There's 5Cs - consent, collaboration, capacity, co-design and co-ownership - and there needs to be incentives and resources put into all of those.

Common ownership with Indigenous communities provides a way for energy industry project proponents to align their interests with those of Indigenous communities, allowing both to benefit in a meaningful way from such projects.

Equity participation of Indigenous communities in such projects is becoming a more common strategy and involves unique challenges and considerations that other co-ownership situations do not.  

While Indigenous communities are diverse and their views cannot be condensed to a homogenous set of bullet points, this article discusses common priorities that such projects typically must consider, particularly relating to economic, environmental, and cultural interests of Indigenous communities.

Similarly, unique challenges relating to financing, transactional issues, and the general structure of co-ownership agreements are explored.

Authors: Vivek W Arrier, Luke Morrison, Ashley White, and Stephen Buffalo, Indigenous Ownership of Natural Resource Projects: A Framework For Partnership and Economic Development, ALBERTA LAW REVIEW (2021) 59:2

Read the paper

Thanks for use of the front cover photo roman pentin