THUNDER BAY – A National Summit on the Indigenous Forest Bioeconomy got underway Wednesday in a Thunder Bay hotel, concluding Thursday.
“They've done a great job to bring people from across Canada that are involved in the forest sector, mainly Indigenous-led forest management companies and also government and some of the technical capacity that communities work with,” participant Jason Rasevych said of the National Aboriginal Forestry Association (NAFA), which organized the conference.
As president of the Anishnawbe Business Professional Association and director of Waawoono Consultancy, Rasevych made a presentation on “Heavyweights of Indigenous Forest Tenure.”
Rasevych told Newswatch many communities in Northern Ontario “have been able to increase their participation in the forest sector through a process of having a stronger voice and decision-making role on the forest units that are within their traditional territory.
“There’s also been communities that have utilized innovation and technology to be able to advance their projects on leveraging the local forests for the production of energy or electricity related to biomass projects,” he continued.
Rasevych said there are also “opportunities for communities to study new ways to utilize the forest to support, whether that be sustainable aviation fuels – biofuels – or looking at potentially new and innovative ways to get forest resources towards the electric vehicle battery market related to bio-graphite.”
“So [there are] a lot of new ideas that are coming together and being shared here, but a lot of that has to do with the increasing role for First Nations to be decision makers on what is called these Crown units.”
Conference participants are “sharing stories of about the new forest bioeconomy that Indigenous Peoples, First Nations peoples, are leading the charge on,” said Bradley Young, NAFA’s executive director.
That includes “developing the economy, working with their culture, working with their values, working with their young people’s innovation, new technology, and just trying to build that that good way of life in our communities that our elders had a vision for,” he said.
The summit, hosted by Fort William First Nation, included presentations by people from Cat Lake, Whitesand, Pikangikum and other First Nations in Northwestern Ontario.
It concludes Thursday after a presentation on artificial intelligence, drone aircraft and Indigenous forestry.