Indigenous partnerships helping create new value from forests

Domenico Iannidinardo on the future of forestry, carbon credits and reconciliation in this excerpt from the 2023 Rights & Respect Magazine.

Domenico Iannidinardo, Senior Vice President, Climate & Forest and Chief Forester, Mosaic Forest Management with Eli Enns, Co-Director, Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas Innovation Program and Chief Gordon Planes.

The heart of the modern forest industry is about flipping an old cliché on its head. It’s about seeing the forest and the trees.

What this requires is approaching working forest lands—and forest lands with potential for harvest—with sustainability in mind. How can we ensure that the forest and all its values are maximized today, tomorrow, and well into the future?

Mosaic Forest Management is the largest private timberlands producer in Canada, and our operations stretch the length and breadth of Vancouver Island and Haida Gwaii. We work with sustainability at the core on all those lands—from partnerships with First Nations and communities to opening up recreational and community access to our lands and collaborating on protecting shared environments like sensitive areas and community watersheds.

We’ve taken this approach for decades. More than 20 years ago, we were Canada’s first forestry company to be certified under the Sustainable Forestry Initiative. We were the first forest company globally to achieve certification of its carbon footprint by the Carbon Trust. We were British Columbia’s first forestry company to achieve Progressive Aboriginal Certification from the Canadian Council of Aboriginal Business.

We are continuing to build on our progress with the recently announced BigCoast Forest Climate Initiative. It may sound counterintuitive for a forest company, but the heart of the initiative is not cutting down trees.

Through the initiative, Mosaic has deferred timber harvesting on 40,000 hectares of private land for at least the next 25 years. That is an area over three times the size of Vancouver set aside. It’s also important to note the type of forests set aside. These lands contribute to the broader regional ecosystem, home to bears, elk, salmon, orca, and more.

How can a forest company afford not to cut down trees? It’s about seeing the value of the forest beyond those trees.

The deferral will bring high-quality, large-scale, nature-based carbon credits to the growing international and domestic market. The increased carbon storage and avoidance of 20 million metric tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions through the deferral will be independently verified, packaged, and sold. The Verified Carbon Standard (VCS), the world’s most widely used and rigorous voluntary carbon program, will certify these carbon credits.

For Mosaic, this is the start of the process. We have much to learn. That’s why part of the proceeds benefit local partners—the Pacific Salmon Foundation and the Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas (IPCA) Innovation Program—to support scientific and First Nations cultural research on and around the project lands. These partnerships are critical —and will help the BigCoast Forest Climate Initiative evolve and grow through research and knowledge we just don’t have. It’s our goal to develop and grow together.

Forests. Photo supplied by Mosaic Forest Management for IPSS.

Recently, I had the chance to catch up with Eli Enns, the Co-Director of the Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas Innovation Program and an internationally recognized expert in Indigenous-led conservation in a forest that is part of the initiative. He brings his background in political science to work as a ‘Nation-builder’ with values and approaches rooted in Indigenous economic theory and practice.

He pointed to the opportunity that will come from learning from BigCoast Forest related to how original ecosystems can guide climate adaptation and build more resilient communities that work with Mother Nature, now and into the future. The key is respecting old forests for their original, diverse ecosystems.

The possibilities stretch far beyond what you might think in delaying harvest and selling carbon credits. Eli says to think about a unique approach to housing. The T’Sou-ke Nation, with funding from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, has already spent a couple of years looking at what housing would look like in an IPCA context. One idea is an eco-village that accompanies the BigCoast Forest protected areas with sustainable livelihood programs and jobs created by restoring ecosystems.

Another member of the IPCA, Chief Gordon Planes of the T’Sou-ke First Nation, explained to me the importance of learning from the land. He said Canadians walking the land and looking at it through the lens of a First Nation would learn and absorb and, in the end, take care of the land.

The Chief suggested thinking about the forest by thinking about a cedar tree—and what will happen in 25 years. Those trees are important because of the teachings members of his First Nation will hand down. It means young children will know that if they need to build a canoe in the future, the opportunity will be there. It’s about knowing everything in the forest has a reason for being and that within 25 years, the partnership with BigCoast Forest will deliver a clearer understanding of the path all of us are taking.

For Chief Planes, the next 25 years of the project will be about looking at the health of the old forests and their diversity, then comparing it to the health in second growth and third growth forests. He says that will open up more understanding of how the territory works, from water quality to air quality and wildlife health— all things that are connected. Looking at those connections over a 25-year span will deliver a clearer understanding of what comes next. He’s confident we’re going to find out things that are very important for our ability to take care of Mother Earth.

For me and everyone at Mosaic, there’s genuine excitement about what BigCoast Forest and the partnership with the IPCA can deliver. It goes well beyond the trees to the whole forest, to the local environment and wildlife. And what we’ve started together will serve as a blueprint for a more sustainable future.

Domenico Iannidinardo is the Senior Vice President, Forest & Climate and Chief Forester, for Mosaic Forest Management. This article was originally published in Rights & Respect, Issue 2.