Native involvement highlight of program

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A partnership between First Nations, government, business and other forest stakeholders is providing an integrated approach to sustainable forestry development in Saskatchewan.

The Prince Albert Model Forest (PAMF) is comprised of 367 hectares of forest, located 70 km north of Prince Albert. Included in the model forest area are lands licenced to Weyerhaeuser Canada, as well as lands of the Montreal Lake and Lac La Ronge Indian Bands, and lands included within Prince Albert National Park and Candle Lake Provincial Park.

The partners involved in the Prince Albert Model Forest are Canadian Forest Service, the Saskatchewan section of the Canadian Institute of Forestry, The Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations, the Lac La Ronge Indian Band, the Montreal Lake Cree Nation, the Prince Albert Grand Council, Prince Albert National Park, Saskatchewan Environment and Resource Management, The Resort Village of Candle Lake, and the Saskatchewan division of Weyerhaeuser Canada Ltd.

As described on its website, the Prince Albert Model Forest is "a nonprofit partnership of forest stakeholders committed to the sustainability of Saskatchewan's forests through research, education and the equitable sharing of forest resources."

The Prince Albert Model Forest is one of 12 model forests within Canada, and a member of Canada's Model Forest Network. The others include the McGregor and Long Beach model forests in British Columbia, the Foothills Model Forest in Alberta, the Manitoba Model Forest, the Lake Abitibi and Eastern Ontario model forests in Ontario, the Waswanipi and Bas-Saint-Laurent model forests in Quebec, the Western Newfoundland Model Forest, the Nova Model Forest in Nova Scotia, and the Fundy Model Forest in New Brunswick.

According to Mike Demyen, forestry implementation technician with the Prince Albert Model Forest, the PAMF was started in 1992, with a five-year agreement signed with Canadian Forest Services. In 1997 the agreement was extended for another five years, concluding in 2002.

"The goal is developing working partnerships among groups that traditionally hadn't worked together before," Demyen said. "Bring everyone into the same area, into the same room. Talk about projects that everybody was possibly doing before, but now we can actually do them all together. Obviously, the more heads you put together, the better your project will be. There generally used to be similar projects going on among organizations, and if all those organizations get together, the projects can meet all of their different agendas, and the projects will also be bigger, and that way the bigger they are the better they are, for most cases."

Keith Chaytor, general manager of PAMF, outlined the mandate of the model forest.

"The three main things that we're trying to do . . . sustainable forest management, in other words forests forever, integrated resource management - forests for all uses, and technology transfer - information to all users," Chaytor said. "One of the keys here, with this organization, and how it differs so much from anybody else that's also working on sustainable forestry, is that, by working together, we get the brain power and the perspective and the wisdom, and all those things that come from each of the partners.

"What we do here is we work together. So everyone is sitting at the table. So whatever is discussed is immediately taken in by each of those perspectives, and if it's a good thing, they comment right away, and if it's not, then we're right there, everybody is there together. So that's the key difference between this and any other organization that's involved in this sort of work or research. And it's profound the difference that it makes when we're doing things."

One of the things that sets the Prince Albert Model Forest apart from other model forests in the system is the high level of Aboriginal involvement in the program.

"Prince Albert Model Forest is kind of known and respected for its relationship thatwe've developed with First Nations partners," Demyen said, "because 40 per cent of our partners are First Nation, which is a higher number than most of the others, if not all of the others. So we're kind of very well respected in that light, and we continually get questions like, 'Well, how did you get to do that?', . . . and we didn't really do it. It just kind of happened that way. We just decided that it would be best if we all worked together, and that's the why it developed from there. There's no real formula that you could plug into a computer and see how to do stuff. It just kind of worked out really well for us."

According to Chaytor, this high level of Aboriginal representation among the partners has led to PAMF's involvement in advising other model forests regarding how to increase Aboriginal representation in their organizations.

"One of the things we're doing, and it's not a project, but it's something that our partners have been recognized for, is we're leading the country - our partners are leading the country - in participation by Aboriginal people in the program. And so, we've done a fair bit of work with our partners, going and visiting other areas, and sitting down with their partners in the model forest there, and helping them to understand how to make these things work together," Chaytor said.

One of the major projects the PAMF has been working on has been development of an integrated land-use plan.

"We have an integrated land use project that we're working on," Demyen said. "This project is to make a land use plan for the model forest area which encompasses 10 different organizations. We've completed the plan, it's been written . . . Right now, what we're doing with it is that each of the organizations has taken the land use plan, and then they will take it up their ladder, up higher in their organization to get them approved. And then we're expecting that in September we will be able to sign it, and what that means then is that each one of th partners will implement a portion of that plan."

Todd Olexson is an integrated land-use planner with Saskatchewan Environment and Resource Management, who was seconded to PAMF to assist in development of the plan, the "Prince Albert Model Forest Ecosystem-Based Integrated Resource Management Plan"

"One of the main goals was to integrate the activities of all of the model forest partners . . . because there are several different jurisdictions across the model forest area," Olexson said.

"One of the other goals for the plan in general was just to ensure that the best management, and the best management practices, are carried out over the model forest area, as it's supposed to be a model, through which we try new things, and try to manage the area the best possible way," Olexson said.

"All of the partners have had a lot of commitment in the plan, and have a voiced a lot of support for all of the work that the model forest and the partnership have done to put this plan together," Olexson said.

"In the broadest sense, the plan - because we wanted it to be ecosystem based - looked at virtually all of the things out there on the land. All of the resources, all of the resource uses, all of the users of the land, and was a way of looking at the whole ecosystem across multiple jurisdictions," Olexson said.

"The plan dealt with concerns, and the concerns came from the public, in terms of the general public out there, and the partners themselves. In total, I believe, there are 78 separate concerns which are dealt with in the plan, and to deal with those separate concerns there are 211 guidelines . . . and there were 138 actions," Olexson said.

"Once approved, the plan outlines the agencies to initiate the actions and implement certain parts of it. Because the model forest area crosses several different jurisdictions, it will be a co-ordinated and cooperative effort by virtually all of the partners in implementing the plan," Olexson said.

"The plan also outlines . . . commiment dates, when many of these actions are to be completed by," Olexson added.

"The plan calls for, and what has been committed to, is to do an annual review of the implementation progress. And that report will be available to the public, so that it will be highlighted - what's been done, what hasn't been done, which commitments have been met, and if commitment haven't been met, why, or whatever the reasons may be, so that everyone involved in the plan, all of the partners and all of the interested public, have the opportunity to continually see what's been going on," Olexson said.

"The plan was also designed to be adaptive. On top of the annual review, every five years there will be kind of a major assessment. And at that time we hope to look more at new things that come along. Obviously information changes, people's needs change, the concerns that people have change. And we want to keep the plan current, going with the philosophy of adaptive management, as we learn new things on a regular time frame, we will look at the plan and keep it up-to-date so that the model forest area is continually being managed in the best possible way, not just for the next couple of years," Olexson said.