Natural Resources committee  Great, thank you very much. Good morning, members of the committee. Thank you for inviting me to contribute to your hearings regarding the study on forest pests. It's my pleasure to speak to you today on behalf of the B.C. First Nations Forestry Council. Our organization works

Natural Resources committee  Yes, very much so. Our perspective, and the reason my opening comments weighed so heavily on these new mandates and contexts, is that we strongly believe that the standards developed by indigenous peoples and the United Nations in that declaration create a good framework for how

Natural Resources committee  Yes. Thank you for that. Establishing a research department or a program from an indigenous perspective has been on our mandate since our organization was created. Our community has provided a mandate to the First Nations Forestry Council. It really came from—and I mentioned it

Natural Resources committee  I absolutely do want to point out that a lot of the dialogue in our communities has been about prescribed fire and traditional use of fire from our communities as a forest management strategy, I suppose you could say. The traditional knowledge and use of fire over the years would

Natural Resources committee  Okay.

Natural Resources committee  Thank you.

Natural Resources committee  Yes, absolutely. Thank you for bringing that up. I couldn't agree more. I think there have been some attempts from our organization and from our leadership, especially as the forest fires have been increasing in the last couple of years, to seek out a new program and support the