Ione Brown

The North Island Community Forest is a small forest tenure that was offered to the towns of Port Alice, Port Hardy and Port McNeill by the provincial government in 2010. These towns then became shareholders and owners of the forest in March of 2011, managing and harvesting it to provide capital for investing in their communities. On April 3, the board of directors’ chairperson, Ione Brown, gave a presentation on how the community forest operates as well as some new information. Currently, the municipalities of Port Alice, Port Hardy and Port McNeill are shareholders of the community forest. In 2019, The Kwakiutl First Nation and the Quatsino First Nation were offered full equity shareholder positions bringing ownership to five partners with 20 per cent each. Brown said, with the new Indigenous partners, they will have the strength of the community and the support to possibly further expand the tenure.