GUEST COLUMN — Solutions for land planning in BC

.BBruce McKnight

Last week’s article dealt with British Columbia’s flawed land-planning process, which, despite the province’s world-class mineral endowment, skilled mineral employees and impressive infrastructure, has been steadily eroding the province’s mining industry. The mining sector tried to work with this process for many years but eventually concluded that our participation was counterproductive. It was hoped our departure would serve as a wake-up call to the planners and allow for realistic solutions to be discussed.

The reasons we left the process relate to the unique nature of mineral resources and the difficulties of fitting mineral discoveries into a regional land-planning process. The fact is that minerals differ from visible surface resources in three significant ways. These are: the hidden nature of the resource; the high value to society mining provides, per hectare of land disturbed; and the tiny proportion of the provincial land base that has ever been, or would ever be, affected by mining. In addition, there exists for mining a comprehensive and stringent regulatory framework, complete with bonding to guarantee compliance and subsequent reclamation.

Finally, mineral exploration attractiveness is subject to the dynamic notion of “mineral potential,” a challenging and changeable concept for geological and mining professionals, but one which is positively hazardous for policymakers.

Another reason for withdrawing from the land-planning exercise was our reluctance to participate in a process that is alienating mineral tenures and areas of high mineral potential for park creation. In addition, in response primarily to logging concerns, the process is labeling large areas of land as “special management zones” (SMZs). The creation of these zones causes trepidation in mining investors who fear that additional rules would apply.

We should add that we are not opposed to park creation, nor to protecting sensitive ecosystems in conducting mining and exploration activities. We are simply saying there are far more sensible ways of achieving these goals without destroying the industry or the economy.

Although the selection of protected areas must take into consideration mineral potential, the mining sector is reluctant, for reasons of legal liability, to take part, particularly in cases covering private mineral tenures. We believe recommending areas for expropriation to be the responsibility of the government. It would be inappropriate and even dangerous for us to be involved in such land selection.

The staff of British Columbia’s Ministry of Energy and Mines has an obligation to be active at land-planning tables, to participate in park selections and to strongly argue for preserving access to mineral resources for the benefit of the people of this province.

Our participation in designating SMZs would be counterproductive to provincial interests and would undermine existing legislation. Under current legislation, it is not necessary to negotiate access to, or performance standards on, mineral claims outside of protected areas. In fact, to do so would diminish the power of this legislation because it would present the erroneous impression that access and performance standards must be negotiated with another layer of regulators. This is not the case.

Broad planning zones such as SMZs are not useful in dealing with specific sites because rarely do sufficient baseline mapping data exist on which to support rational decisions. These concerns are addressed more effectively by mining-specific legislation identical or superior to that of the SMZ. Mining laws already exist to minimize the adverse impact of exploration or mining activities on other resources, whether or not these other resources are recognized by the SMZ.

We take our responsibility for environmental management seriously and feel that high standards should be applied everywhere, not just in SMZs.

Although we have withdrawn from the land-planning process, we have not abandoned our efforts to achieve sensible, realistic mining policies for British Columbia. We are increasing our efforts to speak with communities to demonstrate that we continue to seek ways of achieving positive input over land planning.

This means building allies, engaging communities and working constructively with the real public, not just planning committees. We are open to providing these messages to any planning table, as well as providing technical and economic input on exploration or mining, on an ad hoc basis. However, we do not intend to become involved in negotiating land use or access zoning, or in the selection of protected areas.

We have made two simple recommendations to the government and all communities concerned about British Columbia’s mining’s decline.

First, the government must not exceed its 12% park commitment (which is far higher than most competitor countries). Second, the government should adopt a two-zone model for mining purposes: protected areas (parks and ecological reserves); and regions where mining and related activities are permitted subject to current regulations.

This column is the second of two outlining British Columbia’s land-planning process. The author is the executive director of the British Columbia and Yukon Chamber of Mines.