Tribal Chiefs Peacekeeping-Conservation Commission

A modern era (black) gold rush isunderway among the scenic mountains, lakes and prairies of Canada’s western provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan.

The world’s largest players in oil and gas exploration have arrived, keen to extract the rich deposits that lie within these borders to help meet the world’s seemingly insatiable appetite for energy. A numberof interests intersect this massive expanse, and Canada’s indigenous peoples are committed to preserving a land they’ve called home for a millennia.

Enter the Tribal Chiefs Peacekeeping Conservation Commission (TCPCC). An organization formed by five First Nations groups in Western Canada, the group’s mandate is to evaluate the sustainability of natural resources exploration and determine the potential impact of that exploration and development on trad-itional First Nations land. “TCPCC has been instrumental in aligning the interests of many First Nations in Western Canada”, explains Roger McDonnell, Director of Research & Project Design for TCPCC. “We’ve managed to unite the concerns of five bands when it comes to resource development within our historical territory.”

With growing interest in the region’s oil and gas deposits, TCPCC’s staff are busier than ever. This additional workload has brought critical challenges. “We simply can’t keep up,” admits McDonnell, “With dozens and dozens of drilling, exploratory, refining, mining and resource companies submitting reports, maps and statements of interest, our staff is overwhelmed with information. Last year, we decided to build a portal through which we can funnel these requests.”

McDonnell and his team enlisted the assist-ance of Latitude Geographics to help realize their vision of a web-mapping application that could improve communication and ease the burden of information exchange between First Nations and Industry. TCPCC worked with Latitude Geographics staff to design a hosted ArcIMS-based application that would provide the resource Industry a seamless mechanism to express development interest for areas of First Nations land.

Previously, during the course of a normal expression of interest (which was paper driven), a large amount of information was exchanged using a number of disparate sources and geographic data formats. The volume of paper-based data was so staggering that discrepancies and errors were not uncommon. Now, users login to the password protected web-based Geocortex IMF application, and they immediately have access to information about lands under TCPCC’s jurisdiction.

They can query or use the select tools to define a spatial area of interest, and then assemble and align a package of digital documents for the consistently defined and described area of interest. TCPCC staff and all five First Nations bands are notified of each expression of interest, and all parties know they are working from the same information.

“We see this tool easing a significant information management burden affecting TCPCC staff,” says Roger, “and the application is already improving the quality and efficiency of information exchange between First Nations stake-holders and the resource industry.”

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