Can Environmental Assessment Protect Caribou? Analysis of EA in Nunavut, Canada, 1999-2019

Abstract

This paper analyses the environmental assessment of every proposed mining project that has undergone full review through the Nunavut Impact Review Board from 1999 to 2019, with specific emphasis on how impacts to caribou were identified and assessed. Caribou are the most important terrestrial species in Nunavut from a food security, traditional culture, and harvesting perspective, and mining is known to have impacts on caribou habitat, migration and calving behaviour, predation and hunting patterns, and other effects. Close study of how caribou impacts are discerned and evaluated within environmental assessment (EA) can thus reveal broader trends about both EA and the broader resource governance process. Although some project proposals were initially rejected, every EA ultimately concluded that impacts to caribou were not significant, despite evidence presented to the contrary. We present three modes through which serious impacts are rendered insignificant within EA (mitigation, strategic use of scale, and strategic use of Inuit knowledge and consultation) and comment on the broader context shaping EA in Nunavut. We argue that EA cannot do what it is expected to do (come to rational, science-based decisions that balance ecological, social, and economic goals) and is an insufficient tool for ensuring the long-term well-being of caribou in Nunavut.