Webinar – Mentions and measures: How are Indigenous values considered in impact assessments?

Press Release

Webinar description

In Canada’s oil and gas industry, impact assessments (IAs) are used to determine the positive and negative externalities of proposed projects. These assessments tend to prioritize economic gains over the values of Indigenous communities who bear the weight of impacts. In this recording of the NCCIH Webinar “Mentions and measures: How are Indigenous values considered in impact assessments?”, Dr. Diana Lewis and Lara Durksen discuss how Indigenous values are understood and considered alongside standardized economic measures in decision-making. This webinar presents a thematic inductive analysis of six National Energy Board (NEB) reports for project approvals in the Alberta oil and gas industry. Their findings evidence how Indigenous values shared in the IAs are interconnected to health and well-being, emphasizing the importance of Indigenous leadership in IA for informed decision-making.

Learning objectives

• Identify what measures and components were used to inform recent IA reports prepared by the NEB for major oil and gas projects approved under federal jurisdiction.
• Understand to what extent the application of these measures and components reflect Indigenous values and the interconnections to Indigenous health and wellbeing.

Bios

Dr. Diana Lewis is a member of Sipekne’katik First Nation and Associate Professor/ Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in Indigenous Environmental Health Governance in the Department of Geography, Environment & Geomatics, University of Guelph. She is also Director of the IndigenERA Lab and a Member of the Royal Society of Canada (2025). Her research focuses on promoting understanding of Indigenous worldviews in environmental decision-making and advocating for Indigenous-led approaches to give communities baseline health data and sovereignty over the data in environmental decision-making. She is currently working with Indigenous communities across Canada to develop an Indigenous-led environmental health risk assessment approach.

Lara Durksen (M.A.) is a settler researcher, who completed her MA in Geography (2025) at the University of Guelph. Her thesis is titled “Measure vs. mention: An analysis of economic measures and Indigenous values in impact assessments of major oil and gas projects in Alberta” and explores how the economics of land-based relationships in Indigenous communities can better inform decision making in Canadian impact assessments. She also holds a BA in Environmental Governance with a minor in Sustainable Business (University of Guelph). Since 2022, Lara has worked as a Research Assistant in the IndigenERA Lab, led by Dr. Diana Lewis.

Suggested readings

• Bélisle, A.C., Wapachee, A., & Asselin, H. (2021). From landscape practices to ecosystem services: Landscape valuation in Indigenous contexts. Ecological Economics, 56(2), 179, 106858.
• Durksen, L. (2025). Mention vs. measure: An analysis of Indigenous values and economic measures in impact assessments of major oil and gas projects in Alberta. [Unpublished Master of Arts thesis]. University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada.
• Lewis, D., Castleden, H., Masuda, J., Richmond, C., & Jolly, D. (2025). Confronting epistemic blinders in impact assessment and environmental health risk assessment processes. Risk Analysis, 45(10), 2956-2963.

Webinar resources

• Watch on YouTube
• Listen on SoundCloud
• View or download a transcript of the webinar (PDF)
• View or download a list of links to related resources (PDF)
• View or download the speakers’ Powerpoint presentation (PDF)

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