Making change close to home
Empowering Indigenous communities with carbon offsets and land stewardship through the Great Bear Forest Carbon Project.
They say modern problems call for modern solutions. This year, Rakuten Kobo offset the carbon emissions associated with 2021’s direct shipments of its Kobo eReaders through the Great Bear Forest Carbon Project. As a coastal temperate rainforest, the Great Bear Rainforest is one of the rarest ecosystems on Earth; proceeds from offsets are invested in local First Nation communities and improved forest and marine management practices designed to safeguard this ecological treasure.
The rare, near-white Kermode bear, or Spirit Bear, can only be found in the Great Bear Rainforest. First Nations’ culture holds the Spirit Bear in high regard, believing the animal to have supernatural powers and the ability to make itself invisible.
The Great Bear Forest Carbon Project is an important and innovative template for mitigating climate change. It is the only Improved Forest Management Project of its scale that has equal involvement with First Nations and the BC Government, strong legal and policy foundations, and robust data to support its effects. This is not simply a conservation project; it is a model for sustainable development in an economically valuable but ecologically and culturally vulnerable area.
What exactly are carbon offsets?
Carbon offsets have been around for a while (just look at our past work with The International Small Group and Tree Planting Program), and here they represent collaboration between governments and corporations, working towards a unified goal of fighting climate change.
In practical terms, carbon offsets are monetary donations to organized actions that cancel out—offset—carbon emissions; actions such as reforestation. Through these programs, individuals and companies provide funds and resources to organizations that are tackling climate change to offset or zero-out for their own emissions. These offsets were enabled under international law in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and were first used internationally in 2001 with suggested approaches to use appearing in the 2016 Paris Agreement (Article 6).
It’s now clear that the only way to fight climate change is through collective, communal efforts by individuals, companies, communities, and governments alike, such as the Great Bear Forest Carbon Project.
Canada is home to 348 million hectares of forest lands, which represents about 9 per cent of the world’s forest cover; it is also ranked third among the ten countries with the largest forest areas in 2020. Since 2009, B.C. has operated an emissions offset system with Indigenous communities selling offsets to protect their territories from deforestation, while generating revenue.
The Great Bear Forest Carbon Project has extremely wide reach. Offsets protect the Great Bear Rainforest from logging; proceeds from selling offsets rather than lumber are in turn used, in part, to protect the shorelines and marine life surrounding the coast of British Columbia and the many islands near it, including Haida Gwaii, the ancestral territory of the Haida Nation. This archipelago of 150 rocky islands has been nicknamed Canada’s Galapagos for its diverse wildlife and dramatic landscapes. Recognized by UNESCO, it holds some of the world’s richest cultural heritage, with more than 500 archaeological sites including monumental totem poles and longhouses.
Coastal First Nations are especially vulnerable to the climate crisis—to rising sea levels, flooding, reduced fishing yields, and a variety of other impacts that threaten livelihoods and ways of life. At the same time, these communities are well positioned to make an enormous positive impact in the fight against climate change. Plans for the use of land and marine resources were developed using an ecosystem-based management (EBM) approach that incorporates observations made by Indigenous peoples of changes in the land. This innovative and adaptive approach ensures that plans address the long-term needs and well-being of communities who depend on the land and know it best.
Returning forest management to the Coastal First Nations is a means of addressing longstanding concerns about new employment at home for First Nations in the Great Bear region. Revenue generated by programs like this one creates viable jobs and long-term economic opportunities. In addition to forest management, this initiative supports community members who work on clean energy, forestry, eco-tourism, non-timber forest products, shellfish aquaculture, among other carbon offset projects. Additionally, this project ensures that traditional concepts passed down by ancestors within Indigenous communities are part of the land stewardship.
“The most important thing for people outside the Great Bear Rainforest to understand is there are people who inhabit that wonderful ecosystem who are one with the animals, the air, the trees. There’s First Nations communities that have thrived in that area for thousands and thousands of years now,” says Dallas W. Smith, President of the Nanwakolas Council Society in a video on the project.
In the end, perhaps it would be more accurate to say modern problems call for a return to ancient solutions.
“Stewardship is embedded deeply within the rich cultural fabric of all coastal First Nations. It’s on display in the monuments and totems we carve using ancient red cedar and in the day-to-day teachings that our parents and elders impart to youth on how to hunt and fish, or read the signs of nature,” wrote Christine Smith-Martin, CEO of Coastal First Nations-Great Bear Initiative, in a recent newspaper article. “Our laws and traditions are based on a collective responsibility to care for the Earth, because we know it sustains us. If we want a sustainable future for our children and grandchildren, we need to create a conservation-based economic system. It’s the only path forward.” ◼
