Land rights has been a big topic in recent years, especially in British Columbia where all of the government proposed sites for projects like the LNG pipelines, the site C dam or hydraulic fracturing, falls on aboriginal territory. Simultaneously water rights have gathered international attention due to protests towards the North Dakota Access pipeline, the Muskrat falls and other various pipelines and proposed dams. All this begs the question given that aboriginal rights to water have existed from time immemorial, what rights still exist regardless of the government attempts to extinguish these inherent rights and are they being upheld. With respect to British Columbia, I will attempt to understand this question by looking at the historical different approaches to water rights, the B.C. governments prior allocation system and the federal water policy to determine what scope of rights Aboriginal have in water governance.
I became interested in this topic through an article called ““Water Will Drive Most Decision-making” in BC’s Future, says Land Champion” written by Chris Wood. This article was an interview with Deborah Curran, a legal activist and acting executive director of the Environmental Law Center at the University of Victoria. This article interview follows her winning the 2016 Real Estate foundation on how land use and water flow together. The Article was published by The Tyee on the 26th of September 2016. Throughout the interview Curran goes into details about
Should the United States government be allowed to seize property from you without any explanation or compensation? That is a question many people in the U.S. are asking themselves today. Eminent domain should not be allowed in the United States for several reasons. People own buildings that they do not want destroyed because they are family dwellings or places of business. People have money invested in the buildings and the property they sit on and do not feel it is right to lose it to the government. There are also the property owners who want to protect their property because it has been handed down in their family for many generations.
Canada, like so many other countries in the world continues to deal with many different environmental resource issues. Throughout our history, one of the issues affecting our country has been the treatment of our First Nations people. For the purpose of this paper, the focus will be on the safe water crisis facing Canada’s First Nations communities. The Oxford Dictionary (2016) defines a crisis as a time of great difficulty or danger. The research included will help clarify the reality of the Canada’s First Nations safe water crisis. Despite some improvements over the past few decades, many of our First Nation citizens still lack access to safe and clean water. Our reserves have water that is contaminated, difficult to access or toxic because of outdated and faulty treatment systems. (Klasing, 2016) This safe water crisis is in need of immediate attention. It is Canada’s responsibility to provide the right to clean and safe water for all of its citizens.
In 1976 the Fraser government passed the Aboriginal Land Rights Act. Several state governments passed their own Land Rights Acts, which recognised aboriginal and Torres Strait islander claims to land and guaranteed them royalty payments from mining companies working there. Some laws enforced by the government became challenging for most indigenous people to abide by. Through the analysis of this information we understand the impacts the government and its laws had towards the indigenous society of
The novel, A Land Remembered, is the epic saga of three generations of MacIveys. The novel begins with a flash back, from the last generation MacIvey, Sol. Sol was a real estate tycoon in Miami and the surrounding areas. He has chosen to give up his life in Miami to live his last hours in the cabin in Punta Rassa , Florida; the cabin his grandfather had built. Thus, the three generations of MacIveys in Florida ends.
The First Nations people of Canada have a long list of treaty rights, as well as many undefined aboriginal rights, from their right to hunt and fish on their land to housing and annuities. However, it’s not all gift-giving and sunshine; while the government of Canada is supposed to respect their rights to hunt on their land and the right to hold title to their land, there are many disputes such as the Ron Sparrow case and the Oka Crisis that show that the Aboriginal peoples’ inherent rights are not always respected, with cases such as that of Don Marshall that show that the government might not exactly be on the First Nation’s side.
Hello and welcome to ST Leo’s justice group my name is charbel saliba and I will be talking to you about aboriginal dreaming and land rights. The quote I said earlier was a spiritual view of life based on the dreaming which cannot be separated from the land; that is why the aboriginal people’s connection towards the land is inexorable. The two are intertwined; to separate them would be impossible, one would not work without the other thus they are just as important. The land is used as a physical link between human beings and all that is unseen and eternal. It creates a
When Canada was first inhabited by the First Nations people, the land was completely their own. They were free to inhabit and use the land in whichever manner they saw fit. However, since the arrival of the European settlers, the First Nations people have been mistreated in countless ways. They faced many issues throughout history, and are now facing even more serious problems in our modern society like having to endure racism, discrimination and social ridicule. Given what they already have to deal with, the last thing they should have to worry about is the denial of their rights which is a problem that Aboriginals have to contend with as well.
Imagine getting a visitor at your front door, and the visitor offers you a very generous amount of money for them to take you property for public use. For some people it is the property they grew up on, and for others it is the property that has been passed down through family generations. That is what happens when private property owners experience eminent domain. Eminent domain can be a wonderful thing for big companies and powerful leaders. On the other hand, people lose their homes, or perhaps their farmland. Those who offer eminent domain often have big plans that can benefit a community, but the huge loss here is people losing their homes. Most companies will only enforce eminent domain if they have no other choice. Other companies do it purely for themselves. Eminent domain should be used for the good of mankind, because it has the power to put some good places in this world if done correctly.
The first time I heard about eminent domain was when the State of Iowa wanted to move my family’s house to build more road way. This is something that affected my family. There was a constant struggle on whether or not we had to rebuild a new house or whether we were ever going to be paid enough for the land we did have. I know where I stand on this issue. I know how people are affected by this.
Terra Nullius was once apparent in Australian society, but has now been nullified with the turn of the century. With the political changes in our society, and the apology to Indigenous Australians, society is now witnessing an increase in aboriginals gaining a voice in today’s society. Described by Pat Dodson (2006) as a seminal moment in Australia’s history, Rudd’s apology was expressed in the true spirit of reconciliation opening a new chapter in the history of Australia. Considerable debate has arisen within society as to whether aboriginals have a right to land that is of cultural significance and whether current land owners will be able to keep their land.
Indigenous people to gain legal recognition in Australia and reclaim their lands. Ironically, Aboriginals are being restricted the freedom from exercising their property rights. Therefore, the question is whether the Indigenous people is being unfairly treated under native title.
Aboriginal people, since British settlement, have faced great inequalities and much racial discrimination on their own soil. Aboriginal Australians through great struggle and conflict have made significant progress in the right to their own land. To better understand the position of the Aboriginal Australians, this essay will go into more depth about the rights that Aboriginal people had to their own land prior to federation. It will also include significant events and key people who activated the reshaping of land rights for Indigenous Australians and how that has affected the rights Aboriginal people now have in the 21st Century, in regards to their land.
On July 28th 2010, through Resolution 64/292, the United Nations General Assembly explicitly recognized the human right to water and sanitation. They acknowledged that clean drinking water and sanitation are essential to the realization of all human rights. The UN stated that water should be, “safe, sufficient, acceptable [taste, colour, odor], physically accessible, and affordable” (Knight and Hartl, 2003). Water is one of the most important elements to human life. In Canada we are host to about twenty percent of the world’s fresh water (Boyd, 2003). It has a square kilometer measurement large enough to cover both California and Nevada (Matsui, 2012, p. 1). While most Canadians who live in urban areas are free to enjoy safe drinking water, some First Nations communities living on reserves do not (White, Murphy, Spence, 2012). For instance, as of July 2010, 116 First Nation communities in Canada were under a drinking water advisory (Health Canada, 2010), with many of these communities living under advisories for prolonged periods of time. This issue is of vital importance to discuss and evaluate because clean, safe drinking water is a mandated human right. In Canada we have failed to ensure that water on reserves meets that standards set out by the UN.
With globalization and colonization taking over almost the entire known world, native tribes who are indigenous to their lands are losing control of the lands that their people have lived in for ages to the hands of foreign colonizers who claim the land as their own. Now, indigenous people all around the world are struggling to reclaim the lands and rights that were taken away from them through non-violent social relations with national governments and large corporations. Anthropologists have recorded how indigenous people across the globe attempt to create relations with national governments to reclaim rights and lands that they once had before the colonization of their ancestral homeland.
Aboriginal Land Rights Aboriginal Australians have always had an eternal bond with the land. For the 50,000 years or more, they have occupied the continent; the land provided not only the basic needs, but also the spiritual beliefs. In the Dreaming, the forms of the land, mountains, rivers, landscapes and animals took shape and the spirit of ancestors resided in places that became sacred sites to the Aboriginal people. The land to these people were their most precious commodity. When white settlement began in Australia in 1788, the concept of terra nullius {the land belonging to no-one} was adopted by the British.