The Tahltan Mining Symposium
Dease Lake, British Columbia, Canada
April 4-6, 2003
The Tahltan Mining Symposium was convened by the Tahltan First Nation and facilitated by R. Anthony Hodge, leader of the IISD Mining/Mineral Team. The symposium brought together 28 Tahltan and nine representatives from industry and government. Its purpose was to: (1) review the relationship between the Tahltan people, their land and the mining industry; and (2) build a strategy to guide that relationship in the future. Seeking a win-win outcome and guided by the Seven Questions to Sustainability (7Qs) assessment template, the 38 participants considered past, present and potential future conditions as a foundation for ensuring positive outcomes for the Tahltan people and their territory in the years to come.
The aim of the resulting strategy is to:
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send a signal that Tahltan people are supportive of mining and mineral activity on their land under conditions that such activities respect Tahltan concerns and lead to a fair distribution of costs, benefits and risks to implicated parties;
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facilitate Tahltan participation in mining and mineral activity-not only through direct and indirect employment, but also in terms of overall management/co-management as well as the broad perspective of seeing a fair distribution (considering all participating interests) of all benefits, costs and risks;
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ensure that the broad range of concerns raised in the Seven Questions to Sustainability are addressed, in particular the health/social/cultural and environmental implications of mining/mineral activity; and
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ensure that in the future, mining and mineral activity in Tahltan traditional territory is a win-win for all implicated interests: the Tahltan people, mining/mineral interests, government and others.
Out of Respect, the report of the symposium, describes the process and documents the resulting strategy. It serves to effectively demonstrate the application of the 7QS assessment approach while facilitating a constructive and practical way forward for the Tahltan people.
Additional material: Media release and media backgrounder (111 kb). 
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