Mr. Speaker, there are a number of reasons for the decline. First of all in the forestry area, we ran into a situation with the aboriginal groups whose interim measures agreement stipulates provisions for dealing with forestry. This is an area that we are working with. We also have to work with the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board on the right to access the use of the land. So we have regulatory processes in place that seem to... Once we find a way to work with these different regulatory processes, then perhaps we will have a good forestry industry. There is a demand for that as well. In terms of fish, the fish stocks are there in the lakes, particularly in Great Slave Lake. I think there were questions in the House about it. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans is more or less responsible for the management of the lake. We, as RWED, are there to encourage a good management plan for the lake. However, we don't call the shots on that and we're going to keep on talking to DFO in this area. By the way, the DFO office in the North is very under-funded and under-resourced. They don't have enough resources and bodies to do all the work required.
With regard to fur, the trapping way of life has changed tremendously the last few years. There are still trappers out there. We are doing trapper training through some of our programs for our younger people in the North. However, there is a decline in the fur trapping activity. Maybe it's associated with the resource activity that's going on in the mining area north of Yellowknife, as well as the oil and gas exploration that's been quite active in the Mackenzie Delta as well as the Liard area. There is soon to be more activity down the valley. There is still activity going on, but there's a decline in the amount of fur that's being caught.
As for agriculture, we've always had a little bit of agriculture going on in the South Slave, a bit along the Mackenzie Valley to Inuvik. I think that will continue to be there. We would like to encourage more of that, so we need to put more emphasis into how we are going to do that in the agriculture area. Thank you.