Cultural Factors in Risk Perception: Observations from Interactions with Aboriginal Communities

Abstract

A nuclear facility is arguably the most difficult industrial facility to site, especially with regard to public acceptance. Public resistance to such facilities is a complex blend of emotion-laden imagery coupled with a risk perception process that is diametrically opposed to the scientific process by which scientists define nuclear risks. While much of the literature that deals with risk perception and public acceptance considers the problem (and any offered solutions) for a single societal standpoint, the issue becomes more complex when the community is made up of many different cultures—especially when the set of cultures includes aboriginal people (“Aboriginal,” for the purposes of this paper, is meant to represent all First People, regardless of what they or their governments call them, including Native Americans and Eskimos (US), First Nations and Aboriginal People (Canada), the Maoris of New Zealand, the Aborigines of the Australian Outback and any other culture that predates Western discovery. No disrespect is intended by this simplification.) for whom there is a traditional and spiritual relationship with the land. The level of success that owners have when attempting to site a nuclear facility appears to be correlated with the homogeneity of the host community population. This paper offers insights for successful public outreach and acceptance when dealing with more diverse local cultures, based on lessons learned, in part, from the efforts of Ontario Power Generation’s permit to construct and operate a Deep Geologic Repository (DGR) for low- and intermediate-level waste at the Bruce Nuclear Site in the Municipality of Kincardine, Ontario, Canada.