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Northwest Territories • Protected Areas • Lands and Regulations • Issues & AdvocacyThis data was accurate as of April 2008.
Page Index
Land description: The land and fresh water area of the Northwest Territories is 134,416,235 hectares with the land only area being 118,308,500 hectares. Approximately 100% of land in the Northwest Territories is Crown or public with very little being private. There are four National Parks covering a total of 7.31 million hectares, and approximately 43 territorial parks and wildlife reserves covering 2.96 million ha.. Additionally, over 18.85 million hectares (16.5%) of land have been proposed for withdrawal or withdrawn from industrial use under First Nations agreements, future National Park areas and candidate protected areas. The Territory has 43 ecoregions as designated habitat types.
Brief History: (prior to initiation of land
use plan and development) In 1994, the Whitehorse Mining Initiative was signed to provide a strategic vision for a healthy mining industry in the context of maintaining healthy and diverse ecosystems in Canada. Among other things it called for establishing an ecologically based system of protected areas. Representatives of five sectors agreed to participate. They were the mining industry, senior governments, labour unions, Aboriginal peoples, and the environmental community. A report from the Land Access Issue group was released in 1994. In August 1996, during the final phases of the BHP diamond mine approvals, the Government of the Northwest Territories (GNWT) and the federal Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (DIAND) committed to develop a protected areas strategy for the Northwest Territories in partnership with Aboriginal groups, environmental organizations, and other interested parties. In 1998, work began on development of the Northwest Territories Protected Areas Strategy (NWT-PAS) under direction of an Advisory Committee. The Protected Areas Strategy – A Balanced Approach to Establishing Protected Areas in the Northwest Territories was approved in September, 1999. The strategy does not prescribe a target amount for protected area or a date for meeting the basic goals.
Process of Development/Consultation Type: The NWT-PAS is directed toward the achievement of two goals: 1) to protect special natural and cultural areas; and 2) to protect core representative areas within each ecoregion. There were approximately 8.5% or 29.2 million ha protected before 1997 (this number included the Nunavut territory). The approved NWT-PAS describes an eight step process that communities can use to plan and establish protected areas and is intended to promote a balanced approach to land use decisions by incorporating traditional, ecological, cultural, and economic knowledge.
PAS Implementation and Candidate PA selection
process: The NWT has adopted the National Ecological Framework for Canada (1996) and the Soil Carbon Digital Database (1996), a discrete layer of polygons within the Canadian Soil Information System (CanSIS), as the basis for determining its landscape units. Planning areas area based on administrative districts and land claim regions. A workshop on the principles of conservation biology and ecological resource management, including mineral resource assessment, in October, 1999 brought together government agencies, mineral industry representatives, land use planners and environmental non-government organizations, including the federal Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (DIAND), the NWT Department of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development (RWED), the Geological Survey of Canada, members of provincial geological survey groups, NWT Chamber of Mines, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, and the World Wildlife Fund. The job of planning protected areas lies primarily with communities, regional organizations and land claim bodies. At all stages, stakeholders, appropriate government institutions and the RWED/DIAND coordinated PAS Secretariat will provide assistance in planning protected areas. There are eight steps to be used to obtain protected status for a selected area.
In June 2001, the following documents were developed and adopted:
The time frame for protecting a site is unique to each area advanced under the strategy, and areas of interest generally have no defined boundaries or restrictions on land access as a result of being identified. Only two areas put forward for protection have reached the level where a five year limited, interim land withdrawal has been placed on them.
Results: A result of the mineral resource assessment workshop (October 1999) was the start of a compilation on high priority (mineral) regions that have been identified as candidate protected areas. Proceeding from that, a methodology for conducting resource assessments in the NWT in consultation with the end users - communities and industry will be developed. This will lead to the development of descriptive and statistical ore deposit models. In October 2002, under an agreement with the Deh Cho First Nation, a five year land withdrawal was implemented for the Edehzhie candidate protected area (2.52 million ha). In April 2003, 7,071,800ha of subsurface lands were withdrawn from mineral exploration to become part of a system of interconnected protected areas extending from Wood Buffalo National Park to Nahanni National Park. There is also a draft agreement in place to triple the size of Nahanni National Park (currently 482,400ha). Total proposed protected areas will be over 10 million hectares. In 2004, the federal government announced the provision of $9 million over five years towards the Mackenzie Valley Protected Area Action Plan. The amount will be matched by local governments and partners, and will contribute to conservation planning in 16 ecoregions. By 2006, the Gwichin, Dehcho and Akaitcho land use plans contributed to the withdrawal of 12.58 million ha of land. Proposed National Parks added approximately 0.93 million ha, and PAS candidate protected areas created 3.077 million ha of interim withdrawals. The current total for existing legislated protected areas and withdrawn lands is 33.53 million hectares or 24.9% of the territory.
First Nations Land Claim Settlements: The Gwich’in, Inuvialuit, and Sahtu have settled land claims and have their own land use boards. They have participated in the NWT PAS and the Inuvialuit use it as a basis for their land use policies. The Inuvialuit Settlement Region has six community based conservation plans. The Smith’s Landing First Nation (centered in Alberta) has agreed to a treaty land settlement with most of the land claim being in Alberta. In August 2003, the Tli Cho Agreement was signed with the Dogrib First Nation for land claims covering approximately 3.9 million hectares which include both the Ekati and Diavik diamond mines. The Tli Cho First Nations support mineral exploration. Other First Nation communities are in the process of identifying priority candidate areas under Step 1 of the PAS. The Dhecho have virtually closed their region to mineral exploration with the non-issuance of prospecting and land use permits. The Lutselke have used the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board to bring a halt to exploration by referring grass-roots mineral exploration programs to environmental assessment based on vague non-environmental concerns.
Post-completion and On-Going issues: Completion of the NWT Biodiversity Action Plan. The regulatory process for the Northwest Territories has shown to be too slow due to ambiguous wording in the environmental assessment act, and a complex and inefficient regulatory regime under the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board.
Government Departments, Agencies and
Legislation, for further information: (Protected Areas Strategy)
Industry, Tourism and Investment (Territorial Parks, Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources) www.iti.gov.nt.ca/ Mackenzie Valley Land Use Planning Board www.mvlwb.com Gwich'in Land Use Planning Board www.gwichinplanning.nt.ca Sahtu Land Use Planning Board www.sahtulanduseplan.org/ Sahtu Land and Water Board www.slwb.com/land.html Inuvialuit Land Administration www.inuvialuitland.com/ Indian and Northern Affairs Canada www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/
Environment Canada www.ec.gc.ca Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency
Parks Canada www.pc.gc.ca/
Natural Resources www.nrcan.gc.ca/
Non-governmental organizations
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