Eabametoong and Mishkeegogamang

Community Driven

Integrated Land and Resource

Planning Project(Far North Initiative)

• Mishkeegogamang and Eabametoong First Nations are two communities bound together by many family ties and a very long history of mutually beneficial land use protocol that long predates the arrival of others in North America. We are friends, neighbours and family who share a land base… Taashikaywin, “our place in the world”.

• This protocol was and is based in the oral tradition and to this day, it is well understood how the land base is shared between and amongst us. However, this protocol has never been made clear in writing for others who have a desire to use this land base. As the traditional custodians of this land, we knew that we must somehow clarify how all should conduct themselves on the land in order to protect and conserve our culture, environment and economic potential.

• In the year 2000, the two communities signed a Memorandum of Understanding to undertake land use planning in order to achieve these goals.

• The following map represents the Traditional Use Territory that is Taashikaywin:

Two Communities and a Mutual Understanding.

Taashikaywin Map – Albers Projection using BCGS/NTS Grid to Reduce Distortion on Larger Scales.

• In the spring of 2002, a concept was developed to take advantage of the fairly new, Northern Boreal Initiative policy(the precursor to the Far North Initiative) to develop a Community Based Land Use Plan.

• Upon much discussion, it became apparent to all concerned, that this was not a going to be another “timber cruise and quick logging deal” to benefit outside interests. Instead, it would be an accurate inventory of all relevant natural resources, followed by an integrated (balanced) community driven plan to sustainably manage all of these resources for the communities that reside within them. It would not be meant to serve a single use (e.g. logging) or to create one deal for a single user. Rather, it needed to provide a long term, sustainable blueprint for community development (economic, cultural/social and environmental) based upon the extensive natural resources which surround the people. It would be true planning for current and future generations.

• The concept was originally designed and presented in April of 2002, and was established under the guiding policies of the Northern Boreal Initiative (NBI). Since that time, the NBI has become the Far North Initiative which, for reasons we will discuss later in this presentation, is a positive step forward.

• The following is the logic model that outlines the concept for the planning of Taashikaywin:

The Concept

• At the time of the original inception of Taashikaywin, there was not really any kind of protocol to achieve funding of a community based planning initiative. As a result, it took two full years to achieve sufficient funding to be able to contract out the inventories and get going on the process.

• This meant that for all intents and purposes, the project was unable to become fully engaged until the spring of 2004. Even after we were able to start up the project in earnest, we had a couple of significant delays with the receipt of funding that have conspired to set the project back about one more year. This means that effectively, we have had about four productive years to get where we are today.

Funding and Start up

The Inventory – The foundation for planning:

The following are examples of the products that are now coming from our inventory of Taashikaywin.

• Aerial Photography (next slides) – High density aerial photography converted to a digital base provides very high resolution for accurate base mapping and resource measurement. The two slides zoom in to the point where one can observe a person and their shadow clearly on the photo.

• Biological and Physical resource mapping (on the wall) – Examples show a base map, leading tree species map and primary ecosite map for one of the 142 map sheets that cover Taashikaywin. These are just three examples of the hundreds of different representations of the land base that we can now begin to produce from the inventory as needed for planning decisions.

• Traditional Knowledge mapping (on the wall) – These are two draft examples of the traditional knowledge information that is now available for planning. There is one example for an area from each First Nation in Taashikaywin.

Note: Innovations developed by us during this inventory have been adapted to the new Ontario FRI manual due to our use of new, accurate and cost saving techniques. This project has contributed directly to improved resource inventory methods for Ontario.

High Density Film Emulsion and Digital Flexibility(Overview of Eabametoong First Nation Village Site)

… Zoom in to the Airport and Detail Begins to Show(Note: The detail is much higher on the photo but the projector loses some of it.)

Beechcraft King Air

Pilatus Single Engine

A person on the road and their shadow

The Government of Ontario has Finally Moved Toward a Real Commitment.

With the development of the new Far North Act and the reconstruction of the Mining Act, it has become apparent that the Ontario Government is becoming even more committed to following through on this initiative with Far North First Nations. The importance, to us, of the inclusion of our land use plan in the legislation cannot be overemphasized.

Your plan will be law.