Governmentality and Mining: Analyzing the Environmental Impact Assessment for the Mary River Mine, Nunavut, Canada
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The purpose of this research is to examine the thoroughness, objectivity, and inclusivity of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the Mary River Iron Mine as a means to evaluate broader tensions expressed by the people of Nunavut that impact assessments are not addressing the concerns of northern communities.The EIA process in Nunavut is often conceptualized as a rigorous and unbiased tool that provides decision-makers with the information necessary to determine the likely impacts of a natural resources development project.This research reveals that the Mary River Project's potential to negatively impact caribou and Inuit harvesting of caribou was not thoroughly assessed, nor was it meaningfully informed by those concerned about the mine (e.g.Inuit organizations and residents of potentially impacted communities).As currently practiced, EIA privileges the perspectives of the mining industry and reinforces narratives that mining is the key to Nunavut's socio-economic development.Settlement Area 1 in order to assess their likely socio-economic and environmental impacts (NIRB, 2014).The NIRB's role is to facilitate open dialogue between the various actors involved or impacted by a project proposal, and to assess the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) submitted by the project proponent.The review process involves a number of stages such as issues scoping, preparation and review of the EIS, and community consultations (NIRB, 2014B).In theory this process allows actors to express their concerns and opinions, and facilitates the collection and sharing of scientific data, as well as Inuit knowledge, known as Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit (IQ) 2 , as evidence to predict the likely socio-economic and environmental impacts of the project being assessed.Upon completion of a review, the NIRB reports its recommendations on whether or not a project should be approved, and under what conditions, to the Federal Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada (AANDC) who has the ultimate say regarding approval (NIRB, 2009A).Despite having a systematic procedure for conducting Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA), the NIRB's role is made more difficult due to the complex and often contested nature of mining and development plans in Nunavut.When plans for large-scale development projects are proposed, a number of conflicting perspectives often emerge.Narratives about sustainable development, Inuit self-determination, 1 The Nunavut Settlement Area is the geographical area that would become the Territory of Nunavut as defined in the NLCA.For a more detailed description of the geographical extent of the area, as well as its legal significance, see Article 3 in the NLCA (1993). 2 Also referred to as Traditional Knowledge, Traditional Ecological Knowledge, Aboriginal Knowledge, and Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit within Nunavut.I will use the term Indigenous Knowledge (IK) when speaking in a broad sense, and Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit (IQ) when referring to Inuit knowledge specifically.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.005 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.006 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.006 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".