First Nation takes proactive approach with mining companies.

• Author: Migneault, Jonathan

Wahnapitae First Nation has taken a proactive approach to promote environmental sustainability in its dealings with mining companies like Vale, Glen-core and KGHM.

Since the early 1990s, the First Nation, located northeast of Sudbury, has worked to develop relationships with mining industry partners.

Cheryl Recollet, Wahnapitae First Nation's environmental coordinator, said her department has developed in-house capacity over the past 15 years to conduct environmental assessments for mining companies who work near their reserve boundaries.

In 2012, Wahnapitae First Nation's sustainable development department founded Tahgaiwinini Technical and Environmental Services Group. The company has four technicians and two advisers on staff, who provide mining companies with a variety of environmental management services.

The technicians are trained to use geographical information systems to map the flow of groundwater, plumes of air pollution, and provide information on the First Nation's territory, species at risk, and traditional hunting territory.

Some First Nations are anti-development, while others are more supportive of industry.

Recollet said the Wahnapitae First Nation falls somewhere in between both extremes. "We're always planning for seven generations into the future." she said. "What are we leaving behind for them?"

That stance has meant Tahgaiwinini Technical must often perform a balancing act, and carefully measure the benefits of future development against the impact on the environment and First Nation community.

Ideally, a project should impact the surrounding environment as little as possible. Recollet said. If there is an impact, Tahgaiwinini Technical would look for ways to mitigate it as much as possible, and help make a plan to remediate the area to its original state after the mining project has ended.

In some cases, Recollet said, Tahgaiwi-nini Technical's...