First Nation looks to forest for economic boost

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Pikangikum First Nation is hoping to find solutions to some of its economic problems within the forests covering its traditional territories.

The Whitefeather Forest Initiative is a community based economic renewal and resource stewardship project. Pikangikum First Nation began the project in 1996 as a means of gaining economic self-sufficiency for the community and to benefit the economy of the region.

Through the initiative the First Nation hopes to acquire commercial forest license management planning responsibilities for the Whitefeather Forest Planning Area, a 1.3 million-hectare land area that encompasses the traplines and traditional territories of the Pikangikum people. The area is located in Northwestern Ontario and is centered on the headwaters of the Berens River Watershed and bounded by the Woodland Caribou Provincial Park in the southwest, the Red Lake and Trout Lake Sustainable Forest License units in the south and southeast, the Albany River Watershed to the east and the Severn River Watershed to the north.

The First Nation is working to develop strategies, partnerships and new skills among its people so the community can take advantage of economic opportunities in forestry and forest-related industries.

The leadership of the First Nation needs to create jobs for local youth. The Whitefeather Forest Initiative is one way of responding to the decline of the fur trapping economy and planning for the future for the community's young and rapidly growing population

The people of Pikangikum have lived in what's been described as Third World conditions since the end of their traditional way of life, said Chief Peter Quill. Economic development activities such as the Whitefeather Forest Initiative will help the community to turn that around, but it can't be done without support from the federal government.

Control of funding from Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) has been in dispute in the past and Pikangikum First Nation has taken the federal department to court in a bid to regain control of its resources.

These disputes have created a strained relationship between Pikangikum and INAC, which the First Nation's leadership believes has resulted in a slow flow of funds for the much-needed Whitefeather Forest Initiative.

"The Whitefeather Forest Initiative is an extraordinary opportunity for the First Nation to acquire a sustainable forest license (SFL) from the province of Ontario, which would enable them to have management control of a vast area of forest," said Douglas Keshan, legal council for Pikangikum First Nation.

Keshan said that the First Nation has been working to satisfy the requirements for a SFL from the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources.

A number of steps need to be completed before such a license will be issued, he said, including completing a forest inventory, developing management plans and undertaking land use studies. It costs an enormous amount of money to complete these studies, and INAC has offered "virtually nothing, very little," said Keshan.

In January, the department committed $196,700 from its Resource Access Negotiations Program for the Whitefeather Forest Initiative and, to date, has invested a total of $634,700.

Quill said the most recent money from INAC doesn't even cover the band's expenses from last year and leaves nothing with which to move ahead.

"If I understand correctly ... we are looking at a total $2,141,660 for this coming year," said Quill.

"According to my understanding INAC says that there is only a limited amount of funds from which they can work from. But that is not my understanding of how INAC should be working. They are minimizing us as a First Nation," the chief added.

"When Mr. Nault was the minister he tried to put down the Pikangikum as a community that has no potential, no skills, no nothing. But we don't see it that way," he said.

"They (INAC) has offered very little towards the cost of getting all his work done. The First Nation have used their own resources and gone to other agencies, including the province, for assistance ... and other federal agencies," said Keshen.

"They (INAC) have been very reluctant to support the Whitefeather Initiative, which is very peculiar because it has the potential to offer hundreds of jobs and to enable this First Nation to be self-reliant and self-sufficient," he said.

Birchbark contacted a spokesperson for INAC to ask about future funding for the Whitefeather Forest Initiative. Tony Prudori, a communications officer for INAC in Thunder Bay, said the department just received a proposal for additional funding from the First Nation on April 5. "That proposal is being reviewed," he said.