Projects and Initiatives

The Water Authorizations Project explores a new shared decision-making process for water use proposals, allocations, authorizations, and licences that works with the Province of BC and Indigenous laws. 

The water licence application used to pilot this process involved existing groundwater on private property. The water licence application went through the standard Provincial process but coupled that with decision-making grounded in Indigenous laws. Working through this process helped illustrate how co-authorization of water licences could work in practice.

This pilot demonstrates an effective shared decision-making process, which is critical to ensure that decision making is guided and informed by Indigenous laws and that community priorities, values, and perspectives are included in water use management.