ABSTRACT
Comanagement of natural resources refers to institutional arrangements whereby governments and aboriginal entities enter into formal agreements specifying their respective rights, powers, and obligations with respect to the management and allocation of resources in a particular area. All Canadian governments regarded their authority with respect to land and resource management as unlimited by signed Indian treaties. Increasingly, Native sovereignty and rights have been brought before the public and federal government since the early 1970s with many claims for lands and natural resources by various indigenous peoples of Canada. In 1973, the Government of Canada developed a comprehensive claims policy that expressed a willingness to negotiate land claims with organizations representing Natives. The major features of this policy are that aboriginal rights, titles, and interests to lands inside and outside a settlement area can potentially be exchanged for surface and subsurface title to lands, rights to the harvest of natural resources, resource and environmental management rights, and cash settlements.
