British Columbia’s largest private landowner, Mosaic Forest Management, is halting logging in nearly 100,000 acres of old-growth forest for the next 25 years.

The forestry company announced the deferral on March 16 and said it’s transitioning to a carbon credit program, which is expected to generate several hundred million dollars in revenue. 

Hailed the BigCoast Forest Climate Initiative, Mosaic said it’s the largest project of its kind and is aiming to capture and store more than 10 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.

Six years after the opioid crisis was declared a public health emergency by the province, the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council is calling for immediate action on Vancouver Island, as families continue to be torn by tragedy at an increasing rate.

Linus Lucas Sr. created a Nuu-chah-nulth family tree five years ago to help children and youth in care reconnect with their families. 

The senior Quu'asa wellness worker now has a genealogy database filled with approximately 21,000 people with Nuu-chah-nulth roots. Drawing from first-hand knowledge and the Royal BC Museum’s genealogy archives, Lucas said the database contains family records that date back to the mid-1800s.

When Ahousaht began debt reduction measures nearly a decade ago, one of the largest contributors to the financial burden, Ahousaht’s sea bus, was sold, to the dismay of many residents.

Nine years after Ahousaht hired Certified Financial Accountant Rob Bullock, the nation has greatly improved its financial status.

The financial situation was so bad, that the nation would have faced harsh consequences through Indigenous Services Canada if things were not turned around.

“We could have gone into third-party management,” said Chief Councillor Greg Louie.

That would have meant that control of Ahousaht’s finances would be temporarily transferred to another body.

This morning Barney Williams shed tears, as an apology from Pope Francis summoned distant emotions from his childhood in residential school.

“I think that there’s a lot of happy people like myself, breathing a sigh of relief and saying, ‘Finally’,” said the Tla-o-qui-aht elder, who attended Christie Residential School on Meares Island as a child, followed by a stint in Kamloops at a Catholic-run high school. “I feel better that it’s happened now.”

Mariah Charleson and her Hesquiaht Descendants teammates are pretty pumped.

That’s because it’s almost time for them to compete in the All Native Basketball Tournament (ANBT).

The Descendants are one of 16 squads that will participate in the women’s division of the ANBT, the prestigious Indigenous hoops event which has been staged annually in Prince Rupert since 1960.

The 2021 tourney, however, was cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation members gathered in front of the nation’s main office near the Best Western Plus Tin Wis Resort in Tofino to protest recent housing evictions on March 31. 

Nora Martin said she was evicted from her home in Ty-Histanis on March 30 after being asked to pay for arrears that her son hadn’t covered. 

The arrears further accumulated during the COVID-19 pandemic after Martin said she was told by chief and council that she was eligible to defer her monthly rent for one year.

The value of working together was emphasized with a plan on how the province will adopt UNDRIP – but this might be hard to believe for members of the Nuchatlaht, as the First Nation fights for Aboriginal title in court.

On Wednesday an action plan was released, listing a wide variety of initiatives in the provincial government’s effort to realign laws and policy with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Among the plan’s main goals is enabling Aboriginal people to “to own, use, develop and control lands and resources within their territories in B.C.”

Housing affordability is a main concern for Port Alberni city council when it comes to reducing poverty in the Alberni Valley.

City council received the Poverty Reduction Action Plan from the Alberni-Clayoquot Health Network on Monday that provided several recommendations to help individuals out of poverty and to avoid becoming destitute in the first place.

Marcie DeWitt, Alberni-Clayoquot Health Network coordinator, provided council with highlights from the 63-page report that she said should provide advocacy tools for municipal governments in the region.