Sustainable Forestry, Traditional Economies, and Community Well-Being
funded by the Forest Investment Account, Forest Science Program, BC Ministry of Forests (2007-2009)
Since 2001 the Forests and Oceans for the Future research group has been engaged is a series of collaborative research projects. Over a two year period from 2007 to 2009 one of our research objectives involved the development of social indicators to assist in sustainable forest management. We focused on identifying aspects of the ‘traditional' economy—harvesting, processing, cultural practices, etc—that indicate a healthy local culture. Our underlying assumption is that well managed forests contribute to healthy local communities.
The video segments on this page are part of our work developing social indicators. In the videos Gitxaała community members demonstrate and discuss important aspects of local cultural practices. Our indicators of social wellbeing were built upon understanding the importance of harvesting, fishing, gathering, processing and teaching about historical and contemporary Gitxaała practices that are demonstrated in these four video segments.
The videos are presented with no commentary from the research team. A full length documentary has also been produced that tells the story as seen from our, the research teams, perspective. But in these segments we wish to give explicit priority to contemporary community voices.
We invite you to view the videos and then go to the comments page to add reflections, questions, and comments on what you see and the issues that are raised.
