Sacred Priorities Protocol

ChilcotinMapRecognizing the intangibles of the new relationship.  SPP link here

Yesterday, the Supreme Court of Canada confirmed title to the Tsilhqot’in Nation.

The Tsilhqot’in Nation in British Columbia have always possessed aboriginal title to approximately 2,000 square kilometres of land.  The decision – the first to recognize aboriginal title to specific real property – explicitly renounces the Euro-British doctrine of terra nullius. That false, racist, white supremacist notion claimed that no one owned the land before the Crown claimed it, and the Court has determined that this has no basis in Canadian law: https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/14246/index.do 

The Crown (as the embodiment of the State) is required to obey the letter and spirit of its own treaties of shared rule, originating with the Royal Proclamation of 1763.

‘ “This is the fulfillment of that promise, held out by the Crown 250 years ago.”

Brian Slattery, Osgoode Hall Law School’

 Aboriginal Title

  • Control of ancestral lands and the right to use them for modern economic purposes, without destroying those lands for future generations.
  • Government can create works that show overwhelming value, but have to show substantive consultation and must reconcile those needs with aboriginal rights to title.
  • The Court explicitly states that the decision holds for all lands that were not ceded to the Crown by treaty.
  • Nearly all of BC.

 

Sacred Priorities Protocol – Could this be a way forward?

Seeding a Community-led Sacred Priorities Joint Mapping Database Initiative to map valuation zones for joint resource and economic development projects

I’ve been networking a respectful technical solution through industry since 2010.

There have been complaints that intangible cultural values are not scientific and therefore should not be allowable at Environmental Review Boards.

SPP proposes a method to have local communities assign values to intangible values, such as landscapes, as scientific/technical values…as a means to find win-wins vs. the old Might Makes Right way of resource extraction.

It is written here at a granular level, with an example and flowchart, for use at the very start of industrial development planning. Years and millions of dollars before a project is assessed by regulators. For example, with mining, after test drilling has identified an economic ore body but before the start of ore body extraction planning.

  • SPP flows out of watching mining projects fail across in BC.
  • The procedure could be used to create technical and governance win-win expertise.
  • Expertise exportable around the globe.

But to work, any Protocol must be centred in the good earth of respect for First Nations Law and Title.

And acknowledgement that when we Europeans and British arrived, we privatized property that wasn’t ours.

If we don’t acknowledge our own law, why should First Nations acknowledge it either?

 

Dave Huer

 

 

The Hydrological Spread – Market incentives to solve our Water Use Dilemma?

 

the water cycle

the water cycle

The Oil Sands Float Rights strategy … proposes to seed a market incentive to curtail waste during Oil Sands extraction.  Could we apply the strategy to protect Aquifers?

Successful water management and conservation is a key factor in any plan to improve where we live.

Could we apply the concept of “anticipated future value” of public resources to minimize aquifer loss?

Could we combine it with the idea that the hydrological water cycle has a leverageable financial spread–the Hydrological Spread–to resolve the wicked problem of our water use dilemma; …our “water tragedy of the commons?

Oil Sands Float Rights blog post here, and PDF file here.

Water Float Rights PDF file here.

 

Dave Huer

Oil Sands Float Rights

Athabasca_Oil_Sands_map

Oil Sands in Canada

The idea? A market incentive to curtail waste during Oil Sands extraction

While searching for ways to help our veterans get honourable Post Traumatic Stress coverage care, I noticed an opportunity for Western Canada and Utah to leverage their Oil Sands.  Creating a second market to avoid the boom-and-bust cycle often seen in resource-dependent regions.

 

 

“Float Rights” pdf – link here.

The idea is that Alberta, Saskatchewan, Utah and other Oil Sands regions license the right to pre-extract the anticipated intangible value of the physical resource; extracting the rolling anticipated value of Oil Sands as a spot market, in sequenced pre-extraction before “Liquid Right” licensees remove the physical resource.

 

The effects are interesting:

New Royalties from the one resource

  • Float Right Licensee does not necessarily have to be Liquid Right Licensee
  • Leaseable by Provinces to Sovereign States, to collateralize other risks
  • Leveraging underperforming Liquid Rights assets whenever demand slows
  • No need to depend on mining, export or hold-ups in pipeline capacity
  • Extraction-less industry when the market fluctuates

A Market Incentive for Zero Waste

  • Float Rights can be leveraged for any sort of business
  • “100% Capture” Target (100% of extractable liquid and tailings) becomes value-added
  • “Zero Waste” Target (100% pollution prevention) becomes value-added

A New Energy Spot Market

  • Trading on global oil, insurance, and finance exchanges
  • Float Right leverages 10% of resource that is extractable using current technology
  • As collateral, could Float Right leverage the other 90% until it is extractable?
  • Extraction owners could profitably backstop insurance costs and rent risk coverage

Competing Resource Plays

  • Canada (Alberta, Saskatchewan)
  • USA (Green River Basin)
  • Russia
  • Kazakhstan

 

Dave Huer