Building resilient communities.

• Author: Ross, Ian
• Position: FORESTRY

The Northern Ontario Sustainable Communities Partnership (NOSCP) and Algoma University's Nordik Institute will be hosting a conference in Sault Ste. Marie early next year to advance the concept of community-based forest management across Canada.

The Building Resilient Communities conference (Jan. 16-18) is expected to attract students, non-governmental groups, Aboriginal delegates along with researchers and practitioners of community-based forestry.

Established in 2006, NOSCP was a response to the crisis in the forestry industry that brought together academics, municipalities, First Nations and nongovernmental organizations.

As mills began shutting down, the group began lobbying for more diversity and greater flexibility in a rigid Crown forest tenure system that allowed wood supply to be locked up by companies whose plants were no longer in operation.

"We were seeing that as an opportunity to take a closer look at whether the way we had been doing things was continuing to serve us well," said Peggy Smith, a conference organizer and a Lakehead University professor in natural resources management. "We figured it was an opportunity for change."

The group began promoting the concept of having decisions on forest management made locally and lobbying for government policy encouraging the highest and best use of wood.

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For the upcoming conference, among the scheduled speakers is Evelyn Pick-erton of Simon Fraser University who will speak on First Nation and municipal partnerships in natural resources management, and Jesse Ribot from the University of Illinois who will deliver a presentation on democratic decentralization of forest management.

"The people closest to the land can bring a certain kind of knowledge to the table," said Smith, which is why First Nation groups embrace their concept.

"It shouldn't be always top-down, centralized decision-making done with the industry twisting the arm of government."

The event includes a talking circle where past NOSCP workshop attendees and new delegates can talk about their past project successes or failures, and ask questions and find support.

"One of the very powerful things that we've done in our workshops is just bringing people together to talk to each other," said Smith. "There doesn't seem to be...