The Nunavut Impact Review Board broke new ground for regulators in Canada this month. NIRB recommends using new media technology to inform, consult and connect Inuit communities in its Final Hearing Report on Baffinland’s Mary River Project released September 14, 2012.
The potential of digital media to improve public participation in oral Inuktitut was demonstrated to NIRB by IsumaTV’s Digital Indigenous Democracy [www.isuma.tv/DID], a new web portal launched last May by Inuit filmmaker Zacharias Kunuk.
The website streamed live call-in radio shows, used Skype and collected video testimonies of Elders and Youth to promote region-wide community discussion in Inuktitut on the Baffinland development.
Kunuk delivered 22 call-in radio shows and 59 video consultations to NIRB’s Final Public Hearings in Iqaluit, Igloolik and Pond Inlet July 16-28. Kunuk’s presentation with human rights lawyer Lloyd Lipsett urged NIRB and Baffinland to use 21st century media to increase Inuktitut information and participation at the community level, to meet today’s constitutional and human rights standards of informed consultation and consent.
Digital Indigenous Democracy also filmed the Public Hearings and streamed Inuktitut audio from Igloolik and Pond Inlet live online to all Nunavut communities and worldwide.
NIRB’s September 14 Final Hearing Report to AANDC Minister John Duncan approves the multi-billion dollar Baffinland development with 184 wide-ranging Conditions that include a multimedia commitment to oral Inuktitut consultation and Inuit participation in four conditions:
– To establish a project-specific web portal or web page to make monitoring and reporting information available to the general public (General Conditions item 12, p. 241);
– To consider the use of existing and innovative technologies (e.g. community radio station call-in shows, cell phones, video-conferencing, Skype, etc.) to maintain contact between workers on the job and families at home (Specific Condition #143, p. 289);
– To make all reasonable efforts to engage Elders and community members…to have community level input into monitoring and mitigative measures…informed by traditional activities, cultural resources and land use (Specific Condition #162, p. 295); and
– To continue to engage and consult with the communities…to ensure that Nunavummiut are kept informed about the Project activities…management and monitoring plans (Specific Condition #163, p. 296).
Please click here for more on this project that involved the project 3ci’s Frances Abele, Sheena Kennedy Dalseg, Joshua Gladstoneand Teevi Mackay.