Uprooted: Ontario Forest Resilience through Community-based Natural Resource Management & Indigenous Sovereignty

Abstract

The predominant model for Canadian natural resource management continues to produce inequitable social outcomes and unsustainable processes, which are increasingly culminating into climate and social risks and vulnerabilities. These ecological and social vulnerabilities are emergent from colonial histories and the continued reliance of extractivist logics, which are failing to recognize Indigenous jurisdiction and protect essential earth systems, including the boreal forest. The forest’s resilience is now degrading, which is further accelerated from extraction. Canadian sustainable forestry management has implemented nature-based solutions, vulnerability protocols, and community engagement processes to implement elements of sustainable and equitable forestry management. These developments impact the forestry management planning and implementation process, expanding its mitigation and adaptation strategies; however, they continue to be limited in their capacities to produce resilient forests in a changing climate with equitable social outcomes. Community-based natural resource management with a focus on Indigenous sovereignty has emerged as an approach with the capacity to produce transformational change through reconciliation and polycentric governance. This paper will critically evaluate three Ontario Forestry Management Plans (FMPs) for (i) their capacities to foster climate resilience through sustainable nature-based solutions and vulnerability and adaptability mechanisms; and (ii) their capacity to produce polycentric governance, through Indigenous jurisdiction and community engagement, to explore how forestry management can be improved through enhanced sustainability, community engagement, and Indigenous jurisdiction to promote forest resilience in Ontario. Ontario forestry management has experienced profound shifts in community and Indigenous governance, through the diversification of licence frameworks which mandate Indigenous involvement and community capacity building. These frameworks, predominantly through Local Forest Management Corporations (LFMC), have more meaningful community engagements and legislative commitments which have an increased capacity at recognizing Indigenous sovereignty and jurisdiction. Yet, these community framework developments continue to exist on the margins of forestry management planning, and deeper transformational change is needed for forest and community resilience. A transformational shift towards nature-base solutions and polycentric governance is needed to build forest resilience, recognizing the need for reconciliatory justice for a more equitable and sustainable future.