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Aboriginal Relations

Aboriginal involvement in resource development activities should be considered an essential business component of a company's development plans. What was once coined as being 'consultation' is today known as joint-ventures, partnerships and co-management. A sincere willingness to communicate with aboriginal communities towards building a working relationship will ultimately have an enduring, positive effect on the success of both the company and the community.

Experience

AXYS has over 25 years of experience working with Canada's aboriginal communities either acting as aboriginal liaison or undertaking traditional land use studies for the communities.

Services

• Aboriginal consultation
• Traditional land use study
• Services to individual First Nations and governments
• Training and skills transfer / capacity building
• Environmental planning and resource management
• Information technology
• Local community development

Additional Expertise

In addition to the expertise of AXYS staff, FMA Heritage Resources Consultants Inc. also provide Aboriginal Consultation services on behalf of AXYS.

FMA has a reputation for successfully working with First Nations people in:

• Identifying cultural properties
• Collecting information on traditional land use and evaluating the cumulative effects of development
• Reflecting cultural values, philosophies, and mores
• Addressing First Nations concerns regarding health

Principles of Consultation

FMA recognizes that this information is privileged, confidential and only provided to the consultants under the guidance of band Elders, and Chief and Council. As such, study proposals reflect a:

• Commitment to the community to request information regarding protocols and to abide by the advice of the Elders
• Commitment to community control of all such information and ceremonial activities
• Strong and continuing reliance on community Elders as teachers and project advisors

Contextual background for First Nations cultural properties is provided by:

• Numerous archaeological studies
• Exhaustive land claim research
• Extensive research into fur trade and exploration documents
• Elder interviews
• In-field documentation