Native Reaction to Mining Development in Northern BC

Update

Monday Magazine summarizes the Tahltan protest at Mining Day. I quote the article here because the links usually do not survive:

There are six new mines proposed for the area, [Rhoda Quock] says. “If it’s all to occur at once, it will be devastating for our people . . . We’re going to lose the fish, everything we lived on, the moose.”

Most of the nation’s 350 people still live off the land, she says. One of the key areas, called Klappan, was the site of a 2005 blockade to oppose coal mining. “Klappan, it’s like our kitchen. It’s where we get our food from. It’s where we take our younger generations to teach them the way we live.”

Original Post

It did not take long for native reaction to the mining developments in Northwestern BC — developments which include the newly approved Galore Creek Mine. The Victoria Times Colonist reports that two Tahltan women from Iskut Village are in Victoria protesting the large number of mines proposed for their territory — and specifically for the region they call The Sacred Headwaters. Their trip to Victoria coincides with the BC Government’s Mining Day events.

From the news story:

Rhoda Quock and Eileen Doody, who were in Victoria for Mining Day at the legislature, said more than a half-dozen mines are proposed for Tahltan lands that include the Klabona or “Sacred Headwaters” of the Nass, Skeena and Stikine rivers.

“If it all occurred at the same time, our land, our wildlife, and our people will be devastated,” said Quock, who speaks for the Iskut elders group Klabona Keepers.

Members of the group were arrested in 2005 for blocking a mining road in their territory.

“We’re saying that we support one mine at a time,” added Doody, a community liaison for the Iskut band, one of the members of the Tahltan First Nation. “If all these mines go through at once, it’s basically cultural genocide.”

The Klabona Keepers released their own statement about the mining protest on their website.

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