"Industry gets away with too much. A lot of damage is taking place just outside the borders of our territory. Western science has had its voice heard long enough. We need to be putting First Nations people as the primary contributors and owners of the data."
Hydro projects generally have dramatic and adverse impacts on both environments and nearby communities. Recent research indicates that reservoirs are actually significant sources of carbon emissions, sometimes more than the coal-fired plants they are designed to replace. They often result in the flooding of large expanses of natural habitat, especially in undulating landscapes. The Three Gorges Project in China, the world’s largest dam (22,500 MW), has a reservoir area of 1,084 km2 and the second largest in Brazil and Paraguay (14,000 MW) flooded 1,350 km2. The Robert Bourassa Dam in Quebec flooded 11,300 km2 whereas the WAC Bennett Dam in BC and the Grand Rapids Dam in Manitoba submerged 1,650 km2 and 1,157 km2 of upland habitat, respectively. As flooding occurs, microbially released methylmercury is released and accumulates in invertebrates and zooplankton, which is further concentrated at higher trophic levels. Mercury levels can be extremely high in predatory fish such as pike and walleye and for muskrat, ducks, and moose and gull eggs.
Flooding erodes shorelines, resulting in the collapse of permafrost and riparian forests in northern climates. Cumulative impacts of flooding cause declines in the productivity and biodiversity of downstream deltas as well as estuarine and coastal areas. Rare or endangered species that are especially vulnerable to these changes include lake sturgeon and woodland caribou in northern Manitoba and salmon in the Pacific Northwest. Indeed, hydro dams are increasingly being built in the world’s most biodiverse river basins, including the Amazon, Congo and Mekong, which will have enormous implications for biodiversity including one-third of the world’s fish species.
Photo by Robert Spence showing shoreline erosion
The implications of these dams for the health and well-being of impacted communities is often drastic. In the most extreme cases, entire communities are forcibly relocated which has extraordinarily adverse impacts on traditional economies and culture. Post-impoundment mercury levels in fish are soon high enough that they are no longer safe to consume, much less to export, thus undermining community confidence in traditional foods and in turn contributing to increases in diabetes, obesity, and heart disease. Impacts including declines in traditional harvesting and in health and well-being are widespread, and visible in communities across Canada and the Global South.
Yet, research on hydropower, especially as it relates to the environment and wellbeing, still largely excludes impacted communities and does little to address the individual much less cumulative impacts of projects on environments and communities. Moreover, there is an even greater dearth of hydro-related and other environmental and health research that focus on strength-based solutions to impacts.
To learn more about the impacts of hydro dams visit Wa Ni Ska Tan and Hydro Impacts.
Mining impacts continue in Canada despite Indigenous and treaty rights afforded by Section 35 under the Canadian Constitution Act and UNDRIP. The mining sector contributes over $125 billion to Canada’s GDP, accounts for 22% of its exports and employs over 600,000 people. These mines are generally in close proximity to Indigenous communities, in that 36% of the First Nations communities in Canada are located within 50km of a mine, including many of the 10,000 abandoned/orphaned mines in this country. Yet, such communities have long experienced mining as a colonial process of dispossession and underdevelopment. Extraction disrupted (and in some cases completely undermined) subsistence economies and most of the wealth produced (profits, royalties, taxes, and wages) was captured by non-Indigenous jurisdictions. While the negotiation of modern treaties with government and benefit agreements with industry have created new mechanisms for Indigenous communities to capture wealth from extraction, the majority of the wealth continues to accrue to non-Indigenous people and institutions. Despite the creation of co-management structures to balance Indigenous land-use with extractive industries most commonly in the Arctic, communities continue to struggle to participate equitably, and mitigations measures are often poorly implemented and enforced. The greatest industry and government interest focuses on the initial stages of the mining life cycle (exploration, planning, construction) and much less on closure and post-closure stages. Indeed, many states in the US did not pass legislation explicitly addressing closure and rehabilitation until the 2000s and companies often fail to comply with these. This, in part, reflects a lack of interest that accompanies closures, that they generally reflect uncertain economic circumstances rather than exhaustion of the target minerals and a myth that closed mines require limited maintenance and monitoring. Most end-of cycle impact assessments and reclamation are still biophysical in focus and don’t focus on social impacts.
Current reclamation generally revolves around planning, engineering and management strategies designed to remove buildings and equipment, eliminate or stabilize hazardous materials, and revegetate exposed soils. According to the Mining Association of Canada, closure plans should entail returning “mine sites to viable and diverse ecosystems” (Towards Sustainable Mining Framework) and be done in consultation with community. Elders in Fort McKay First Nation also indicate that the intent of reclamation in the Oil Sands should be to “return the land to the way it was”, yet this rarely occurs. Alberta is alone in having a reclamation certification program, but 97% of the certificates are issued without site visits and use remotely sensed data. Very few (<0.1%) reclaimed sites have been certified and even these are dramatically different from remaining peatlands and wetlands. Little attention is paid to community engagement and Indigenous science, and the economic, social, and cultural dimensions of mine closure are generally overlooked.
Despite over $250M of investment (to our knowledge), none of the reclamation in Manitoba has been independently evaluated much less done so in partnership with impacted communities. Many mines also enter indeterminate “Care and Maintenance Agreements” (C+M). Some companies use C+M as a way of evading responsibilities surrounding closure and any reclamation or engagement with host communities, thus externalizing any costs to communities, governments and the public. Attention to these mines often declines over time or the rights are sold to companies that lack the resources and capacity to undertake such activities, thus using C+M status as a loophole to avoid closure-related responsibilities. Unfortunately, proactive approaches to regulation surrounding C+M including reclamation or creation of bonds for closure are inadequate in Canada. Indeed, even when effective, impact assessment and rehabilitation are unlikely to lead to Indigenous Environmental Justice.
In Manitoba, mining and petroleum make up the third largest primary resource industry in Manitoba’s economy. The 2019 value of mining and petroleum production totalled $2.5 billion, of which metallic minerals accounted for $1.1 billion. Nickel accounted for 21.9%, copper 18.6%, gold 18.7%, zinc 35.6%, silver 2.5% and other metals 2.7% of the total value. In 2019, Manitoba produced 37.0% of Canada’s zinc, 7.1% of its nickel, 4.9% of its copper, and 1.9% of its gold. Importantly Manitoba currently represents 100% of Canada’s cesium, lithium, and tantalum mining interests, all of which will play a key role in its critical mineral strategies. Three mines are currently operating in Manitoba: Lalor Mine (copper, zinc and gold, Hudbay Minerals Inc, since 2014), Tanco Mine (cesium, Sinomine Rare Metals Resources Inc, since 1969), and the Thompson Mine (nickel and copper, Vale, since 1968). The province has five other mines under C+M: 777 Mine, Birchtree Mine, Bucko Lake Mine, and True North Gold Mine. Another 149 mine sites are orphaned/abandoned, including five high-priority sites (God’s Lake, Sherridon, Lynn Lake, Snow Lake and Baker-Patton), 31 high-hazard sites, and 113 medium/low-priority sites. In 2000, Manitoba established the Orphaned and Abandoned Mine Site Rehabilitation Program to address public safety, health and environmental concerns associated with orphaned and abandoned mine sites. By 2014 it had spent $200 million to rehabilitate all high-priorit /high-hazard sites and $70.5 million was committed in 2023 to complete the process. Yet, there has been no independent assessment of this activity and whether it reflects community priorities.
It is essential to reframe mine reclamation from a biophysical or even social process to one that is people-centred and grounded in culture and language, healing and relationship, and inclusive of other life forms. To be sensitive to broader economic relationships and structures of power and inequity within which closure and reclamation unfold. Toxicity occurring on traditional lands across Canada isn’t just chemical contamination of the environment, it is poisoning people and their traditional territories that arises from a complete disregard for Indigenous life. Removing the contaminants associated with such legacy mines is key but reclamation will inevitably fail unless it also challenges the longstanding colonial violence that underlies this inequity. What is needed is an “ethics of remediation” where the scientific standards and policies that define acceptable thresholds but that exclude the experiences and values of Indigenous people instead affirm self-determination and sovereignty, address cultural and spiritual harm and promote holistic views of wellbeing. Such reframing revolves around the truth of past and continuing harms and reconciliation that confronts such colonial histories. Mine closures conducted in close collaboration with Indigenous communities offer an opportunity to reset past and ongoing negative relationships and to address future harms.
Humanity is confronted by a global climate crisis that is reflected by widespread increases in drought, wildfires, forest decline, and melting winter roads across northern Canada. There is still little understanding of the mechanisms underlying these changes and how they are aggravated by other environmental stressors including mining, hydro, and deforestation.
One of the ways that nations around the world are starting to respond to this crisis is by shifting from a dependency on fossil fuels to the use of critical minerals. However, these transitions contribute to further uncertainty about how they will impact the environment and the impacts on communities that live near sites of resource extraction. Research and evidence-based decision-making regarding such impacts are still largely dominated by Western science and are reliant on data collected using “top-down” remote sensing methods and predictive modelling. These responses effectively exclude Indigenous communities that are already disproportionately affected by these impacts and also exclude local knowledge. Additionally, community-led studies mainly focus on adversity, are restricted to local scales, and are also limited in their ability to facilitate local solutions. Any research infrastructure used to document the impacts of climate change remains concentrated in urban centers and is thus inaccessible to Indigenous communities, especially those that are isolated. This inequity perpetuates dependency upon outside governments and industry and thus does little to build on existing local strengths or to engage communities in decision-making.
