The Canadian province of British Columbia (B.C.) announced a land, water and resource management agreement with the Blueberry River First Nations Indigenous group on Wednesday that will restart development in the vast Montney shale play, but also limit new oil and gas activity.
New well licenses in B.C.'s Montney have been frozen since June 2021, when a landmark B.C. Supreme Court decision ruled in favour of a Blueberry River claim that decades of industrial development had damaged their traditional territory.
Since then the province and First Nations, in the region have been negotiating a different resource development approach in the 38,000-kilometre swathe of land that lies in the heart of Canada's top gas-producing play. "This agreement provides a clear pathway to get the hard work started on healing and restoring the land, and start on the joint planning with strong criteria to protect ecosystems, wildlife habitat and old forests," Chief Judy Desjarlais of the Blueberry River First Nations told a news conference.
The deal includes a new planning regime for future oil and gas development, an annual 750-hectare cap on new land that oil and gas activity can disturb and protection from resource development for more than 650,000 hectares of land that is highly valued by Blueberry River.B.C. Premier David Eby said the oil and gas industry will need to innovate to find ways to work with less land.
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