Good Practices for Environmental Impact Assessment and Meaningful Engagement in the Arctic – Including Good Practice Recommendations.

Abstract

This report discusses the themes (chapter 3), and presents recommendations (chapter 4), while also highlighting good practice cases (chapter 5) Specific models for meaningful engagement of Indigenous Peoples are also presented (chapter 6). Good practices were gathered and recommendations were created under the auspices of the Sustainable Development Working Group of the Arctic Council during the Finnish Chairmanship 2017–2019. The work was led by Finland (Ministry of the Environment), Canada (Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs), Kingdom of Denmark (Greenland Institute of Natural Resources) and Gwich’in Council International, which represents Gwich’in across Alaska (USA), Yukon and the Northwest Territories (Canada) in its capacity as a Permanent Participant in the Arctic Council. An Editorial Group was formed to be the joint working body for the project. It consisted of nominated members of all the Arctic states and Permanent Participants of the Arctic Council and a representative of the Arctic Economic Council. The Arctic EIA project organized in cooperation with its local partners three regional workshops. They were held in Utqiaġvik/Barrow (Alaska, United States), Rovaniemi (Nordic countries’ workshop, Finland) and Yellowknife (Northwest Territories, Canada). The workshops were structured to provide regional perspectives on key EIA challenges, as well as case studies that are illustrative of a good practice approach. Workshop participants included EIA practitioners, government representatives, Indigenous Governments and Indigenous Peoples’ Organizations, researchers, industry and other stakeholders. Additional data collection included an online questionnaire. To complement the work of the project as a whole, two research initiatives were carried out: Gwich'in Council International’s workshop and research paper Emerging Practices of Indigenous-led Reviews in Environmental Impact Assessment and the Arctic Centre of the University of Lapland’s (Finland) research on models to assist in planning meaningful engagement of Indigenous Peoples.