and industry? 3. How are legal and cultural norms around the concept of FPIC changing in Canada, and what might this mean for IBA Negotiations? 7

8 (Draft) Knowledge Gaps: Legal Basis of IBAs 4. Do governments have a legal obligation to support IBA negotiations? If so, what might be the scope of their involvement? 5. How do communities understand their legal rights? How does this impact their approach to IBA negotiations? 6. How does industry approach IBA Negotiations? Is it to have a rights-based discussion or is it based on how much money will it take to get the project the green light?? Does this matter? Existing Knowledge: IBA Negotiation/Implementation For a variety of reasons, IBA negotiations (and their outcomes) can be highly variable The exercise of overt and covert power is a crucial issue and concern in IBA negotiations IBA negotiations often miss the opportunity to directly address community health needs Although a seemingly obvious point, IBA implementation is a fundamental determinant of IBA effectiveness IBA implementation can be highly variable 8

9 (Draft) Knowledge Gaps IBA Negotiation/Implementation 1. How variable are IBA negotiations and implementation? 2. To what degree are IBA negotiations informed by well-conceived and inclusive community visioning exercises? How well do they capture interests of community health? 3. How much information sharing occurs among communities and among companies, and how does this impact IBA negotiations? (Draft) Knowledge Gaps IBA Negotiation/Implementation 4. What are contemporary and historical constraints to effective IBA negotiation and implementation, and how can they be addressed? 5. What are the governance and capacity issues that have to be addressed to improve IBA negotiation and implementation? 9

10 Existing Knowledge: IBA Effectiveness By their mere presence, IBAs represent an advance over a grossly unjust past For communities, IBAs serve to influence project planning and secure benefits; the attainment of these goals is variable from agreement to agreement. Community satisfaction with benefit delivery is generally low; while explicit expectations may be met, communities members hold a variety of implicit expectations of IBAs that are seldom delivered. There is limited work that seeks to measure IBA effectiveness, in large part because it is methodologically challenging. (Draft) Knowledge Gaps IBA Effectiveness 1. Are IBAs benefiting communities? Are they meeting their explicit and implicit aims? 2. Are IBAs benefitting industry? Are they meeting their explicit and implicit aims? 3. What methods are suitable for gauging IBA effectiveness? 4. Can mining, when undertaken with IBAs, contribute to sustainable community economic development? What conditions must be present? 10

11 Existing Knowledge: IBAs & regulatory processes (private) IBA negotiations are influenced by, and influence, (public) regulatory processes like EA There is little to no coordination of these two processes, though parties knowingly use each process to further their interests A community s participation in IBAs can impact its relations with institutions like AANDC and the Provinces (Draft) Knowledge Gaps IBAs & regulatory processes 1.Is there the potential to harmonize EA and IBA processes? Is there interest? 2.To what degree are IBAs coming to replace EA, and is this problematic? 3.Is the present relationship of IBAs and EA productive? Is this working? 11

12 Existing knowledge IBAs and Social Justice The historical conduct of mining has created injustice for Aboriginal peoples (continued colonialism) Though the regulation and conduct of mining has clearly evolved, it is still easy to conceive of mining in a colonialist frame In modern land claim regions (e.g. Nunavut), control over mine developments is especially improved. That said, the new institutional arrangements are frustrating communities and causing renewed disempowerment. While mineral life cycles are relatively short, IBAs can aid in the creation of inclusive development processes and mitigate boom and bust scenarios (Draft) Knowledge Gaps IBAs & Social Justice 1. Do IBAs have the potential to ameliorate historical boom-bust trends? 2. In light of their private nature, do IBAs reinforce exclusive development practices or can they be a tool for inclusive governance? 3. Are IBAs a counterbalance to historical injustice or do they perpetuate them? 4. What are alternatives to IBAs that might create greater opportunities for communities in terms of both economic development and social justice? 12

13 Though there is clearly a need to generate new knowledge, we also need to mobilize existing knowledge, which has been attempted here From Ginger Gibson Practice Gaps Agreements types have proliferated, but with little information sharing or collective learning Agreements remain largely unconnected to regulatory engagement Little to no adaptive management in light of observed social impacts variable implementation; often weak Unreasonably high governance requirements Knowledge gaps How can communities and governments share information and create unity to leverage agreement outcomes? Little on the capacity, policy, structures for implementing/ managing IBAs How can engaged social analysis inform/enable adaptive management, Governance models (e.g., management of decisions, budgets, etc) 13

14 Are IBAsignatory communities healthier than they used to be? If not, how can they be? Knotsch & Warda (2009) Top-Down Evidence from the NWT Average annual change (over the period ) Impacted Aboriginal Communities Northwest Territories Canada Income +6.98% +3.20% +3.90% Taxfilers with more than $50,000 income +1.37% +1.17% +0.93% Unemployment rate -1.06% -0.16% -0.23% Percentage with high school education +0.56% +0.40% +0.90% Number of businesses +0.62% % - AVERAGE 2.12% 0.99% 1.49% Source: Communities and Diamonds 14

15 Bottom-Up Evidence from the NWT Those old mines wouldn t listen to us. They wouldn t come and consult with people in our community. Now there s employment, training opportunities and scholarships for our youth. It s getting better all the time. Kugluktuk Focus Group All they re really doing is just paying us off. I think it s peanuts, compared to the resources they pull out of the ground Yellowknife Focus Group The benefits have been good, but we could get more. What have we got from the mines but jobs? We could have got a lot more in our IBA Kugluktuk Focus Group Improving Our Research Use of a finer lens (e.g. 1 IBA rather than 14!) with more community-level voices Refinement and replication in multiple locations Use of community selected indicators of well-being and long-term self-monitoring starting with a baseline 15

16 Meadowbank Mine, 70 km north of Hamlet of Baker Lake, NU From the KIA AEM IIBA Baker Lake Inuit Wellness Report AEM shall prepare an annual report on the wellness of the Inuit residents of Baker Lake (the Wellness Report and Implementation Plan ). The Wellness Report will draw its data from the annual report of the Socio-Economic Monitoring Committee submitted to the Nunavut Impact Review Board and from the other sources described in Section L4... Where necessary in order to ensure that the Wellness Report fulfills its underlying objectives, AEM shall also give reasonable consideration to implementing other forms of inquiry including: (i) personal interviews; (ii) focus group sessions; (iii) surveys; and (iv) case studies. 16

17 Fulfilling their underlying objective The objective of each Wellness Report is to provide an overview of any impacts of the Meadowbank Mine on the wellness of the Inuit residents of Baker Lake in as much detail as practically possible Agnico-Eagle has commissioned the Hamlet to develop a means of tracking Hamlet wellness using indicators that are meaningful to its residents Baker Lake - April 2012 We are assisting the Hamlet to develop these indicators and to establish a baseline of Hamlet wellness against which change can be measured baseline year 2 year 4 year 6 Locked Door at Night Country Food meals per week 17

18 Mining Agreements in Canada NRCan, 2012 We are also working with Baker Lake to make available to residents knowledge of the community health implications of mining from places like Dettah, NWT With funds from the Canadian Institute for Health Research, we have collected pieces of knowledge and worked to translate/mobilize it for Hamlet residents 18

19 April 12 June 11 October 12 19

20 Please tell me your wants, questions & concerns Ben Bradshaw University of Guelph 20