Indigenous-Led Assessment

Firelight supports Indigenous Nations leading their own environmental assessments or participating in regulatory processes to make free, prior, and informed decisions regarding proposed projects.

Our approach is to understand and integrate community knowledge and experience into the impact assessment process. We have worked on major project assessments for mining, road building, hydroelectricity, and oil and gas development, among many other sectors.

Connect with Us

What We Do

We help Indigenous Nations to navigate complex environmental impact assessment and regulatory processes by providing strategic advice, process support and third party technical review. We work with leadership, land managers and community members to assess impacts on the Nation's rights and interests and to identify meaningful mitigation and follow up measures.

Areas of Work

Our team provides research, analysis, and training on identifying and mitigating potential impacts across multiple processes:

Early and ongoing engagements with proponents
Overseeing and conducting studies to support Environmental Impact Assessments (for example alternative means assessments, culture and rights impact assessments)
Indigenous-led Impact Assessments
Navigating federal, provincial and territorial Environmental Impact Assessments
Regulatory/permitting processes
Post-Impact Assessment processes including monitoring and adaptive management programs
Cumulative impact assessments

Six Steps of Indigenous-Led Assessment

We work with Indigenous Nations to ensure their inherent rights, expertise, and Indigenous knowledge are centred in each of the six steps of an Environment Impact Assessment.

Experience

Our team has decades of experience in federal, provincial and territorial environmental impact assessment and regulatory processes across Canada. We have worked on major projects assessments for mining, road building, hydroelectricity, and oil and gas development, among other sectors.

Training

We provide training on federal and provincial environmental impact assessment processes to help Indigenous and local governments understand how they can more effectively participate, effect change, and protect their rights and interests.

Contact

Amy Wilson - Program Manager, Indigenous-led Assessment

MSc Environmental Sociology and Rural Economics

Edmonton Office

Email: amy.wilson@firelight.ca Phone: (587) 545-1290

"For years, Indigenous Nations across Canada have expressed frustration with government-led impact assessment processes that often fail in reflecting their values, knowledge systems, and decision making. The Indigenous-Led Assessment team at Firelight supports many of these Nations seeking to advance their meaningful participation in Impact Assessments. Our collaborative Indigenous-led approach prioritizes methodologies that centres their values, knowledge and governance systems."

Melody Lepine

Team Lead, Indigenous-Led Assessment

Example Projects

Okanagan Nation Rights and Interests

Okanagan Nation Alliance Title, Rights and Interests Submission to the Revelstoke Generating Station Unit 6 Project Environmental Assessment Certificate Application

Firelight worked with the Okanagan Indian Band, Westbank First Nation and Penticton Indian Band to document the Okanagan Nations’ Rights and Interests with respect to BC Hydro’s proposed Revelstoke 6 project. Using community-identified valued components and a temporal scale that includes past impacts and changes to Okanagan people, their way of life and their territory, this study uses a cumulative-effects lens to holistically assess project effects on the rights and interests of the Okanagan Nation.

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