Yes, Mr. Chairman, I will respond now. Yesterday, Mr. Nitah was asking a number of questions. In Fort Resolution, there is a full-time EDO position allocated to the community, but this has been vacant since June, 2001.
I have written a letter to the chief of the Deninu Ku'e First Nation, and told him that if he gets support from the Metis local and the hamlet, we would move ahead with this position. With regard to Community Futures, Community Futures has only been fully operational since January of this year out of Fort Smith. That takes care of Lutselk'e as well as Fort Resolution. It is difficult to see how it is really working. I think they approved one loan, so it still has to let itself be known and do the work.
The Community Futures board is made up of one member from, actually there are three members on there from Fort Smith, one representing the Salt River First Nation, one representing Fort Smith Metis and one representing the Town of Fort Smith. There are two members on there from Fort Resolution and one member on there from Lutselk'e.
Regarding the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board, the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board referred in its report to the fact that the proposed harvest area for the Pine Point area, which was the -- there was a proposal to do some logging there this year, the Patterson Mill, these areas are located in a forest type similar to northern Alberta. This information is provided to the review board by RWED and is the most relevant field classification guide available for this area of proposed development at this point in time. The forestry division in RWED provided that information so the board would have an idea of what it is that they are dealing with.
The board uses information supplied by both RWED and Patterson Mills. It is a standard practice in environmental assessments to use information from the proponent, which is then supplemented and analyzed by government. This is a standard environmental assessment practice, and is acceptable to RWED.
In the West Kitikmeot Slave Study, the five-year program ended in March, 2001. An additional year was developed as a one-year transition phase. This Friday, March 1st, a board meeting is set up to address future concerns in the West Kitikmeot Slave Study. The fundamental baseline data of that whole region is in place now and the department's position is that we will not begin monitoring, but there is still the need for the collection of more data. There is going to be a press release coming out this Thursday or Friday announcing the release of the study report on the state of knowledge report.
Those are the responses to the questions asked as we ended yesterday.