The Road to Logging

The settler state is an unavoidable actor in BC's forestry industry. 95% of BC’s total land base is ‘Crown land’ - state property. Companies, communities, or individuals that wish to harvest timber on these lands must obtain forest tenures, which are agreements, licences, or permits that allow the harvesting of timber, usually with conditions (Government of BC, n.d.-a). The state’s direct control of forestry in BC is one way it mediates the relationship between capital and forests. This makes it “central to modern political struggle” over the continued development of forestry (Parenti, 2015, p. 830).

Just as the state is unavoidable, colonialism is prevalent throughout the past and present of BC’s forest policies. The tenure system is built on the assumption that the land is ‘the Crown’s’ to own, parcel out, and regulate. Throughout decades of logging, Indigenous nations have found themselves “segregated on reserves and surrounded by forests of immeasurable value” that flows only to outside entities, particularly industrial logging companies (Willems-Braun, 1997, p. 5). Decisions about forests are made, literally and institutionally, from a distance. These are colonial foundations because they deny the existence of Indigenous land, extract value without recognising Indigenous rights, and leave no space for Indigenous governance and decision-making.

FCRSAs are another way, on top of a complex system of tenure and land management agreements, that the state attempts to manage both natural resource extraction and its relationship to Indigenous nations.  A replacement for previous arrangements from 2003 that shared revenues on a per-capita basis, FCRSAs have been in use since 2010 (Government of Canada, 2012; Stueck, 2022). They are signed between individual First Nations and the Government of British Columbia. The signing nation receives a percentage of forestry revenue based on the volume of timber harvested and agrees on a procedure for consultation regarding forestry-related activities in exchange for the community’s consent to forestry activity (T. D. Atleo, 2023).

My project uses a series of maps to visualise the distribution of FCRSAs in the three natural resource districts that cover Vancouver Island (Figure 1) and a close reading of the agreements’ articles to better understand how the province is managing both its relationship with Indigenous nations and the forestry industry through FCRSAs. 

A number of other forms of forestry management are not included in this project. This includes community forest agreements, impact-benefit agreements signed between nations and corporations, and various forms of tenure unique to First Nations (Government of BC, n.d.-a).

The following table expands on the spatial patterns observed in the map by distinguishing nations based on their larger treaty group or council. There are two groups with more than one nation where more than 80% of the group hold a current agreement: the Hul’qumi’num Treaty Group and the Naut’samawt Tribal Council. In contrast, only five of the nine members of the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council and none of the three members of the Musgamagw Dzawada'enuxw Tribal Council hold current agreements. Additionally, a significant minority of independent nations have never signed an FCRSA. This suggests that although agreements are negotiated on a community-by-community basis, being in a particular treaty group can confer particular relationships or circumstances that facilitate signing an FCRSA. However, building on this speculation would require more detailed and in-depth research with nations.

Table 1: Agreements Signed by Treaty and Council Groups

Note: Totals in this table do not add up to 53 because some First Nations fall into more than one category.

Percentage & amount of revenues received

FCRSAs share revenue using two separate formulas, outlined in Appendix C of nearly all of the agreements. Using the Cowichan Tribe’s 2021 agreement as an example, the first component is the Traditional Territory Revenue Sharing Component, which is calculated using the following steps (Government of BC & Cowichan Tribes, 2021).

1. A two-year average of the stumpage, waste, and annual rent payments for the resource district(s) the nation’s traditional territory falls into is calculated.
2. The Province determines what percentage of the nation’s Traditional Territory falls within the Timber Harvesting Land Base (Crown land that is legally and economically viable to harvest) in the district, and uses this percentage to determine the amount of forest revenue attributed to their territory. The territory used is based on a map in Appendix A (it is unclear how these maps are formed and who gets a say in delineating the boundaries of each nation's 'traditional territory'). This calculation is prorated for overlapping territories with other nations.
3. The Nation receives a certain percentage of revenue from the resource district based on the calculations explained in step 2, multiplied by 3-13%, depending on the specifics of the agreement.
4. If the Nation is not receiving capacity funding through another source, it will receive at least $35,000 “as capacity funding to participate in the consultation process” (Government of BC & Cowichan Tribes, 2021, p. 28).

As a simplified example, say that Nation X, located in District Y, has signed an FCRSA:

1. The Province collected $50,000,000 in revenue from District Y on average.
2. The Province determines that 5% of District Y is part of Nation X's traditional territory, and there is no overlap with other nations.
3. In the agreement negotiated, the Province has agreed to share 4% of the revenues attributed to Nation X based on Step 2. Five percent of $50 million is $2,500,000, and so Nation X will receive four percent of this amount, which is $100,000.

Before 2022, the percentages of revenues shared ranged narrowly from 3-5%. The newest agreements, signed in late 2022 or 2023,  further complicate the system by changing the percentage of revenues shared depending on if the timber sale is categorised as being from BC or not. BC timber sales will be shared at 11-13%, whereas non-BC timber sales are shared at rates ranging from 8-10% (Government of BC & Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nation, 2022; Government of BC & Sc’ianew First Nation, 2023; Government of BC & Snuneymuxw First Nation, 2023).

The second component of revenue sharing, the Direct Award Component, returns between 35-75% of the revenue received by the Province from stumpage fees from the nation’s Forest License, if applicable.

FCRSAs in 2024

Between January and May 2024, an additional four agreements have been signed. Three agreements are with nations that have held an FCRSA, while the Gwawaenuk Tribe has signed an agreement for the first time. Like most of the 2022-2023 agreements, these use the larger (up to 13% for BC timber sales) revenue sharing percentages.

FCRSAs over time

Although FCRSAs were first established in 2010, it took time for them to become an established method of resource governance (Figure 4). It was not until 2015 that more than three agreements were signed in a year on Vancouver Island. The below series of maps illustrates the growth of FCRSAs over time. They show that these agreements were quite uncommon until about 2016-2017, when many nations first signed onto a forestry agreement.

Additionally, as illustrated by the following table, FCRSAs remain a highly volatile source of revenue for Indigenous nations. There are disparities in the revenues received over space and time. The median amount received fluctuates greatly year-to-year, although the trend has stabilised somewhat from 2020-2022, with moderate increases upwards. Because of a lack of publicly available, precise data on overall forestry revenues by resource district and Forest License, it is difficult to parse out the many factors likely contributing to this variation.

Table 2: Revenues Received through FCRSAs Over Time

Overall, considering both the spatial or temporal variations in the percentages and amounts of revenue shared with Nations on Vancouver Island, there is unevenness. Despite the Province’s push for consistent, standardised agreements, Indigenous nations are diverse in their choice of whether to negotiate FCRSAs in the first place and in the monetary outcome produced by these negotiations. One template has produced highly disparate results.

The data explored above point to significant changes in the Province’s management of both forestry and their relationship with Indigenous nations since 2010. While not all nations can hold an FCRSA and others, particularly independent nations, may lack the capacity to sign them, since 2017, many Nations on the Island have held at least one agreement. Why does the state negotiate revenue sharing and why would an Indigenous nation want to sign a revenue sharing agreement? These questions are explored in the next section, which puts a close reading of the articles of the FCRSAs in conversation with the wider context provided by these maps and broader literature about the role and rationale of the settler-colonial state in upholding extraction.

The agreements explicitly provide rationales for their own existence from the perspective of the Province, who wrote the general templates for FCRSAs. While these surface-level goals are explicitly stated (Figure 5), the Province’s underlying ideologies and motivations are less clear. I argue that the state’s underlying goals in the negotiation of FCRSA can be divided into three forms of motivations: an economic motivation to hold extraction in place to further the accumulation of profit, a political motivation to maintain ‘consent’ from Indigenous nations for extractive development, and a colonial motivation that also reveals the structural limitations of FCRSAs as a tool of Indigenous resource governance.

FCRSAs further capital accumulation by holding extraction in place

State institutions in capitalist democracies are unlikely to be fully captured by corporations, particularly in BC’s forestry industry, where the system of land tenure and regulations on harvest requires sustained interaction between public institutions and private interests. As McCarthy (2019) argues, a fully captured capitalist state is unlikely to be successful because short-sighted profit-making incentives fail to support the infrastructure, education, and other social reproductive investments that capitalism depends on. In other words, capitalism requires a “political authority that can act independently for the long-term interest of capitalism” (McCarthy, 2019). Capitalist democratic states are willing to act in this long-term interest because they have a built-in bias for profitability; in the absence of a viable alternative economic system, the workers that vote for governments depend on the welfare of corporations. Given this incentive system, the state has an incentive to ‘see’ their territory’s natural resources through the “fiscal lens of revenue needs”, the framing that best fits with profit-driven imperatives (Scott, 1996, p. 11). This limited frame is particularly evident in the FCRSAs, which acknowledge the value of trees only as standardised timber and stumpage revenue. The value of the forest for food, medicine, recreation, and spirituality is absent.

Both these characteristics are important because they suggest that FCRSAs, to be useful to the capitalist state, must have some sort of [longer-term] economic benefit. Specifically, FCRSAs promote the longer-term interests of capitalism by holding extraction in place and creating a relationship of dependency on the forest industry among the nations that sign and hold an FCRSA for extended periods of time.

Within their limited framework, FCRSAs do not explicitly promise the endless accumulation of forestry revenue; to the contrary, the agreements acknowledge that forestry revenue is likely to fluctuate from year to year (Government of BC & Cowichan Tribes, 2021). Rather, extraction is held in place more subtly by providing the state and corporations with a greater level of ‘certainty’. Through decades of advocacy and negotiations, Indigenous nations have forced the state at the federal and provincial level to recognize their land title and the government’s obligation to consult Indigenous nations about resource extraction projects taking place on their territory, even if title remains in dispute (Chadwick, 2021; Cochrane et al., 2020). Large and sustained protests over forestry, including the infamous 1993 ‘War in the Woods’ and a series of blockades in the 1980s, have demonstrated to the government that if it does not address Indigenous concerns about resource extraction, then extractive activity may be blocked (Blomley, 1996).

In this context, Indigenous rights that are “uncertain” from the state’s perspective pose a threat to resource industries who fear that their operations will be disrupted by rights claims. A senior government civil servant summarised this position by claiming, “we just need to get on with developing British Columbia. We can’t with this unresolved Aboriginal rights and title issue out there” (Blackburn, 2005, p. 587). By making the forestry-related rights of Indigenous nations clear, FCRSAs mediate between “Aboriginal-rights claims and the demands of global capital” (Blackburn, 2005, p. 586). Governments assert that such mediation attracts economic investment.

In more recent forestry policy, a similar desire for predictability is evident. The government’s report on ‘modernising forest policy’ states that “ensuring clear, predictable access to fibre is key to maintaining investor confidence” (Government of BC, 2021, p. 10). Predictability requires that contestations over timber and tenure rights are suppressed. Revenue-sharing agreements that incorporate Indigenous nations into the ‘fibre basket’ are one way this can be done. The contractual nature of the FCRSAs paired with the monetary incentive to support industrial logging provide the ‘certainty’ that capitalists expect from the state. Therefore, FCRSAs are a way to hold extraction in place, clear-cutting pathways to continued logging in Indigenous territories.

The economic role of these agreements is most evident in the articles of FCRSAs related to the fulfilment of British Columbia’s obligations to a nation. The following sections draw from the Cowichan Tribe's FCRSA signed in 2021 because it largely follows the Province's template with minimal modification (to the point where some portions of the agreement are incomplete because the changes necessary to 'customize' the agreement, including the specific percentage of revenue the Nation will receive, were not made.).

The conclusion of this section is straightforward. Capitalist governments like BC's have incentives to promote accumulation because of their own reliance on capitalists and the influence of capitalist power in state policy. FCRSAs and their narrow fiscal interpretation of the value of forests support long-term accumulation, both by providing ‘certainty’ regarding Indigenous rights to investors and by encouraging the involvement of Indigenous nations in industrial forestry.

In their simplicity, however, economic explanations leave some questions unanswered. Why not privatise the pursuit of certainty by encouraging forest licence holders to directly negotiate benefit agreements with Indigenous nations, as is common with mining projects in Northern Canada (Cameron & Levitan, 2014)? And why double the percentage of revenues shared with Indigenous nations when that means less revenue for the province?

Consent and extractive hegemony

Unpacking these questions requires turning to political explanations of the state’s role in upholding extraction. Specifically, FCRSAs are a way of politically legitimising continued extraction on Indigenous lands while simultaneously legitimising the state’s authority to regulate and develop the forestry industry. In their work examining the existence of a ‘glass ceiling’ for environmental transformation, Hausknost (2020) argues that all states have certain imperatives, which are functions they must carry out to ensure their own longevity and stability. Legitimation (the democratic welfare state’s justification of its continued existence through its accountability to citizens) is one of these imperatives and is crucial to the state's electoral stability (Hausknost, 2020; McCarthy, 2019). The legitimation imperative can push states to act beyond the interests of capital in order to justify its own existence and further some kind of ‘common good’ beyond private capital accumulation. Legitimation has allowed the environmental movement to push the capitalist welfare state to become, to some degree, involved in environmental management.

Extraction on Indigenous lands without securing some form of consent from the affected Nations is increasingly perceived as illegitimate by both the judicial system and the general public. The preamble of the agreements, particularly the newer agreements, recognises this shift in public opinion. Clause A of the preamble acknowledges “Aboriginal Interests within the Territory”, while Clause B explicitly acknowledges the need to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Calls to Action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Government of BC & Mowachaht-Muchalaht First Nation, 2022).  Because the agreements, in their very name, promise that Indigenous nations are both being consulted and will receive revenue from forestry development, the assumption in the popular imagination is that Nations fully agree to and benefit from development. In this way, the state attempts to legitimize and depoliticize forestry development. Forestry moves from the highly public, volatile, and emotional realm of ‘War in the Woods’ protests and demonstrators chaining themselves to logging roads to the closed doors work of negotiations and contracts.

In their work on environmental assessment, Bernauer (2020) finds that these forms of depoliticized regulations uphold extractive hegemony by producing consent for extraction. Agreements like the FCRSAs impose a compromise between Indigenous communities and extractive capital. is in the long-term political interests of development. It upholds the narrative that extractive development is a ‘win-win’ situation that benefits ‘everyone’, from the public who benefit from economic development to the companies who profit to the Nations who are consulted and able to push for, to a limited extent, the accommodation of their “rights, interests, cultures, and identities” (Bernauer, 2020, p. 169). The same clauses that ensure forestry is held in place for the benefit of industry have a further political function. They allow the state to continue using the narrative that forestry is a ‘win-win’ industry for all, especially because nations who sign these agreements commit to non-interference with provincially approved forestry development. 

Securing consent for extraction is about more than the economic goal of accumulation. Economic growth is also a political project that secures and reproduces “social support/consent for existing political-economic structures” (Akbulut, 2019, p. 514). The state is the institutional context in which the politics of growth are taking place. States justify their existence by constructing a collective goal that matches their vision of ‘the public interest’, and in capitalist states, this means economic growth. States maintain the legitimacy of economic growth as being a universal benefit by occasionally making compromises or concessions to subordinate classes in the capitalist system. Bernauer conceptualises these as limited forms of recognition and accommodation, while Akbulut (2019) sees this as the distribution of ‘material concessions’ that do not threaten the interests of dominant groups (p.517). FCRSAs fulfil this component of legitimation by forestalling a conversation about a fuller transformation about how forestry is managed in BC. Doubling the revenues shared is a ‘material concession’ to Indigenous nations that ensures the dominant interests of larger forestry players are not disturbed.  

The coloniality of FCRSAs

As Mike Anderson, who manages the economic development arm of Skeetchestn First Nation comments, FCRSAs are “take it or leave it” arrangements (Stueck, 2022). The current alternative to holding an FCRSA is not that forest development is halted; it continues even if Nations do not sign or renew their agreement. Moreover, the FCRSA itself comes with its own colonial constructions and structures, especially because the template for the agreements was unilaterally developed by the Province.

In her PhD thesis, T.D. Atleo explores the limited role of Indigenous law and governance in FCRSAs. She finds that although the values of Indigenous communities may be referenced, because the Province created the templates, the Crown’s values are favoured over those of Indigenous communities from the outset. Of the 123 agreements she analyzed, only nine made reference to Indigenous law and governance, and most of them were only in the non-binding terms of the contract (T. D. Atleo, 2023). She concludes that FCRSAs continue a colonial approach to natural resource decision-making that is most concerned with ensuring the Province “maintains their authority over provincial resources within Indigenous territories” (T. D. Atleo, 2023, p. 92).  

A close reading of the clauses in the agreements also reveal the power imbalances inherent within them. Settler colonialism involves the dispossession of Indigenous land and political orders. By foregrounding Western agreements, governance, and modes of thinking about forests, FCRSAs are colonial tools. Just as environmental assessment is "incompatible with Indigenous epistemologies and fails to meaningfully engage with Indigenous knowledge", FCRSAs also fail in their attempt to 'reconcile' Indigenous and Western colonial interests within the context of the latter's bureaucratic framework (Bernauer, 2020, p.166). Although they may present as “kinder and gentler” processes, they are ultimately part of the structure that Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg scholar Leanne Simpson (2017) identifies as “the root of all our problems” (p.46).

The enduring coloniality of the FCRSAs reveals the limitations of recognition-based approaches to Indigenous rights as a form of ‘decolonization’. The terms of recognition “reinforce the state’s monopoly on power”, consistently putting the state in charge of determining which rights are recognized and when (Pasternak et al., 2019, p. 36). While recognition has offered some decision-making power and material benefits, the Yellowhead Institute argues that such changes are “incremental gains against the bar of fulsome Indigenous jurisdiction” (Pasternak et al., 2019, p. 44). FCRSAs are structurally unable to provide fuller forms of resurgence that centre and prioritise Indigenous political orders.  

Therefore, based on these understandings of the state’s motivations and rationales, FCRSAs are a favoured tool of resource governance for the state on three grounds.

1. First, they maintain an investment environment amenable to the continued accumulation of capital through forestry.
2. Second, they politically legitimise the state by supporting narratives that ‘everyone’, including Indigenous nations, benefits from continued extraction and by securing the ‘consent’ of Indigenous nations for forestry development.
3. Finally, they maintain ongoing processes of settler colonialism that do not leave room for genuine and meaningful Indigenous decision-making or values in the management of forestry.

On the other side of the table, Indigenous nations face a conflict when deciding if they wish to negotiate and hold an FCRSA. As the Chief of the Pacheedaht Nation, Jeff Jones, comments , for years, nations have been asking, “Why are the logging trucks going by our community and not stopping? Why aren’t we benefitting from the resources that go out of our territory?”(Cox, 2021). For the Pacheedaht, signing a FCRSA was one way to gain essential economic revenue for their socioeconomic needs while advancing their political self-determination. The use of an agreement with BC to advance self-determination reflects C. Atleo & Boron's (2022) argument that Indigenous communities tackle settler-colonial structures in different ways that may be inside and/or outside of 'the system', all in an effort to "safeguard their territory and assert self-determination" (p.9). In other words, Indigenous governance is adaptive. The assumption that Indigenous cultures and practices are unchanging is inconsistent with the teachings and experiences of many Indigenous peoples (Simpson et al., 2024).

Participating in the forestry industry is one way Nations gain a limited level of control over how forestry develops in their territory. Even in cases where this control is severely lacking due to the agreements' structure, they share in a small proportion of the revenues gained from extraction, which can then fund community programs and other priorities. As C. Atleo (2021) argues in a separate article, “within the constraints of settler colonialism, environmental politics, and neoliberal capitalism, options for Indigenous communities are tremendously limited” (p.368). Similarly, in a paper analysing Nuu-chah-nulth involvement in industrial forestry, Simpson et al. (2024) conceptualise these constraints as ‘cramped spaces’ with limited options for Indigenous governance and political economic adaptation. Signing an FCRSA is not an unequivocal endorsement of forest development and the Province’s approach to forestry; rather, the agreements could be a way to care for lands and relationships using the limited tools present in the actually-existing capitalist state.

For the Pacheedaht, who had already been involved in logging and forestry before signing their first FCRSA in 2017, the signing of this agreement supported further economic and political development. The year following their first FCRSA, they reached a new community forest agreement with the Province and used the revenues to buy their own land back from private developers, including Pacheedaht Mountain, Port Renfrew's only grocery store, and housing for their members (Cox, 2021). Community ownership is powerful in both the spiritual and material sense; for example, the nation plans to eventually relocate from their reserve on federal land, which lies on a tsunami zone, to Pacheedaht Mountain (Cox, 2021). Their experience with industrial forestry demonstrates that it has been a direct and indirect benefit for the nation, serving both as an economic opportunity and a means to provide essential community services like a grocery store (Galimski, 2021).

In the view of other Indigenous scholars, the incremental progress of FCRSAs take Indigenous nations backwards in their work towards economic and political resurgence. Dene scholar Glen Coulthard, through his analysis of the work of Leanne Simpson and Taiaiake Alfred, argues that participation in the politics of settler-colonial recognition risks “coopt[ing] Indigenous people into becoming instruments of their own dispossession” by accepting the liberal democratic state as a normative mode of political organisation, entrenching its actually-existing control and legitimacy (Coulthard, 2014, p. 156). Because recognition politics frame and evaluate Indigenous political goals through the lens of the state, they preclude forms of resurgence that demand a fundamentally different structure and political system.  

While these scholars were not speaking directly about FCRSAs, they would be unlikely to support their use as a method of ‘resurgence’ for Indigenous nations. FCRSAs frame Indigenous rights in a limited, market-based sense, ‘accommodating’ them through very limited percentages of revenue sharing. For some nations, the limitations of these agreements - and the extractive industry attached to them - are so significant, they do not resign them. Ken Watts, chief councillor of the Tsehaht First Nation on Vancouver Island, argues that the percentage of revenue sharing “is a slap in the face, considering we have never ceded or surrendered our territories” (Stueck, 2022).  They negotiated one of the first FCRSAs on Vancouver Island in 2011 but have never held an agreement since.

That said, C. Atleo and Coulthard’s approaches to Indigenous resurgence are not incompatible with each other. They both centre the needs and self-determination of Indigenous communities. They also both understand that Indigenous political orders and cultures are dynamic, which means resurgence must be geared towards revitalising values and cultural elements “best suited to the larger contemporary and economic reality” (Coulthard, 2015, p.156). Where they differ is in the timescale at which they think about resurgence. C. Atleo’s work applies best to communities that need to make relatively immediate decisions in the ‘cramped spaces’ of a colonial and neoliberal system, which may involve compromises of values. In contrast, Coulthard conceptualises resurgence as a longer-term project that requires saying no to the system and regarding the state with deep suspicion. C. Atleo’s shorter timeframe is likely the one many Indigenous nations are taking when they sign FCRSAs; however, based on the comments made by Indigenous nations about these agreements, like Coulthard, there is no shortage of suspicion about what these agreements really achieve.

Indigenous nations, even those in similar geographic areas, have had diverse experiences with settler colonialism. Signing a FCRSA is a complex and difficult choice of engagement that comes with many constraints - but also the potential for great opportunity.

Forestry governance is not static. In April 2022, the Minister of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation, Murray Rankin, announced the province would be doubling the percentage of the forestry revenues shared with Indigenous nations through FCRSAs. Accompanied by statements from various Indigenous leaders, Rankin committed to “a new fiscal framework that recognizes, respects and supports Indigenous Peoples’ right to self-determination” (Government of BC, 2022b). The immediate impact of this change was not a fundamental transformation; while First Nations who have signed new agreements are receiving more revenue, most of the restrictive clauses and the underlying coloniality of the agreements remain in place or have undergone slight wording modifications that allow for more ambiguity in how they could be interpreted.

This may change in the next few years. A year after the announcement about doubling revenue sharing percentages, the government released a ‘What We Heard’ report that “summarises the perspectives shared by First Nations during this first phase of engagement on the co-development of a new fiscal framework” (Government of BC, 2022a). The report outlines a number of current problems with the current revenue sharing model, including the lack of consideration for the non-timber values of forests, a need to address the cumulative impacts of forestry, proper reflection of Indigenous rights and title in relation to forests, and the importance of moving away from a ‘one-size-fits-all' model (Government of BC, 2023). The government initially committed to releasing an options report in Fall 2023. This was never made available; the website instead commits to continued “co-development”. The release of this report, if one is released, will be a useful indicator as to if the government is truly committed to co-creating a framework that respects and incorporates Indigenous self-determination, or if it is more interested in the continued ‘theatre’ of consultation without any meaningful incorporation of what the province heard, as has been common in past provincial plans involving Indigenous lands and resources (Muir & Booth, 2012). 

Back in Fairy Creek, while small groups of protesters remain, forestry has once again faded out of the media’s view (Read, 2023). The protests receded after two events initiated by the Pacheedaht, Ditidaht, and Huu-ay-aht First Nations. First, on June 4, 2021, the nations released a joint declaration of stewardship titled Hišuk ma c̕awak, “everything is connected”. The declaration calls for the respect of “traditional laws and our constitutionally protected Aboriginal Title, Aboriginal Rights, and Treaty Rights”, noting that third parties, including other governments, have no right to speak on behalf of the peoples, lands, waters, and resources in their Hahoulthee (Traditional Territories) (Tate et al., 2021). Around the same time, the nations requested a deferral on old-growth logging in the Fairy Creek watershed, which was approved by the Province on June 9, 2021, and extended to February 1, 2025 in June 2023 (Chadwick, 2021; Chan, 2023; Cox, 2021; Kopecky, 2023). The deferrals are intended to give the Nations time to plan for sustainable forestry management in their territories.

The unstable ‘conclusion’ of the Fairy Creek protests raises new alternatives for the management and control of forestry in BC that do not start or end with the Province of BC. Instead, Nations are finding ways to engage with the state on their own terms, without a template. This points to a decolonial politics that “seeks to disarticulate…the interconnected forces and relations” that characterise the ‘cramped spaces’ of contemporary forestry policy in BC (Simpson et al., 2024,  p. 4). While much of the planning going on now is out of public view, the future geographies of Indigenous forestry revenue sharing on Vancouver Island are in flux. Perhaps in this moment of uncertainty, there is room for true Indigenous resurgence amongst the grand pillars of BC’s oldest forests.

Research Context

This piece was originally written for Dr. Rosemary Collard’s course, GEOG 423 (Capitalist Natures) at Simon Fraser University during the Fall 2023 semester. The goal of the project was to engage course readings and themes, which focused on extraction and the state. At the time of writing, I was a fourth year student at SFU majoring in human geography. I chose to focus on forestry because of its long-standing importance in BC’s economy. I had seen articles that framed revenue sharing as key progress to reconciliation, and I was interested in ‘looking beyond the headline’ to understand what these revenue sharing agreements actually are and their effect on the relationship between the settler state and Indigenous governments. 

This project was written by a settler on the unceded lands of the Coast Salish peoples, including the səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations.

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