Land-use plan maps out potential in far North: virgin land expected to open for logging.

A massive land-use planning study is underway to open up vast expanses of virgin wilderness in Ontario's far North to commercial forestry within the next decade.

Known as the Northern Boreal Initiative (NBI), the mainly forestry-driven process was set up four years ago by the Ministry of Natural Resources to examine forestry development, mineral exploration and road access.

First Nations in Ontario's remote North are being encouraged by the province to take a leading role in the planning.

Those involved in the process feel they are on the ground floor of doing forestry in a different way and are searching the world for the best technology for value-added enterprises.

The NBI covers an area spanning the province, and extends 150-200 kilometres north of the northern edge of Ontario's Living Legacy planning area, at roughly 51 degrees latitude.

Implemented on a community-by-community basis, it is a framework to guide development in the Far North.

This area was not included in the province's earlier Lands for Life-Living Legacy exercise in the late 1990s.

Interested Aboriginal communities realize this largely undeveloped region, with its vast untapped timber and mineral resources, may be a real economic driver in northwestern Ontario.

To date, commercial logging has not been allowed in this area of forests, lakes, rivers and muskeg, but that should change over the next decade.

With anticipated shortages in Ontario's wood basket in the next few years, combined with an insatiable global demand for minerals, the focus of Northern Ontario's economy is shifting farther north.

The area is home to many First Nations people who want to share in these resources by obtaining Sustainable Forest Licences (SFLs), but who also want their traditional values incorporated into a new planning and environmental process.

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The most advanced plan underway is the Whitefeather Forest Initiative involving the Pikangikum First Nation, located 100 kilometres northwest of Red Lake.

Chief Alex Peters sees the NBI as a "tremendous opportunity open to all First Nations" to re-write the rule book on balancing resource extraction with conservation and protection.

"Forestry has to be done in a different manner than what we have seen. That's been expressed by the (band) elders," says Peters.

Clear-cutting and the use of machinery that tears up the ground are of particular concern, he adds.

Now more than half-way through the planning effort, the community views NBI as an economic renewal strategy that will deliver entrepreneurial opportunities in forestry, non-timber forest products, mining, recreation and ecotourism.

They expect to have a completed draft forest management plan by March 2005, but commercial logging in the Whitefeather area is not anticipated to occur until 2009.

Timberline Consultants, a British Columbia forest management company, is working with the community to train people in the community to develop a forestry inventory to quantify development opportunities covering 1.3 million hectares of forest.

One of the more exciting outcomes from the collaboration is a values collection data-base. The community's oral history from its elders has been identified and transferred to a GIS mapping system. About 10,000 natural, cultural and ecological points of interest are now mapped.

It will guide where fibre harvesting and industrial activity will be allowed to take place.

While a number of junior exploration companies are searching the area for gold, international firms have also shown interest in the process.

The band has fielded queries about value-added mill proposals from companies in China and Finland, but no partnership deals are in the works.

Peters, who is president of the Whitefeather Forest Management Corporation, sees future job opportunities in forestry for First Nations youth.

An Aboriginally based resource technicians program through Sault College is being developed with the support of Indian and Northern Affairs to assist in preparing young people in the community for employment opportunities anticipated. Of the community's 2,200 residents, 75 per cent are under the age of 30.

Already, 35 applicants have signed up.

Now, other Aboriginal communities, including Slate Falls, Cat Lake, Constance Lake, Eabemetoong and the Moose Cree, have expressed interest in obtaining Sustainable Forest Licences to start commercial logging in their traditional-use areas.

"There are a lot of people watching us and we're determined to do it right," says Peters.

Although industry is keenly interested in possible partnerships with Aboriginal SFL holders, says Roy Sidders, the Ministry of Natural Resources' Red Lake area supervisor, "orderly development is critical to this process," he insists.

Parks and protected areas will be established before any business opportunities or industrial-scale developments are identified.

"We're engaged in dialogue with all kinds of groups," says Sidders. "The environmental community is completely involved.

"The community has some interest in developing a value-added processing system and they're examining all kinds of mill options to produce a marketable product. The sky's the limit.

"Elders and community leaders have come to the conclusion that they need significant employment for the community and have embarked on a process of reaching a balance between their history and culture, and Western science and industrial ways."

Pickle Lake Mayor Roy Hoffman fully supports the process but harbours concerns about a First Nations-controlled process that might exclude others.

"It's great that First Nations finally have a say in what happens to the area, but we're being left out of the negotiations."

For years, Hoffman says forestry companies had a firm control of northwestern Ontario's wood supply, but now the pendulum of control has swung in favour of the First Nations.

Numerous presentations have been made to Pickle Lake town council, says Sidders.

"There is definitely no effort to be moving along without all parties being fully aware of the different stages people are at."

www.whitefeatherforest.com

www.mnr.gov.on.ca/mnr/nbi/

By IAN ROSS

Northern Ontario Business