B.C.’s First Nations could exercise a great deal more influence in forestry management in the province, but only if they become active in the decision-making process, according to a recent report by Bill Bourgeois, executive director of Healthy Forests–Healthy Communities.
Described as “a conversation on B.C. forests,” Healthy Forests–Healthy Communities held 18 community dialogue sessions across the province last year, including one at the Tseshaht First Nation office on Nov. 18. Bourgeois said his goal is to get more B.C. First Nations to follow the lead of the Nuu-chah-nulth.
“Other than Port Alberni and a couple of other areas, there wasn’t a lot of aboriginal participation,” Bourgeois said. “When people showed up, it was good, but we struggled to get [aboriginal] people out.”
Tseshaht CEO Cindy Stern said the local event attracted about 40 stakeholders from across the community, who took part in an intensive panel discussion and smaller breakout sessions, each with a recorder taking notes.
“Bill contacted me, as he did many forest practitioners across the province, and asked if I would volunteer to hold an event in our community,” Stern said. “I went to our council and asked permission to hold it in our Great Room.”
Other local stakeholder groups came on board quickly, and Woodtech 21 even provided dinner for all participants.
First Nations Forestry Council CEO Keith Atkinson admitted that his agency has not been an active participant in the Healthy Forests–Healthy Communities process so far.
“We are aware of it and we were supporters of it, but we didn’t have the resources to become involved in it last year,” Atkinson said. “We were unable to get to any of the sessions, but we are interested in seeing where we are after a year.”
Atkinson, who formerly lived and worked in the Port Alberni area with Coast Forest Management, said his agency is funded through the provincial forest ministry, but that funding has been cut severely for the past two years.
At the Port Alberni session, participants singled out three priorities. They called for greater influence on local forest management decisions, more diverse economic opportunities from forestlands and more integrated management of resources such as forests, mining and agriculture.
Bourgeois’ 24-page summary of the community dialogue sessions points out some stark figures. According to the latest statistics, 71 per cent of the provincial gross domestic product is generated by the resource sector. In effect, nearly three-quarters of B.C.’s economic activity is generated outside the cities.
“Even the people in the rural communities were saying they were not aware of these issues, especially around forestry and forestry management. So there needs to be some education process,” Bourgeois said.
The figures point out several things, Bourgeois said. First, that people in resource communities like Port Alberni, First Nations, and non-First Nations, have the potential to gain more influence in the decision-making process around those resources, and second, that alternative sectors like tourism and recreation are not going to replace resource extraction and processing any time soon.
Bourgeois said resource industries operate in waves, and the best any of these alternative industries can hope to accomplish is to “ameliorate the downside,” or more simply, to even out the waves.
According to the report, people across B.C. agreed that our forests need “greater attention to meet societal expectations.”
“They told me they want ‘local, viable and sustainable businesses in the forest sector,’” Bourgeois said. “I put out a draft statement that said ‘globally competitive,’ and I got pushback, because while it may be globally competitive, they want these viable, sustainable businesses in their communities and they did not want them to be dependent on the global economy.”
Bourgeois said he is encouraged by the vision expressed by leaders in the Alberni area to pool small tenures like the local community forest, woodlots, treaty lands and First Nations Woodland agreements to create a locally-managed fibre basket.
That is very much the vision of the First Nations Forest Council, Atkinson said. Small individual tenure-holders like First Nations are simply unable to provide the sort of log volumes required to run even a small mill. Most planning and harvesting gets contracted out because the revenue does not support a full-time operation.
“[B.C. First Nations] have access to about 12 million m3 per year, but right now, we’re all market loggers, selling to processors. We’re only logging four or five million m3 a year,” Atkinson said. “There is a huge need for a coordinated market for First Nations, in the same way there is for the major manufacturing sector. The question now is, shouldn’t we be investing in a manufacturing facility?”
Bourgeois said the fire that destroyed the Babine Forest Products mill in Burns Lake on Jan. 20 highlighted the looming issue of pine beetle kill in the B.C Interior. With 80 per cent of the pine forest already dead, harvest levels will shrink drastically over the next three years, he said.
The loss of that timber supply could provide a huge opportunity for B.C. Coastal tenure holders, including Vancouver Island First Nations and their neighbors. The goal would be to market coastal hemlock as a substitute for Interior pine.
“First Nations and others are in the position that, if the economies are correct, there is an opportunity,” he said, cautioning, however, “We’ve tried that for decades in this province, and we’ve struggled.”
Bourgeois now hopes for greater participation in the Healthy Forests–Healthy Communities initiative in 2012. While the 2011 sessions focused on forest management, rather than on processing, he plans to take the discussion to the next logical step.
What the community dialogues also pointed out is that there is a need for innovation and a new attitude in forest management. Bourgeois believes First Nations must grasp the opportunity to offer traditional knowledge in looking at the total range of values that forests can provide. But that will require expressing a clear vision of what this traditional knowledge can offer.
“There is a great deal of ignorance out there in regards to [traditional knowledge],” Bourgeois said. “I believe, once we get First Nations to participate, and to provide clarification of what they are asking for–what their culture suggests–[non-aboriginal] people will not be in opposition.”
The first priority for individual First Nations will be to define a vision of what they want to take from their forests. With new criteria such as environmental certification growing in importance for manufacturers, community consultation becomes more critical, he said.
“When plans come up for a company or a government to make changes, then you can make a statement,” Bourgeois said. “Then you have something you can show them and use it for leverage. Certification is something corporations and customers have to acknowledge. The CEOs have to become more interested in forestry. But as a community, you have to do the work up front.””
Atkinson said his agency is committed to taking part in the Healthy Forests–Healthy Communities process in 2012 and is now developing a work plan.
