Forestry financially challenged

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For 12 years, the First Nations forestry unit of the North Shore Tribal Council (NSTC) has ensured that forestry services remain accessible and viable. The unit has been providing consulting, management and technical services to bands and to Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal forestry businesses. Although staying afloat in the forestry business has been marked by financial challenges, NSTC has kept its head above water.

Jukka Heikurinen, a forester at NSTC, is one of the players in one of the forestry success stories that have emerged .

From May 11 to 13, Heikurinen will share his experiences at the National Conference on Aboriginal Forestry in Thunder Bay.

"I'll be talking about our activities and what we do and some of the services that we provide as well as some of the challenges that we have in keeping the service available to the First Nations," said Heikurinen.

Currently, the First Nations Forestry Program, which is administered by Natural Resources Canada, supplies NSTC with most of its government funding to run programs. Heikurinen says this portion only accounts for about five per cent of the budget, which "doesn't even cover our fixed overhead cost." When NSTC first established a forestry department under the old Ontario Development Agreement, the federal government provided 80 per cent of their funding.

"What the government wanted us to do is to go out and carry out contracts, pay-for-service-type programs. The First Nations, generally speaking, don't have any money for forestry programs. So we've had to go outside of the tribal council and into the private sector as well as other First Nations who happen to get some monies from some funding source ... to be able to stay alive, basically," said Heikurinen.

Going outside of the community to generate revenue has meant contracting out to private companies, government agencies and other First Nations on a fee for service basis. The problem is most First Nations do not have the money for forestry services.

"What you're being asked to do is to go out and contract your services and from the profits you then finance your services that you have to provide to the First Nations. It's akin to having a civil servant having to go and contract out so that they can pay their salaries and then expect to be giving their services to their constituencies or their clients for free. It doesn't work very well."

NSTC projects include managing the cone collection for Northshore Forest. They will also be providing a wood supply analysis to a Temagami mill. They are also developing Algoma Millworks, a white birch veneer mill, which the tribal council acquired last September.

"We're actually working on selecting a site for it and we're looking for partners basically to enter into the venture with us. But we still have a few hurdles to overcome," said Heikurinen, who estimates the mill will be running by 2005.

Heikurinen acknowledged that silviculture, the practice of replanting trees, is both important and necessary for the forestry business, but he said that the low- paying jobs in this field do not hold much economic benefit. Silviculture, Heikurinen added, makes up only about three per cent of the total profit. This is why Aboriginal communities and businesses need to develop specialty wood products that will give the Aboriginal forestry sector a leg up on the competition.

"We're not going to compete with the Chinese or the Chileans or the Russians on the commodity market. We have to get into those areas that are specialties and are based on service to the customer and on a specific product narrow niche product ... This is something that's difficult to do in the First Nations communities. We don't have a lot of expertise in there and it all has to be developed."