The carbon credit industry is selling First Nations across Canada on the concept of protecting forests as an alternative to increasingly contentious logging. The pitch: It will help offset industrial emissions while creating revenue and jobs in their communities.
The practice, which puts a value on trees that remain standing and absorbing carbon, is one way of dealing with the problem of greenhouse gas emissions. For Indigenous communities, projects to provide carbon offsets have been slow to come to fruition, but new agreements between companies and First Nations could be announced soon.
Carbon markets and regulations for participating in them are maturing as Canada seeks to achieve its goal of net-zero emissions by 2050. Proponents say this will allow communities to take part in greater numbers and help foster forestry skills, while preserving cultural values and biodiversity.
The interest comes amid a series of forestry management disputes. Some B.C. First Nations are demanding the provincial government give them more control over land-use decisions when it comes to forests on their territories. They want a bigger share of stumpage revenues for logging, along with policies and regulations that reflect their desires enshrined in provincial, and now national, legislation.
Carbon markets could help First Nations by providing an alternative.
That’s one of the motivations behind a plan by eight communities represented by the Secwepemcúl’ecw Restoration and Stewardship Society (SRSS) to explore opportunities to benefit from carbon offsets on traditional lands. Those lands include the site of the 2017 Elephant Hill wildfire, one of B.C’s most destructive.
“Our goal is to generate enough revenue so we can buy back timber licences from licensees so we have total control over stewardship and forest management practices,” said Angie Kane, chief executive officer of SRSS. Planning for a reforestation and carbon project in the southern B.C. interior region is in its early stages, and Ms. Kane said the goals for the communities are more ecological than economic.
Offset arrangements involve preserving forests that would otherwise be clear-cut or replanting woodlands that have long since disappeared. That is, without the project, the carbon sink wouldn’t exist. Once certified, these stands of trees generate carbon credits that can be bought by industrial polluters that face emissions limits. They can be used in the government-regulated compliance market or the growing voluntary market. The former, in which credits are based on the provincially set carbon price, currently offers more value to the sellers.
It is not without controversy: Some environmental activists say the purchase of offsets can amount to giving large industrial emitters excuses to avoid the costs of making deep cuts to their greenhouse gas pollution.
Candice Wilson and Amanda Zinter have been promoting projects with numerous B.C. First Nations and say one could be announced in the coming months. The duo has been discussing the concept with the Haisla Nation on the West Coast, where Ms. Wilson is environment manager.
Their company, WilsonZinter, formed a joint venture this year with Toronto-based Carbon Streaming Corp., which has invested in projects to protect jungle in Borneo and mangroves on Mexico’s west coast. These generate credits for emitters that can be traded on the world’s voluntary carbon markets.
Ms. Zinter said its business model emphasizes leaving most of the financial reward in the communities. “That was what was very different from any of the other potential joint ventures that we were speaking to at the time. It follows our goals and our values very well, which are benefiting First Nations and benefiting restoration work in Northern British Columbia,” she said.
Indigenous groups in B.C. aren’t strangers to the forest-protection carbon business. The Great Bear Initiative was set up by eight First Nations to protect the Great Bear Rainforest on the B.C. coast, site of nasty battles that pitted logging companies against Indigenous communities and conservationists. At three million hectares, it represents the world’s largest forest carbon project. The communities of Coastal First Nations keep 80 per cent of the revenue from carbon credit sales. Much of that money goes to forest stewardship programs.
The project generates roughly one million offset tonnes per year. The provincial government, which set up the market, is the main buyer of the credits as it seeks to offset its emissions, and the project has struggled to find other purchasers of the credits on offer.
Paul Kariya, senior policy adviser for Coastal First Nations, said interest among non-government buyers is picking up, though outside buyers are limited by the group’s policy not to sell to companies in the oil and gas and extractive mining industries.
“The nations are proud that it’s largely because of their carbon offsets that the B.C. government can crow that it’s one of the first subnational governments in the world to declare themselves carbon neutral in their operations,” Mr. Kariya said.
Like the Great Bear Initiative, private arrangements have the potential to achieve the twin goals of contributing to Canada’s climate change-fighting ambitions and reconciliation with Indigenous communities, said Carbon Streaming chief executive Justin Cochrane. His company would provide the capital to protect forests on traditional territories.
There are complications, such as legal uncertainties that can affect lands not covered by treaties but claimed by First Nations in B.C. as traditional territory. However, the province has signed atmospheric benefit sharing agreements with several First Nations that clarify Indigenous rights and ownership and the right to sell credits.
A tract of forest must be certified by the B.C. government to allow its credits to flow to the compliance market. Under the current rules, private capital can’t go to funding such a project to be part of the government system. The credits must then trade on the voluntary system, which offers smaller financial rewards. A new atmospheric benefit sharing agreement is being developed, partly to avoid such problems.
“That’s definitely a hurdle we hope will be cleared in the near future. We don’t see that the province is going to have a choice but to go in the right direction and have the doors open so First Nations can start developing these projects,” Ms. Zinter said.
Finite Carbon is a Pennsylvania-based forest offset company majority-owned by BP PLC. It has just launched a Canada-wide credit program following the approval of a protocol for forest management by the American Carbon Registry, a non-profit that certifies voluntary greenhouse gas offsets. The company is in talks with First Nations and Métis communities across the country, said David Stevenson, Finite’s director of Canadian operations.
The protocol has differing effects, depending on where forests are located. It’s applicable on private lands, including First Nation treaty lands, but not on unceded traditional territory. “This is where you get into sort of a tricky conversation about who owns the land and, more importantly for carbon, who owns the carbon rights,” he said.
One worry for Indigenous communities, says SRSS’s Ms. Kane, remains how to maintain control of an arrangement when companies seek partnerships, following decades of unfulfilled promises in resource projects. “There’s a concern, for sure, of being taken advantage of again and not having the capacity or the resources to delve into contracts and making sure rights and concerns are addressed properly,” she said.
Still, this type of arrangement could help First Nations take more control over their economic fate, according to J.P. Gladu, a corporate director and former president of the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business. “The Indigenous worldview and environment are finally starting to come to the forefront – our knowledge systems and our way of relating to the land from a social perspective,” said Mr. Gladu, who is in talks on potential projects with First Nations, Métis and Inuit communities in Western Canada. “There are tons of social challenges in our communities that can be addressed through skills development and training as well as a cleaner environment. From a governance perspective, it’s interesting.”
He’s working with Canada’s Forest Trust, a new Ottawa-based company that plants trees to generate carbon credits and help companies and other organizations meet their own environmental, social and governance goals. So far, the company has been focusing its discussions in Alberta, and the response has been generally positive, though no deals have been finalized, said Gary Zed, CEO of Canada’s Forest Trust.
The company hasn’t yet turned its attention to B.C., but the massive wildfires that have destroyed vast forests there present opportunities for replanting, he says. “There’s been so many communities that have been impacted because of fires, and a lot of those communities need to be rebuilt, both in traditional infrastructure and what I would call nature infrastructure,” he said. “First Nations, Métis or Inuit communities – a lot of them will probably be great partnerships to have as it relates to some of the climate disasters that they’ve recently experienced.”
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