ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the practical unfolding of a legal precedent and changing regulatory frameworks in situ, and should provide early notice of implications for those facing similar extractive development pressures elsewhere in Canada, as well as in the transnational zones where the impacts of resource extraction cross into American territory via key watersheds. The year 2014 marked a banner year for Aboriginal rights in Canada, and for the Tsilhqot'in first nations of what is now British Columbia (BC). The Supreme Court of Canada made a finding of Aboriginal title, recognizing the collective right of the Tsilhqot'in to the exclusive use and occupation of nearly 1,800 km2 of land within their wider traditional hunting and gathering territory, including "the right to choose to what uses land can be put, subject to the ultimate limit that those uses cannot destroy the ability of the land to sustain future generations of aboriginal peoples", and the right to benefit from the land.
