In Our Backyard: Keeyask and the Legacy of Hydroelectric Development - Softcover

Aimée Craft (editor) & Jill Blakley (editor)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0887552889 ISBN 13: 9780887552885

Publisher: University of Manitoba Press, 2022

Synopsis

Beginning with the Grand Rapids Dam in the 1960s, hydroelectric development has dramatically altered the social, political, and physical landscape of northern Manitoba. The Nelson River has been cut up into segments and fractured by a string of dams, for which the Churchill River had to be diverted and new inflow points from Lake Winnipeg created to manage their capacity. Historic mighty rapids have shrivelled into dry river beds. Manitoba Hydro's Keeyask dam and generating station will expand the existing network of 15 dams and 13,800 km of transmission lines.

In Our Backyard tells the story of the Keeyask dam and accompanying development on the Nelson River from the perspective of Indigenous peoples, academics, scientists, and regulators. It builds on the rich environmental and economic evaluations documented in the Clean Environment Commission’s public hearings on Keeyask in 2012. It amplifies Indigenous voices that environmental assessment and regulatory processes have often failed to incorporate and provides a basis for ongoing decision-making and scholarship relating to Keeyask and resource development more generally. It considers cumulative, regional, and strategic impact assessments; Indigenous worldviews and laws within the regulatory and decision-making process; the economics of development; models for monitoring and management; consideration of affected species; and cultural and social impacts.

With a provincial and federal regulatory regime that is struggling with important questions around the balance between development and sustainability, and in light of the inherent rights of Indigenous people to land, livelihoods, and self-determination, In Our Backyard offers critical reflections that highlight the need for purposeful dialogue, principled decision making, and a better legacy of northern development in the future.

About this title

About the Author

Aimée Craft is an Associate Professor at the Faculty Law, University of Ottawa and an Indigenous (Anishinaabe-Métis) lawyer from Manitoba. She holds a University Research Chair Nibi miinawaa aki inaakonigewin: Indigenous governance in relationship with land and water. She prioritizes Indigenous-led and interdisciplinary research, including visual arts and film, and works with many Indigenous nations and communities on Indigenous relationships with and responsibilities to nibi (water).

Jill Blakley is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and Planning and an associate faculty member of the School of Environment and Sustainability at the University of Saskatchewan. She is an internationally recognized leader in the field of cumulative effects assessment. Her research program centres primarily on energy and transportation mega-projects and their implications for land use, vegetation, wildlife habitat, water and affected local and Indigenous communities.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Manitoba Press
• Publication date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0887552889
• ISBN 13: 9780887552885
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384