Hi folks,

The new LandKeepers site is up and running! It’s a work in progress and there are several features—such as the mining wiki—that remain in development. We wanted to get the core features launched in time for the BC First Nations Mining Summit in Prince George, which starts today. We’re hoping to speak with lots of folks at the Summit about the site, and come home with a list of ideas for improving it in the future.

So for the inaugural topic on the discussion forum, what do you think of this site? What features could be added to make it a more useful tool for learning about mining issues and sharing information about your experiences?

One idea we’ve heard is to have some ‘feature’ stories on the home page. They could include a project description or a story of a community project or group or a summary feature on a current issue or feature a resource from the resource section.

I would love to see a user friendly comprehensive feature that utililized Google maps and showed all of the historical mining activities along with existing and proposed. This would give everyone in BC a chance to see what cummunlative impacts are exising and proposed to the landscapes they are responsible for.

Another idea that I have is to begin posting issues related to pipelines. I know that there this idea is already work in progress - however, there is so much activity happening in Western Canada in regards to this matter. This site would be a perfect vehicle to link us BC indigenous folks to our friends across the Rocky Mountains.

Good ideas. Closed mines seem to be coming up more and more these days. There is an initiative called the National Orphaned and Abandoned Mines Initiative (NOAMI). They began an interactive mapping project a few years ago, but I don’t think it has been completed unfortunately. The prototype looked great though.

Here are some other sites that might be of mapping interest:
http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/index.html - Atlas of Canada, variety of maps

http://ess.nrcan.gc.ca/mapcar/index_e.php - Natural Resources Canada mapping page

http://www.mtonline.gov.bc.ca/ - The Mineral Tenure Online system is BC’s mineral staking system. You can go into the mapping software and play around, look at what is claimed, etc, without having to pay anything.

In our LandKeepers map section there are some good maps that show mining activity in BC. The one produced by FNEHIN is pretty great for visual impact.

As for your pipeline suggestion, do you have any resources you can suggest we share here?

Trying to keep up with keeping this site up to date is going to be a full time job. Things are happening so fast in the mining sector because of the economy. There is so much very much needed info on your sight, a lot of which I have printed out to share for public awareness--but one thing I would really like to see is an update page--probably have to be done each day--not only of what is going on but primarily to date new material. Even a posting date or some designation on recently received material in Resources would help. My time is limited and it is so frustrating to open something I have opened several times before. Also links to Native friendly papers and reports for further updating would be nice. Just trying to get some ideas going… (smilies don’t work??--oh well, grin-grin)

-cici-

Thanks Cici. The top three newest resources and news items are highlighted in the home page. We try to get a few new resources up once every week or two, so as not too overload folks. It does take a bit of work to keep the site updated, but it’s not too bad. We can look into a way to list items by date added, if that will help you out. We’re also going to input a ‘feature’ on the homepage soon, to highlight big issues, projects, communities, etc. Ideas welcome for that, too!