The New Prosperity mine, set to be built in the BC interior, is ruffling a lot of feathers within the local Aboriginal community. So much so, that the Tsilhot’in people have decided to claim the land in which the mine is set to be placed as a tribal park. In terms of the company opening New Prosperity, Taseko Mines Ltd, the Tsilhot’in people are a vital external impact on the organization’s business model. They are essentially acting as the regulation on the mine, as if they do not approve of what the mine plans to do on the claimed Aboriginal land, then they simply will not allow the mine to enter. Because of this, Taseko needs to be extremely careful with how they deal with the Tsilhot’in people. One wrong move, and they will be denied access to their projected $1.1 billion project.
If I were a senior executive at Taseko, I would be communicating with the Tsilhot’in leaders as much as possible, in the hopes that they would be interested in striking some sort of deal with the company. If it were possible to convince the First Nations people that they would be included within the target segment of the company and were going to receive great benefits from the creation of the mine, there may be a fighting chance. Or, the mine could offer jobs to those within the Tsilhot’in community. However, at this point it seems very unlikely that New Prosperity will be given the go ahead on the newly claimed tribal park, and therefore it may be in the company’s best interest to begin looking at other possible locations for the mine.
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/metro/Unilateral+park+declared+Tsilhqot+includes+Prosperity+mine/10192766/story.html