Moving on to page 13-18, grants and contributions, environment, activity summary, contributions, $5.004 million.

Information item, environment, active positions. Agreed?

Moving on to page 13-21, forest management, operations expenditure summary. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, my first question on this relates to our earlier discussion of biomass and the need for sustainable harvest plans and knowledge. I’m wondering where the department is at on that and is there any areas of the NWT, any at all, where we have developed an estimate of the sustainable harvest rate for the forest. Thank you.

Minister of Environment.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The majority of work has been done in the South Slave and over into the Deh Cho. Thank you.

I’ve been asking for this for a couple of years now. We’ve been developing a Biomass Strategy. Obviously, that’s going nowhere unless we know what the sustainable harvest rate is for our forests. Again, I’m wondering if we’ve determined yet what the sustainable harvest is for any forest, any area of the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

We can provide the committee the up-to-date summary of the work that’s been done to date. The focus, as we’ve been discussing here today as we look at biomass, is going to be around communities and sustainable harvest and managed forests, so a lot of the work that’s been done is starting to shift as

we look at working with communities to put in pilot projects. That determination almost on a community-by-community basis. But I’ll ask the deputy if he has any further information. If not, we will commit to provide a detailed update to committee.

Deputy Minister Bohnet.

That’s good news, but, as the Minister said, I think we’re looking at very specific areas around communities and I don’t think we want to wait until we’ve done a forest inventory for the Northwest Territories. We want to know, you know, within a reasonable time limit of communities, what is the sustainable harvest rate for that forest. I would appreciate it if the Minister could provide an update, assuming it’s available, and demonstrate progress on that file because, again, we can have all the strategies we want, but if we don’t have the research information and the know-how on the ground, we’re not going anywhere.

I appreciate more information on the South Slave. We have had other harvests going on there specific to the timber industry and so on and recovery from fires, but this is a different sort of thing. It needs to be really focussed on communities where Jean Marie and I imagine there has been some work done in that area, but I think our expensive communities that are positioned within the forest are opportunities. That is where I am hoping to see some good progress here so that as these other things get lined up, we can really get something going on the ground. Thank you.

Minister of Environment.

Mr. Chairman, I will let the deputy… He found some more information in his briefing book.

Deputy Minister Bohnet.

Mr. Bromley.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate that more specific information. That sounds good. We have to start there. Again, I have to admit, I’m never clear whether an inventory is the same as sustainable harvest assessment. Hopefully that is incorporated or enabled by that and we can actually get to that program. That is what community business or a community government is going to need to initiate a program. I am trying to stay as focused as possible there but, again, I appreciate that information.

I would also like to ask about the mushroom harvest as we know near Behchoko last year. It is probably greater than $1 million worth of morel mushrooms were harvested there. We visited about this in other forums that the department was going to establish whether they had the authority to manage fungi or whether they could develop partnerships with aboriginal groups or governments to develop a management policy. Obviously we have learned that it is possible to overharvest, apparently, abundant resources. I think that is true in the case of fungi as well, surprisingly, but this is a very valuable resource. I think it represents a real opportunity in those years when they are there. I am wondering what the progress and state of things on that is and if we have a little bit of funding identified for establishing that baseline. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, that is good to hear. I wonder if it doesn’t come under forestry in other jurisdictions, it comes under forest management. It is recognized as a wild crafting activity, I believe they call it in forest. I am wondering where that will be lodged. But more specifically, what is the time frame like? We could be facing another situation like this obviously next summer, this coming summer or shortly thereafter if there are big fire seasons. Thank you.

Next I have Mr. Yakeleya.