“We have to go from resource-based decisions to value-based decisions,”

A day after resource and municipal leaders crowded the stage of the B.C. Natural Resources Forum to express support for LNG projects in the north, members of first nations and conservationist researchers cast a more restrained note at a University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) conference. The Cumulative Impacts Research Consortium, a research organization that examines the comprehensive long-term effects of resource development, held a well-attended forum at UNBC on Friday. The forum examined issues such as watershed protection, wildfire preparation and human health impacts of resource development. At a panel examining indigenous land use, speakers stressed a need for changing the evaluation process for resource projects, with a more comprehensive focus on the impacts of these developments from past and future developments.