inac.gc.ca/al/ldc/ccl/pubs/gbn/gbn-eng.asp (accessed September 3, 2009).
462 A final wave of LCAs will be in British Columbia, the only British colony in North America that refused to extinguish aboriginal title through treaties. BC tribes are now actively negotiating modern land claims treaties. T. Penikett,
463 Greenland’s highest elected body prior to the introduction of Home Rule in 1979 was the
464 Home Rule was introduced on May 1, 1979. In 1982 Greenland voters passed another referendum to withdraw from the European Community. Certain areas, such as foreign affairs and justice, are still managed by Danish authorities, but the Danish government must consult Greenland on all matters relevant to it. The chief connection between the two countries today is economic, as Greenland depends on heavy subsidies from Denmark for solvency. In 2008 Greenland voters overwhelmingly passed another referendum moving Greenland toward full independence from Denmark.
465 As noted in the preceding note, full independence for Greenland, which some speculate could be declared in 2021, the 300th anniversary of Danish colonial rule, will require weaning from generous Danish subsidies averaging $11,000 annually for every Greenlander. The most likely mechanism for this weaning is revenue from oil and gas development, which is being actively encouraged by the Greenland government. So far, thirteen exploration licenses have been issued to companies like ExxonMobil, and another round of licensing will take place in 2010. “Greenland, the New Bonanza,” in
466 Canada’s Constitution Act of 1982.
467 The Dene of the Northwest Territories and the southern Yukon were signatories of Treaty 8 or Treaty 11, but these treaties were never fully implemented. Personal communication, D. Perrin, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, November 24, 2009.
468 To make this map, multiple data sources from the Alaska Bureau of Land Management, the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, the U.S. National Atlas, Natural Resources Canada, and Indian and Northern Affairs Canada were combined in a Geographic Information System (GIS) as follows: (1) Alaska land claim data were extracted from the Alaska Bureau of Land Management’s Spatial Data Management System. Land claims are represented by Native Patent or Interim Conveyance zones and Native Selected zones, data accessed from http://sdms.ak.blm.gov/isdms/imf.jsp?site=sdms (2) Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) Corporation boundaries were downloaded from the Alaska Department of Natural Resources Geospatial Data Extractor. Boundaries were created from the Bureau of Land Management’s “Alaska Land Status Map” dated June 1987, data accessed from http://www.asgdc.state.ak.us/. (3) Indian lands of the United States were downloaded from the National Atlas and show areas recognized by the Federal Government as territory in which American Indian tribes have primary governmental authority, administered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, data accessed from http://nationalatlas.gov/mld/indlanp.html. (4) Indian lands in Canada were downloaded from Natural Resources Canada’s GeoBase. These include surrendered lands or a reserve, as defined in the Indian Act, and Sechelt lands, as defined in the Sechelt Indian Band Self-Government Act, data accessed from http://www.geobase.ca/geobase/en/data/admin/alta/description.html (5) Canada land claims were extracted from the ‘Comprehensive Land Claims Map’ from Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, updated through late 2009 at http://www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/al/ldc/ccl/pubs/gbn/gbn-eng.asp.
469 After the bloody Pontiac Uprising in which nine British forts were captured, King George III issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which declared that Indians should “not be molested or disturbed” and only the Crown, not private citizens, was allowed to purchase land from them. To this day it is credited as a first legal acknowledgment of aboriginal land claims in Canada. Also, British Columbia refused to extinguish aboriginal title, as per note 462.
470 A second type of modern agreement, called “Specific Claims,” exists in Canada to redress past grievances of aboriginal groups who did sign historic treaties. Many aboriginal groups have pursued, or are pursuing, Specific Claims. However these are typically cash settlements and do not relate to land title.
471 From GIS analysis of aforementioned spatial data I estimate 284,247 km2 of Indian reservations in the conterminous United States and 4,358,247 km2 covered by Canadian land claims agreements as of 2009.
472 As a rule,
473 Personal interviews with Aili Keskitalo, president, Norwegian Sami Parliament (Tromso, January 23, 2007); Nellie Couroyea, chair/CEO, Inavialuit Regional Corporation and former NWT premier (Tromso, January 23, 2007); Lars-Emil Johansen minister of foreign affairs and former prime minister (Greenland, May 24, 2007); Mike Spence, mayor of Churchill (Manitoba, June 28, 2007); Elisapee Sheutiapik, mayor of Iqaluit (Nunavut, August 5, 2007); Eli Kavik, mayor of Sanikiluaq (Nunavut, August 7, 2007); Richard Glenn, vice-president, Arctic Slope Regional Corporation (Barrow, Alaska, August 22, 2008); Tony Penikett, former Yukon premier (Ottawa, June 1, 2009); Mary Simon, president, ITK (Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, Canada’s national Inuit organization, Ottawa, June 2, 2009); Ed Schultz, executive director, Council of Yukon First Nations (Ottawa, June 4, 2009).
474 The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) produced the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the “most comprehensive statement of the rights of indigenous peoples ever developed, giving prominence to collective rights to a degree unprecedented in international human rights law,” adopted by the General Assembly September 13, 2007, http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/ (accessed September 6, 2009). All five Nordic countries voted in favor of this declaration. Australia, the United States, and Canada voted against it; Russia was one of eleven countries abstaining.
475 Norway’s Finnmark Act of 2005 transferred 96% of Finnmark County’s land ownership to a council called the Finnmark Commission, comprised of representatives from the Sami Parliament as well as the local and central governments. Minority Rights Group International,
476 According to Aili Keskitalo, president, Norwegian Sami Parliament, personal interview, Tromso, January 23, 2007.
477 J. Madslien, “Russia’s Sami Fight for Their Lives,” BBC News, December 21, 2006, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6171701.stm.
478 M. M. Balzer, “The Tension between Might and Rights: Siberians and Energy Developers in Post-Socialist Binds,”
479 However, outright land ownership is a backburner issue in Russia. Most Russians, including aboriginals, view private land ownership as nonessential and even inappropriate. Aboriginal people are more concerned with winning stewardship, protections from competing uses, and the ability to pass use of the land on to their descendants. G. Fondahl and G. Poelzer, “Aboriginal Land Rights in Russia at the Beginning of the Twenty-first Century,”
480 A very small aboriginal group called the Yukagir people successfully fought for the adoption of a special law guaranteeing them self-governance in the two townships of Nelemnoe and Andrushkino, where much of their population (1,509 people in 2002) lives. P. 97,
481 S. N. Kharyuchi, “Option (sic) letter by the delegates of the VI Congress of indigenous small-numbered peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East of the Russian Federation” (open letter to President Dmitry Medvedev and Chairman Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin regarding the sale of twenty-year commercial salmon fishing leases in
