@conference {50603,
	title = {Fort McKay First Nation{\textquoteright}s involvement in reclamation of Alberta{\textquoteright}s oil sands development},
	year = {2012},
	month = {05/2012},
	abstract = {Fort McKay is a Cree, Dene and M{\'e}tis community situated in the epicentre of Alberta{\textquoteright}s oil sands
 developments and the people of Fort McKay believe that this development is limiting their ability to carry
 out cultural activities within their Traditional Lands and that this has significant adverse effects on the
 maintenance of their cultural heritage.
 The Community has existed on their Traditional Lands for generations and places great value on the land
 and all that the land supports. Fort McKay has major concerns associated with both the {\textquotedblleft}loss of land{\textquotedblright} and
 the condition of this land following mine closure and reclamation.
 The existing approved and proposed mine developments will ultimately occupy hundreds of thousand
 hectares of land and will not be fully reclaimed until the latter half of this century, with the likelihood that a
 further 10 to 20 years will be needed before the land can be certified as reclaimed. This means that the land
 occupied by these mines will be alienated from two to three generations of Fort McKay people.
 Fort McKay and the group of specialist consultants employed to work on behalf of the Community have
 worked closely with the Alberta government and oil sands developers to express the Community{\textquoteright}s concerns
 and to push both industry and government to work towards meeting the immediate and long term objectives.
 Although Fort McKay cannot take credit for the recent improvements in mine closure regulation and
 performance, Fort McKay has certainly had a strong voice which has helped lead to a number of changes in
 approval conditions. Changes which we have seen over recent years include improved regulations for
 salvage and replacement of topsoil, recent changes to the management of fluid fine tailings and the
 requirement to initiate large scale trials of techniques to reclaim land to peat accumulating wetlands (fens
 and bogs).
 In the future, Fort McKay will continue to strive for faster reclamation that will restore the land to premining
 conditions, will seek the complete elimination of fluid fine tailings especially those which will be
 stored under a water cap in an end pit lake, will seek to ensure that acceptable water quality will be
 achieved within a reasonable timeframe following closure and will seek to ensure that the reclaimed
 landscape will support the full range of traditional uses including medicinal plants, berries, hunting, fishing
 and trapping.},
	url = {http://hdl.handle.net/2429/42392},
	author = {Buffalo, K. and Jones, C.E and Errington, J.C. and MacLean, M.I.A.}
}
