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Forestry and Community in the Tl’azt’en Nation

Annie Booth^[1] and Beverly Bird

ABSTRACT

In 1982, Tl’azt’en Nation was granted the first Tree Farm License in British Columbia operated by a First Nation. Winning Tree Farm License 42 (TFL 42) (managed by Tanizul Timber Company on behalf of Tl’azt’en Nation) was the result of a unique set of circumstances. So too, the development of a sawmill (Teeslee Forest Products) in the early 1990s. Between 1997 and 1999 a research project was undertaken to examine the experiences of Tl’azt’en Nation and the challenges they faced while operating their tree farm license and their sawmill. While they have not always been successful in integrating community desires into the operation of the TFL, the efforts of the Tl’azt’en to try to run an industrial forest tenure as a “community” forest, and the lessons they learned, make their story of interest to other First Nations. This paper reports on some of our findings.

INTRODUCTION

In 1982, Tl’azt’en Nation was granted the first Tree Farm License in British Columbia operated by a First Nation. Winning Tree Farm License 42 (TFL 42) (managed by Tanizul Timber Company on behalf of Tl’azt’en Nation) was the result of a unique set of circumstances. So too, the development of a sawmill (Teeslee Forest Products) in the early 1990s. Between 1997 and 1999 a research project was undertaken to examine the experiences of Tl’azt’en Nation and the challenges they faced while operating their tree farm license and their sawmill. While they have not always been successful in integrating community desires into the operation of the TFL, the efforts of the Tl’azt’en to try to run an industrial forest tenure as a “community” forest, and the lessons they learned, make their story of interest to other First Nations. This paper reports of some of our findings. The quotes in bold are drawn from interviews with Tl’azt’en Nation.

TL’AZT’EN NATION

In the heart of British Columbia lies the Traditional Territory of Tl’azt’enne (people of the bay), one of the many tribes that make up the Dak’elhne (people who travel on the water). Tl’azt’en speak a dialect of the Dene language, which is part of the larger North American Athabascan linguistic family.

The Tl’azt’en’s Traditional Territory is located in north-central British Columbia centred around the Stuart and Trembleur Lakes, part of the Fraser River watershed. They have a traditional territory of over 5000 km^[2], which is centered in the communities of Tache, Binche, and K’uzche (Grand Rapids). There are four reserves which are permanently inhabited; collectively the Nation’s reserves total 2,553.35 hectares. The Nation has a total population of 1,281, most of whom live in Tache. Most still sustain themselves through hunting, gathering and fishing. Sustainable forest management in their traditional territory is an essential goal.

ACQUIRING TREE FARM LICENSE 42

In the 1960s the provincial government supported the construction of a rail line west from Prince George to Fort St James to facilitate the forest industry by providing cheap transportation of logs and chips east and south. A further round of construction was announced which would allow access into remote forests. The route proposed would cross seven Tl’azt’en Reserves. Throughout the 1970s the Nation negotiated with British Columbia Rail for adequate compensation for Reserve lands affected by the rail line. Further, negotiations were also held with the Provincial government over other encroachments on traditional territories. Frustrated by the slow pace of negotiations with the province, members of the Tl’azt’en Nation blockaded the rail line on April 28, 1975. The blockade lasted three and a half months, causing a considerable impact on the region’s economy.

The Nation felt that access to timber rights would provide long-term benefits to the community and began in 1977 to negotiate with the provincial government. A corporation, Tanizul Timber, was established by the Nation to bid on and operate the TFL. Tanizul Timber was owned by the Nation and shares were were held in trust for all band members by six Board of Directors. In February 1982 Tanizul was granted TFL 42, an area based twenty five year renewable license with exclusive rights to harvest timber on 54,000 hectares of crown land.

TEESLEE FOREST PRODUCTS

The TFL did not provide many jobs, and those jobs available required experience and expensive equipment. After several years of operating the TFL, Tl’azt’en Nation decided to investigate the possibility of establishing a lumber mill.

Now it was our belief from day one that we wanted to build a mill and to utilize the volume that we had...Government...put a restriction that we could not build a processing facility. What we did was to set up a sister company and went ahead and did it anyway.

The federal government, put conditions on the money that we received...that we could not add to the existing [mill] capacity...We were told what that meant was that we couldn’t buy new equipment... That particular condition forced us into a high level of inefficiency and.. we couldn’t compete in the normal business market.

Teeslee Forest Products was opened in 1990, with twenty year old equipment. At its peak it employed forty people over two and a half shifts. However, many felt the mill had been set up by the government to fail, given the restrictions that they could only use old equipment. The equipment couldn’t handle logs off the TFL and so Teeslee had to buy logs while Tanizul sold on the open market. Teeslee also suffered from mismanagement. While Teeslee did alright during a good economy, poor markets in the mid-1990’s caused a crisis. When it was discovered that a massive debt had been created by mismanagement, the Nation had no alternative and Teeslee was closed in 1997. It was a serious blow to the community.

DRAWBACKS TO A TREE FARM LICENSE

The Tl’azt’en had a good idea of why they wanted the TFL:

In the long run, our community is interested in being more self-sufficient than we are now. We have a tremendous amount of dependence on government grants. We have a big dependence on the revenues generated through governments to us and this dependency is not helpful to our communities in the long run.

However, TFL 42 has several crucial differences from any other TFL in British Columbia, which had consequences for Tl’azt’en Nation. TFL 42 is the smallest TFL in British Columbia. The amount of wood allotted turned out to be too small to meet all of the Tl’azt’en’s goals:

...it’s limited in size and the allowable cut has been reduced year by year, that we expect that in, just from the fall down effect, that in about 10-15 years the allowable cut will be about 80,000 metres compared to where we started at 125,000 metres a year, cubic metres... It’s not a huge area.

The size restricted the amount of timber that could be harvested every year, which in turn limited the number of harvesting contracts that could be offered and, in turn, limited the opportunity to acquire the expensive machinery needed by a contractor. As a consequence few Tl’azt’enne had the opportunity to start a contracting business, as there wasn’t enough volume to offer the long term commitments banks wanted to see before lending money for equipment purchases.

The TFL came with some expensive baggage. The TFL is given by the government an Annual Allowable Cut (AAC). Every year at least fifty percent of the AAC must be logged, without regard for the price of raw logs, or the desires of the community. Many Tl’azt’enne felt that too much timber is cut every year, but Tanizul could have lost the TFL if the logging was not done. Because of the requirement to log within a limited time, time couldn’t be spent training people on the job or in looking extensively into alternate forestry practices. Further, the wood had to be sold, even if money was lost, and it had to be sold on the open market. Tanizul was also responsible, as a TFL, for building roads and for replanting, labour intensive, but expensive. And the Tl’azt’en had to pay stumpage:

...[L]ast year we paid close to 60% of our total revenue into the government for stumpage. This year, it’s the same or more. It’s about 62% this year that we’ve paid into Crown stumpage, from Tanizul Timber as a small tree farm license operations, and it’s killing us, you know.

TL’AZT’EN GOALS

[Tanizul] was a life time thing that was going to last and it was always going to be our Band members working in the Tanizul and the Teeslee, which was the sawmill. It was going to get most of our people off welfare and having jobs. It was going to produce later on. It was going to get bigger and bigger, they were going to add onto the sawmill, and people were going to get into buying their own machines and stuff like that.

Unfortunately, things were not that simple. People didn’t have the chance to think through what a TFL and a mill could really do in terms of employment. Small companies have a great deal of difficulty in competing with larger operations. While larger companies could absorb raises in stumpage and shipping costs, Tanizul could not, but paid the same as the larger companies.

For another, forestry and milling were no longer producing as many jobs as when many older men had worked, hand falling and bucking had been replaced by expensive machines. Fewer people were needed, and those who were needed special training and equipment. Few Tl’azt’enne had the training or the equipment and as a result most of the work on the TFL went to outside contractors:

One big issue to be considered was the level of training needed before community members could participate in contracting jobs. Tl’azt’en Nation was careful to arrange training opportunities. But training wasn’t enough. The trouble was translating training into jobs. Sometimes the finances weren’t there and it meant limiting the support given to people in the community who wanted to contract on forestry jobs.

Another problem that wasn’t well addressed was how to keep what money is made in the community. People went elsewhere to shop, and earned income quickly left the community:

We contribute to the local economy in the neighbourhood of $23-24 million dollars revenue every year. But in our community, we don’t have very much to show for it...We have some small concession outlets and that’s pretty much all we have. So what is happening is that the money we generate,...all of that money goes into the neighbouring communities to help build those economies up.

All of these issues needed to be thought through but they were issues that the Tl’azt’en had little time to consider before suddenly trying to run an industrial forest tenure.

BRINGING THE COMMUNITY ONBOARD

One fundamental difference between TFL 42 and any other TFLs is that the Tl’azt’enne require it be responsive to the community. The TFL is leased to Tanizul Timber and Tanizul Timber is owned by Tl’azt’en Nation. People should be expected to want to have a stake in operations. Yet, many do not, leading to significant problems and hard feelings between community members, the people who serve of the Boards of Directors, and management staff.

In the beginning the community was involved in the discussion leading to the application for TFL 42. People remember being told a lot of things about the tree farm license.

Where’s the promise that they promised us and where’s all the production that they promised and where’s all these things that they promised the Band and the Band members that they were going to give, that they were supposed to give us a big portion of money to each community.

People also were aware of the establishment and operation of Teeslee, but again there was a sense of disappointed expectations particularly when the mill closed unexpectedly.

What was remarkable, however, was people’s lack of knowledge regarding current operations of the TFL and the mill, and the need for community input as identified by TFL operations management. We spoke to many people who stated that they had little idea about what was happening with the TFL and no idea about the mill. One reason given for this is that benefits were hard to see in the community, an indication of how many of the original promises weren’t fulfilled:

if it’s making money it’s a good thing and I want my piece of it. If it’s losing money, I don’t even want to hear about it and if it’s just breaking even, it’s boring. That sort of thing, eh? But if it’s making money, then it’s a bit of a feeding frenzy which is sort of not that attractive.

Many community members felt that the lack of interest in Tanizul and Teeslee has been driven by the failure of the management personnel and of the Boards of Directors to allow or encourage that interest. On the other side, it was apparent how frustrated management was when they told us how hard they worked to get the community to give them clear goals:

Oh, it’s been a problem for years and as far as I’m concerned, if anybody doesn’t come to a meeting when we call a general Band meeting or an annual general assembly, definitely is not going to know. And we’ve tried every way that we have now, communication on our TVs, when we have a meeting we’d hook up onto it. Even that, well they’d just say, “well okay, shut it off”.

Yet it is clear that for an undertaking like a tree farm license, the community is a vital part of its long term future.

DEALING WITH COMMUNITY MEMBERS

As long as the community don’t get involved collectively, you ain’t going to move anything... That’s the same thing with the community...You can do a lot of things, but if there’s going to be what I call little islands spelled by family, and fighting one another,... fighting is so occupied by these people that they forgot what they’re supposed to do.

There were a number of consequences for community members when the TFL and the mill came to the community. Some had to do with social changes, others with community politics and some to do with the individual’s choices.

Up until a gravel road was put through into Tache in the mid 1970s, Tl’azt’en Nation was relatively isolated and necessarily self sufficient. Community members supported each other and shared resources. As access to the reserve grew so too did social change. Many of the elders (and not so elderly) were dismayed by the outlook and attitude of the kids and teenagers who never had to work to survive. But the TFL and the mill brought worse problems than laziness.

I think when we looked at the business, we should have been very aware of the social impacts it would have on our communities. [Y]ou know, having jobs is good but when you have the other things like the addictions to drugs and alcohol, that was another area we just sort of pushed aside and we didn’t really focus on how it would affect our people.

Tanizul and Teeslee were meant to bring jobs to the community. While the mill provided 40 positions while it operated, the senior management were not native. Tanizul required experienced forestry workers and most of the jobs were done by non-native contractors. The Tl’azt’en faced the problem of not having enough people willing to develop the skills and to get the necessary education.

People, they want the money but they don’t want to work for it. Sure I’d like to hire them. They could do the job but to do the job properly, safely, and economically is harder...But if you get it done once by a professional, a guy who was educated, trained, in a tech program. I do feel for them but in the end, if we operate at Tanizul at a loss all the time, Tanizul isn’t going to be here forever.

All small communities have their problems with local politics. In the case of many First Nation communities the splits are often along family lines. And it can be difficult trying to run a business with families occupying the Boardroom.

The mill and TFL have made conflicts arise between the best people in the community. They used to work together for the betterment of the community. Now at times, you see personalities and those personalities that people respect, the people that are having conflicts, so in a way, that leaves the community very fragile to say the least.

One person described the problem he faced in hiring a crew in that he couldn’t have more than two members of any family on board. The competence of individuals became less of a concern. Given the scarcity of employment, many of the worst conflicts were over who got a job and who did not:

To a degree, I think there was probably more community involvement than you wanted. By saying that I think you have to realize that there was quite often prominent members of the community, councillors, and various other people that were continuously at the Board of Directors meeting or banging on the general managers door wanting to know why my son isn’t employed, why my daughter can’t work here, what the hell are you doing with this white guy in this job.

Telling people “no” is difficult and probably the worst job a manager or supervisor has to do:

The community has to make decisions and it’s difficult for First Nations communities to make those calls because of the relationships...it’s hard for an individual to tell his uncle or his aunt that they’re fired. You may not be popular but you know, it’s the health of the community that’s at stake with your continued involvement.

As much as community members can, their focus needs to be on the larger community good. But politics will always be there.

RECONCILING CULTURE AND COMMERCE

First Nations wishing to start a forestry operation on their traditional lands face a different challenge from a forest company. That challenge is running a forest operation that includes the community and that recognizes that the community cannot cut and move on. Choosing to participate in “community” forestry rather than industrial forestry (within tenure restrictions) means addressing community concerns. Many of those concerns are “environmental” and traditional use concerns.

I feel for the people who have their traplines, for people who use the place for traditional like plants, for berries, and for the moose, where the moose and the bears live off the land, and then when the logging comes in, and it’s our own people logging off the areas, there is a lot of concerns...Whenever we go out for traditional medicines, we can’t do it right in our back doors anymore because of all the spraying and all the logging that’s done.

By their own analysis this is the biggest failure the Tl’azt’enne have faced in operating Tanizul Timber, integrating Tl’azt’en traditional values into a commercial forestry operation.

That one is really a conflict that we’re conscious of - trying to look at a bottom line and manage in a traditional way - and we haven’t really been able to marry those two successfully... you know there’s a real major conflict in thinking and ideology right there along with our teachings, you know when you go into the bush to take a plant for medicine, you return something back. And then in logging you go in there and clearcut an area, you don’t put anything back except new trees but it doesn’t... and my expectation doesn’t meet that one, it bothers me.

This is not surprising. The restrictions placed upon a commercial license such as a TFL would make any integration a tremendous challenge. Practices, such as pesticide or herbicide use, may be expected by the government regardless of what community members think. But, some argued, the Tl’azt’en should be able to take into consideration the need to meet community concern. Similarly, the elders were worried about logging going on right down to lake and river banks. The Ministry of Forestry said differently. However when the new Forest Practices Code came in to effect, it supported the elders’ position.

I was told, “well the elders don’t like to log right to streams and we don’t like to do that here at Tanizul” sort of thing. Alright, I’ll put up with that kind of innovative thinking. Ten years later, under the Forest Practices Code, that’s full blown illegal for that stream, that piece of timber. It’s really quite a humbling little story for me but I think it’s good for people to hear it so that they understand that foresters, forestry, forest technicians, it all sounds pretty scientific...but the truth is, 10 years from now we could be laughing at it.

Another manager noted that what was important in planning was to recognize that traditional values were often at the heart of what otherwise is an unexplainable community response. Further, respect for traditional values is at the heart of needing to establish a good working relationship with traditional users of the land like the keyoh holders. Several people felt that Tanizul had not dealt well with the keyoh holders in terms of notifying them when parts of their trapline were to be cut or in terms of offering compensation. In this arena they felt that Tanizul should be showing non-native forest companies the way.

CONCLUSION

Tl’azt’en Nation was offered an unusual opportunity in 1982, a community controlled tree farm license. In 1992 they were able to build on the success of the TFL by adding a sawmill. Other ventures have followed. Given the challenges they have met, from outside the Nation and within, the fact that Tl’azt’en Nation has not been completely successful in its forestry operations is overshadowed by what they have succeeded at, survival. The community also has to come to the realization that Tanizul needs to operate as business first. Integrating traditional values has come slowly, and may never be complete. Politics in the community need to give way to meet the politics and policies of the Ministry of Forestry and other institutions. The lessons to be learned on community and forestry in Tl’azt’en Nation are those.