i haven't looked into this, but, generally, areas that are not under treaty are considered to be owned in allodial by the state and parcelled out in aboriginal title to the inhabitants if they can prove use relative to a complex and sort of trivial set of clauses. i don't see why that would be different here.

it's a little weird that they're doing this through court battles, though, rather than treaty. yet, i guess that's what got forced on to them by the logging.

i'd expect the court to rule something along the lines of that a treaty negotiation needs to be started. it would be under the treaty that questions of logging and land-sharing would be discussed.

i know the nisga'a agreement implements some aboriginal concepts of land ownership, which are generally not exclusive. hunting grounds, for example, were often shared by multiple groups of people.

ironically, that's part of the reason that settlers were able to set up here so easily. the indigenous peoples on the *atlantic* coast largely only considered the areas directly around their settlements to be under their ownership. the rest of the land was owned by a 'creator' and free for general use. the settlers badly took advantage of that.

so, generally, these cases only wish to exert *explicit* ownership over the areas they live, and *joint* ownership over the areas they rely on for fishing and game. which is of course confusing in the british court system, although there are precedents - there were commons all over britain, as they are remembered today by the tragedy of the commons if by nothing else.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/key-b-c-aboriginal-land-claim-case-starts-before-supreme-court-1.2418130

well, ok, there's a framework in place - indicating that the government implicitly acknowledges the claim.

http://www.gov.bc.ca/arr/treaty/key/down/tsilhqotin_sea_amended.pdf