Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you, committee members.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you and to represent Coastal First Nations. I bring greetings from our president, Chief Marilyn Slett; our board chair and CEO, Mr. Patrick Kelly; and our whole board and leadership.
I appear before you from Vancouver on the traditional and unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples, represented by the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh first nations.
I have divided comments into three sections: one, who the Coastal First Nations are; two, comments on the forest sector in the footprint of our nations; and three, some broader policy considerations.
The territories of the Coastal First Nations Great Bear Initiative member communities lie in the Great Bear Rainforest, one of the largest temperate coastal rainforest systems left on earth, and on the coastal shores of the Pacific Ocean.
CFN-GBI is an alliance of first nations with approximately 15,000 members. We are a unique organization, because representation includes various cultural and language groups—indeed, different first nations.
CFN-GBI is not the rights and title-holder; the member nations hold these. We are a 17-year-old, not-for-profit service organization created and maintained by the nations.
CFN-GBI communities have forged a rich culture in the north Pacific bioregion. The cultures, languages, and livelihoods are deeply connected to the riches of the rainforest and ocean. For at least 14,000 years, the people carefully managed an abundance of resources—ancient cedars, herring, salmon, halibut, shellfish, and more. They relied upon their knowledge of seasonal cycles to harvest land and marine resources without harming or depleting them.
Many believed these resources would last forever. They were wrong. After mere decades of over-exploitation, the forest and ocean resources of the Great Bear Rainforest and ocean have been depleted. Our region's economy has dwindled, jobs have become scarce, and the communities are challenged to survive.
The common reality of where the nations reside, obtain their identity, and need to re-establish a conservation economy has brought them together to work through CFN-GBI, the Coastal First Nations Great Bear Initiative.
Let me turn to some comments on forests and forestry and our nations. Our communities are working towards a coastal economy based on traditional natural resources such as fish, fisheries, and forestry. At the same time, we are exploring newer sectors, such as non-timber forest products and shellfish aquaculture.
One of our businesses, the Great Bear Rainforest Essential Oils, produces unique essential oils derived from natural conifer needles sustainably harvested in the Great Bear Rainforest region. The goal is to find culturally appropriate value-added products from the Great Bear Rainforest that would provide long-term sustainable and meaningful employment for remote communities, while at the same time protecting the forests. In 2007, Coastal First Nations began researching ways to derive essential oils from the conifer trees that grow in the reaches of the Great Bear Rainforest.
Since the signing of the Forest and Range Practices Act with British Columbia in 2003, CFN-GBI members have, to varying degrees, made progress on community economic development through the development of commercial forest tenure opportunities. Real progress has at times been frustrated by market declines, lack of access to viable harvest opportunities, and provincial policies that tend to disadvantage small tenure holders, first nations or otherwise.
However, along the way, forestry operational planning, business acumen, and working relationships with other licensees in the private sector have been developed. Recent upturns in markets and initiation of a tenure recharting process, if successful, will help to create stability for operational planning and investment. This, coupled with investment in value-added and local service sector opportunities, creates potential to reinvigorate the coastal forest sector.
The nations in B.C. are committed to explore and seek to identify and implement policies and measures that improve the economic viability of small first nation and coastal community forest tenures.
We seek to identify ancillary services and value-added forestry business opportunities, like the one I mentioned, that can be developed in CFN communities and, with industry, develop a strategic plan to realize them.
We seek to identify gaps and needed investments in regional forestry-related transportation infrastructure, and so forth, and to jointly approach the federal government to develop and implement a regional infrastructure development plan.
In 2016, after years of negotiations, the nations entered into the Great Bear Rainforest agreement and in 2009 signed the first reconciliation protocol with the Government of British Columbia. Under that protocol, having protected the forest to date, CFN has seen an outcome of a far-reaching carbon credit opportunity. Today CFN is the largest carbon credit marketer in Canada through the Great Bear Carbon Credit Limited Partnership. We have sold some 2.6 million tons over the past six years, and by the end of this year, we expect to be managing well over a million tons of carbon offsets per year.
I will move on to policy considerations.
Based on implementing UNDRIP and mindful of a new reconciliation priority, bilateral engagement between Coastal First Nations and Canada has brought CFN members in Canada to engage in two major reconciliation framework negotiations. The first is on oceans management and the second is on fisheries resources.
Our chiefs, Minister LeBlanc, and Minister Bennett signed a reconciliation framework agreement on fisheries resources on October 11, 2017. Now the goal is for cabinet to endorse a mandate with real funding investment to give meaning to reconciling and repatriating fish and fisheries to the rights and title-holders.
CFN-GBI chiefs and other nations in the north Pacific shelf region are currently engaged in a government-to-government working group to achieve a similar oceans protection and management reconciliation framework agreement. Protecting ocean resources, ensuring safe shipping, engaging the people who protect and maintain Canada's sovereignty on the coast, and combatting the effects and impact of climate change are priorities.
The forest sector is very important to member first nations for both traditional and new value-added forestry. It is a key topic as we negotiate the next phases of reconciliation with the Government of British Columbia. For CFN-GBI nations, at the heart of the matter is that having made significant strides to protect the environment, they need to fashion a sustainable economy that supports healthy communities and human well-being.
Traditional and new forestry play a big role in this, as do fish and fisheries, tourism, and potential opportunities in clean energy. The key is sustainability.
Thank you very much.