Info Centre
Bylaws

The IAIA WNC Bylaws can be downloaded by clicking here.
Int'l Association for Impact Assessment
Western & Northern Canada Affiliate
2215 19th St. S.W.
Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2T 4X1
(403) 245-6404    IAIA-WNC@praxis.ca
Gwich'in Elder Charlie Snowshoe
Wins IAIA WNC 2007
Lifetime Achievement Award


Charlie Snowshoe was and is an active traditional harvester with a deep love of the land.  He
has been instrumental since the time of the Indian Brotherhood and the early days of Dene
Nation in carving out a strong role for Aboriginal people in environmental decision making.  This
is where the seeds of co-management were sown.  

Charlie Snowshoe was one of the original fighters for the Gwich’in Land Claim and the Gwich’in
Land Use Plan.  He served as a member of the Hunters and Trappers Panel for the Berger
Inquiry.  Charlie has been a dedicated board member of the Mackenzie Valley Environmental
Impact Review Board since its creation in 1998, where he has been influential in several
precedent-setting decisions.   

The Western and Northern Canada Affiliate of the International
Association for Impact Assessment has awarded Gwich’in Elder
Charlie Snowshoe its 2007 Lifetime Achievement Award in
Environmental Impact Assessment.  The Affiliate’s executive
committee and regional directors from Saskatchewan, Alberta,
BC, the Yukon and the NWT unanimously decided, from all the
people involved in environmental assessment in all those
regions, that the 2007 Lifetime Achievement Award should go to
the NWT’s Charlie Snowshoe.

Read the IAIA WNC letter to
Tony Clement, Minister of
Industry, opposing elimination
of the mandatory census
The Western and Northern Canada Affiliate of the
International Association for Impact Assessment has written
to Tony Clement, Minister of Industry, to express its
concerns about the proposed changes to Canadian
mandatory long-form census.  

The Affiliate submitted this letter to emphasize that this will
cause numerous problems for those bodies that are
responsible for making public interest decisions about major
developments.  

Eliminating the mandatory long-form census is likely to:
  • shift the costs of collecting primary socio-economic
    information to resource developers;
  • decrease the accuracy of our understandings of social
    and economic baseline conditions, especially for
    smaller communities that have most to lose or gain as a
    result of development; and,
  • ultimately harm the quality of decisions made about
    major developments,

This would be harmful to both those who undertake major
economic developments and to the people likely to be
affected by them.
New Social Impact Assessment Portal

Ana Maria Esteves and Frank Vanclay are pleased to announce
that a new social impact assessment portal is now live. SIAhub
can be accessed on www.socialimpactassessment.com
We have contacted you as part of a group of people that we
believe share an interest in the mission of SIAhub, which is to
foster excellence in the practice of social impact assessment by
providing a web-based portal where the global SIA community of
practice can network, access resources, share ideas and
promote good practice.

Click here for details