canoe on a river bank

Aboriginal Involvement Program

Improving land management by facilitating collaboration between indigenous communities, industry, and government.

The program worked with indigenous communities, resource-based industries and the Province of Alberta to develop a process that better involved indigenous communities in land management decisions.

The Aboriginal Involvement Program began in 2000 and ran until 2010. The program worked with Aboriginal communities, resource-based industries and the Province of Alberta to develop a process that better involved Aboriginal communities in land management decisions. The five Aboriginal communities involved in the program documented and stored 2400 cultural sites in one central, protected database. Subsequently, four companies (Coal Valley Resources Ltd., Shell Canada Limited, Suncor Energy Inc and West Fraser Mills) used the pilot Referral Process resulting in 91 cultural sites being protected from potential disturbance from industrial activities.

 The three elements of the Aboriginal Involvement Program were:

  1. Traditional cultural studies: Aboriginal communities collect, document and store sites that are of social, cultural and spiritual importance.
  2. Referral process: Traditional cultural sites were entered into a geographic information system (GIS) database. Prior to a development, industry entered the location of its proposed development into the same GIS database. A database query determined which Aboriginal communities needed to be contacted for potential consultation and provided that information to industry. The referral process did not identify precise locations of culturally significant sites; that information was owned solely by the Aboriginal communities with ties to those sites.
  3. Supporting Aboriginal – industry site visits: When a proposed industrial development was in the vicinity of a cultural site, Program staff could facilitate meetings between industry and the affected Aboriginal community.
Aboriginal Involvement Program Referral Process Overview
Summaries and Communications | Presentation Slides
Presentation on the referral process, how data is collected and managed, the challenges associated with the process, and future opportunities.
Foothills Research Institute Annual General Meeting - Aboriginal Involvement Program, June 17, 2009
Summaries and Communications | Presentation Slides
Presentation given at the 2009 FRI AGM on accomplishments, strategies, project results, and future directions of the Aboriginal Involvement Program.
Foothills Research Institute Annual General Meeting - Aboriginal Involvement Program Presentation, October 15, 2008
Summaries and Communications | Presentation Slides
Presentation given at the 2008 FRI AGM on accomplishments, strategies, context, specifics and future directions of the Aboriginal Involvement Program.
Aboriginal Involvement Program - Poster 2008
Summaries and Communications | Posters
Poster promoting the Aboriginal Involvement Program and its projects, including the Multi-community Traditional Cultural Study and Referral Process.
FtMF Annual General Meeting 2007 - Aboriginal Involvement Program, June 20, 2007
Summaries and Communications | Presentation Slides
Presentation given at the 2007 FMF AGM on accomplishments, strategies, context, specifics and future directions of the Aboriginal Involvement Program.
Aboriginal Involvement Program Foothills Model Forest, March 6, 2007 Presentation
Summaries and Communications | Presentation Slides
Presentation on accomplishments, strategies, context, specifics and future directions of the Aboriginal Involvement Program.
Foothills Model Forest Aboriginal Involvement Program information booklet
Summaries and Communications | Fact Sheets
Information on FMF AIP's traditional cultural studies, geographic information systems database and program referral process, and program financing.
Aboriginal Involvement Program - Foothills Model Forest Annual General Meeting Presentation, November 21-22, 2006
Summaries and Communications | Presentation Slides
Presentation given at the 2006 FMF AGM on accomplishments, strategies, context, specifics and future directions of the Aboriginal Involvement Program.
Aboriginal Involvement Program QuickNote #2: Piloting a Way to Shared Sustainability
QuickNotes | Summaries and Communications
A discussion of the FMF AIP in the context of legal, political, social and economic considerations for resource development in Alberta.
Announcement
The next presentation in our Brown Bag Lunch Speaker Series is Friday January 15th, 2010. The speaker is Aaron Jones with Hinton Wood Products, A division of West Fraser Mills Ltd. Bring your lunch, a friend and come hear a partner perspective of the value of this program. For more information on the brown bag lunch lecture click here.