Ethical Dilemmas: The Honest Broker

Ethical Dilemmas: The Honest Broker
Name
Institutional Affiliation
Ethical Dilemmas: The Honest Broker
Ethical Issues, Professional Practice and Environmental Assessment When Working with Aboriginal Communities
Researchers involved in environmental assessment need to understand ethical issues that may emerge in their professional practice, especially those specific to working with Aboriginal communities. As practitioners in the field of environmental assessment continue to serve their communities, they face an array of ethical issues that must be addressed while upholding the value of integrity (Cameco, 2021). To serve as a guide, the Impact Assessment Act outlines best practices in the environmental assessment that target the rights of Indigenous communities. Under the Impact Assessment Act (IAA), the initial phases of environmental assessment require the inclusion of Indigenous knowledge in the process of drafting decisions that impact Aboriginal communities. Globally, important decisions have been made since history without these communities' participation, contributions, and consent (Harris, 2018). Before the changes brought by advocacy, activism, and an increasing acknowledgment of Aboriginal rights, the management of natural resources entirely depended on Western science, and rich traditional knowledge collected over centuries from direct participation and experiences of the indigenous people was excluded (Jardin, 2020). Today, these changes, alongside the recognition of the importance of traditional ecological knowledge in the promotion of sustainable resource management and practices, have seen ethics play a significant role in professional practice in environmental audits (Harris, 2018). These developments have called for the creation of an ethical and open space for sharing between Indigenous knowledge systems and Western science in environmental assessment processes (McGregor, 2021). The goal of information sharing is to address divergences between the systems and serve as the starting point for the generation of knowledge across and within the knowledge systems. This knowledge will form a basis for sustainable resource utilization and management within the ethical scope respecting the rights of the Indigenous communities.
The Impact Assessment Agency of Canada and the International Society of Ethnobiology Code of Ethics recognize the cultural and biological harms resulting from researching without the involvement of the Aboriginal communities. One of the most important concepts embedded in the Code is mindfulness, which requires researchers to be fully aware of their knowledge and actions while executing their professional mandates. The Code also upholds the protection of Indigenous intellectual property rights in the form of research, publications, databases, audio-visual recordings, and research materials derived from the use of traditional knowledge such as materials of biocultural heritage (International Society of Ethnobiology, 2008). Issues emerging in the professional practice that are directly associated with environmental assessment are defined as the guiding principles including prior rights and responsibilities, self-determination, inalienability, active participation, traditional guardship, full disclosure, confidentiality, informed consent, respect, active protection, supportive Indigenous research, diligence, and remedial action, reciprocity, mutual benefit, and equitable sharing, among others (International Society of Ethnobiology, 2008). An important issue emerges with the treatment of the inalienable wealth of the Indigenous communities in environmental assessment. The Code recognizes that the Aboriginal communities have inalienable rights to their natural resources, such as genetic and biological resources and traditional territories. Therefore, when conducting environmental assessments, practitioners need to understand that the Indigenous people determine the nature and scope of such alienable wealth. Another important issue that environmental assessment practitioners face is their obligation to serve as guardians in protecting the natural ecosystem as well as the responsibility of Indigenous communities in safeguarding their ecological space, languages, identities, customary laws and beliefs, mythologies, and practices. These elements of ethics often emerge in environmental assessment while serving Indigenous communities and safeguarding their rights.
The Story of Mining Uranium from The Perspective of the Honest Broker
In modern society, scientists play different roles in environment assessment as described by Piekle (2007) including pure scientist, issue advocate, science arbiter, and honest broker based on the approach an expert would prefer. Pure Scientists bear no interest in the choice that decision-makers will make but will share fundamental facts about the requested topic. Upon delivering the facts, it is upon the decision-makers to know what to do with the information. Science Arbitor on t...