Fair Mining Collaborative (FMC) will work with the Xatsull First Nation of the Great Secwepemc Nation and Northern Secwepemc the Qelmucw (NStQ) and with First Nations Women Advocating Responsible Mining. The Xatsull is the largest nation in interior BC, and the territory includes the location of the Mt. Polley Mine disaster. First Nation women leaders from norther BC with extensive experience in mining. Their goal is to protect their culture and traditional lands from destructive mining practices. FMC provides technical and strategic guidance to communities, First Nation Leadership groups, and political decision makers to build capacity to manage the full spectrum of mining life cycle concerns (mapping traditional resource inventories, staking, exploration, permitting, operation, closure, and reclamation), and to make informed land-use decisions that foster healthy sustainable communities and ecosystems.
Grant money will be used to hire a consultant to review best practices from the three areas in the world with the most active placer industry; Yukon, Alaska, and New Zealand, and to summarize them for inclusion in B.C.’s Fair Mining Practices Code, which currently does not include placer mining. Their goal is to strengthen the under-regulated placer mining industry, and to reduce the cumulative impacts to wildlife, fish and water resources, and Aboriginal rights from the more than 1500 placer mines within the Traditional territory of the Northern Secwepemc te Qelmucw (NStQ). Learn more.