The Crees of northern Quebec, Canada, are to receive the first payment of a US$1.4B agreement they signed early this year. The agreement ends the aboriginal group’s legal battles, with the provincial government, and allows hydro-quebec, the provincially owned power utility company, to undertake hydro development of the 480MW Eastmain dam and Rupert diversion. For the first time, the Cree will receive at least US$27M a year for the first 50 years of this agreement, including royalties from the hydro projects on their ancestral lands that generate over half of Quebec’s electricity, and from forestry and logging.