South Bluff Creek Survey

Moose Cree First Nation Survey Regarding South Bluff Creek

This survey is not a ratification vote for a mine. Survey now closed.

Open only to Moose Cree members aged 18 years and older. Please limit one response per member.

This survey is an opportunity for Moose Cree First Nation members to provide input to Chief and Council about the potential uses of South Bluff Creek. NioBay is not currently seeking to build a mine, but rather to do tests that will provide more information about what the costs and benefits of a mine would be. NioBay has made a legally binding commitment that it will not proceed to build a mine in the future without the support of Moose Cree First Nation.

Decisions about resource development in the Moose Cree Homeland are major decisions that must be made by the Moose Cree First Nation membership. Chief and Council’s role is to ensure that members have the best information possible to make an informed decision. Early exploration allows both proponents and our members to make informed decisions about further development. Early exploration has been occurring near South Bluff Creek for decades without any significant environmental impacts. If a mine is proposed in the future, however, there would be environmental impacts on our Homeland and also economic benefits. We do not know yet what either the impacts or the benefits would be.

Some community members have expressed the view that South Bluff Creek is a special area that should be specially protected and off-limits from all mining and industrial development, no matter how small the impacts or how big the benefits might be. Like a decision to permit development, a decision to specially protect an area of the Moose Cree Homeland is a decision that can only be made by our membership collectively. The Moose Cree First Nation membership as a collective has never been directly consulted on that question. This survey is intended to be the beginning of that conversation.

Chief and Council and the community will use the survey information to help decide whether it is worthwhile to continue to invest our time and energy into that proposed project to determine what environmental protections and economic benefits it could secure for the membership. We will also feed this survey information into our thinking about the South Bluff area in our land use planning exercise (which is ongoing).

The survey has now been closed. Thank you to our members that have shared their opinion.