Renewable energy conference hears from First Nation leaders about development partnerships
Aboriginal groups say they want partnerships to help build clean energy
Michael Oliveira, February 25, 2008
TORONTO - Opportunities to develop profitable and sustainable clean energy projects on aboriginal land across Canada are nearly limitless, but they can only happen if communities are full partners and not just stakeholders, aboriginal leaders said Monday.
Speakers representing industry groups and aboriginal communities spoke at a renewable energy conference in Toronto about a possible future where small-scale facilities are spread across the country, with each powering its community with clean energy and economic spinoffs.
New biomass, hydro, solar or wind projects would take stress off the grid, help protect the environment, and build prosperous communities where opportunities are currently limited, said Grand Chief Stan Beardy of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation, which represents 49 First Nations communities in an area comprising two-thirds of Ontario.
The untapped northern region of Ontario is expected to soon enter a mining boom, but aboriginal communities must be players and not spectators if governments and industries want to take full advantage of the region's resources, Beardy said.
"The north is verging on a major mining boom that will require enormous amounts of energy," he said. "This will require rapid development of generation and transmission ... and will create widespread benefits across Ontario's north.
"Support for the First Nation communities would demonstrate that the governments of Canada and Ontario have a real commitment to appropriate development with First Nation people and their territories."
The Ontario government recently helped fund a project that would combine wind turbines, a hydrogen-based storage system and a fuel cell to wean northern communities off diesel-driven power, which Beardy called "unsustainable financially and ecologically."
But while that government partnership was welcomed, other aboriginal leaders told the conference that the best solution is for communities to maintain total control of new energy projects whenever possible.
The Taku River Tlingit First Nation in Atlin, B.C., had to wait through an extra year of delays so it would maintain 100 per cent control of its new two-megawatt hydro project, which will meet the community's power needs, said capital projects manager Peter Kirby.
Even though the community had a number of investors ready to kick in some cash in exchange for a stake in the project, "in our view, owning it is everything," Kirby said.
The hydro plant will provide revenue streams for many generations and will help end the community's need to burn 1.4 million litres of diesel every year, which will prevent 150,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases from being emitted over the next 25 years.
"We're trying to build a sustainable economy, a revival of our cultural values of sustenance and responsible management of resources," Kirby said.
The challenge in launching similar projects in other aboriginal communities is that they're often ill-equipped financially to fund work that can take almost a decade to see through, said Christopher Henderson, national co-ordinator for the Aboriginal Clean Energy Network.
Communities are also commonly taken advantage of by developers, he added.
"In negotiating those agreements, I have seen at least in half the cases the agreements put before the community ... weren't worth the paper they were written on - they fundamentally were theft by the private developer," Henderson said at the conference.
"In a lot of cases I've seen agreements that after they've signed, frankly, you can't fix."