Citizen-led Innovation for a New Economy

Alison Mathie

• Publisher: Practical Action Publishing
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781780449227
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Global Development Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

This collection of eleven cases from Canada and the United States gives expression to the ideal of a new economy based on fairness and environmental sustainability. Grappling with complex problems in their local communities, organized citizens are forging innovation, prying open cracks in the prevailing economic system and seizing opportunities to redirect economic life. Featured here are examples in urban and rural contexts and ethnically diverse settings — First Nations, Inuit, Latino, African American, predominantly white, and mixed communities — where citizens are challenging the short-term focus of political leadership and taking action now to pave the way for an economy that can sustain future generations. They illustrate a new way of working, tying economic justice to the creation of multiple types of environmental, economic and social assets or forms of wealth.

ECOTRUST CANADA

Building the Conservation Economy

Gord Cunningham and Juliet Merrifield

Throughout the different phases of its history, Ecotrust Canada (EC) has looked for practical ways to build an economy that integrates the principles of social equity (including recognition of Aboriginal rights and title) with environmental protection and restoration without forfeiting sustainable livelihoods for households and communities. EC calls this alternative economic model a “conservation economy.”

Over the years EC has developed its own way of defining and articulating the idea that it is possible to reorient a resource-based, industrial extraction model of economic development with its single bottom line of profit for shareholders to a new kind of economy that is “triple bottom line” or “3E” (environment, equity and economy). The set of beliefs that underpin its work are articulated by the current EC President:

First, there are limits to growth. The world cannot continue in the way it's growing. We have to do things differently if we want to be here long term. Second, in spite of the best attempts at it, the trickle-down theory of economics is fundamentally flawed. Third, the economy is a tool, not a beast that we have to feed. It can be redesigned to get what we want. And, fourth, there are increasingly cracks in the system that we can exploit. (Reid-Kuecks 2013)

Central to EC's approach is building relationships of trust with active groups of citizens and communities (the term EC personnel use is “people and place”) so that the movement for a different kind of economy is shared and collaborative. Issues and solutions in many cases originate with the organizations, communities and producer groups with which EC works. EC demonstrates what it takes to be an organization that is truly responsive to communities.

Innovations require risk-taking and not all of EC's innovations have worked. Innovative organizations must be able to accommodate and learn from failure. Successful projects pose other challenges, like how to grow these initiatives within the organization or whether to let others take them to scale. The ways in which EC has evolved reflect an organization that learns and adapts.

Over the past two decades EC has been involved in many different initiatives and projects. EC's footprint over this period is greater than the sum of the initiatives and projects with which it has been engaged. While no single initiative holds the potential for transformation to a conservation economy, taken together this body of work helps communities see their assets and agency in a new light and envision how their resources and economies could be managed differently. A senior EC staff member describes the challenge:

Building a conservation economy is a huge undertaking. We can't do it in its entirety, especially not overnight. We have to focus our energy on where we can have the most value and can make the most change, and over time, that shifts according to the people and places we are working with because of the responsiveness of our approach. (personal communication¹)

EC has been creating new narratives and supporting ways for First Nations, associations of fish harvesters, alliances of woodlot owners and small businesses to tell their own stories about a different kind of economy and of community action for “radical, practical change” (S. Beebe personal communication).

Background

EC's home base is the Pacific coast of British Columbia. The coastline is indented with bays, inlets, lengthy fjords, rivers and islands and contains most of the intact temperate rainforest watersheds in North America. The population of some 450,000 is spread thin, especially in the north coast region. The economy of coastal British Columbia is similar to the national economy in its dependence on resource extraction mainly for export, in the case of B.C. on forest products and seafood. Both industries have reduced their labour force steadily since the 1990s. Much of the wealth is owned by, and benefits, people residing elsewhere,² so much of coastal B.C. is relatively poor.

While Aboriginal people make up 4.8 percent of B.C.'s total population, in some regions the percentage is much higher. In 2006 in the North Coast Development Region, for example, Aboriginal people made up 35.3 percent of the population (B.C. Multiculturalism and Immigration Branch 2008). Roughly one-third of Canada's close to six hundred First Nations reside in B.C., many of these in the coastal region, living on their traditional territory that has never been ceded to, or recognized by, the Canadian government despite years of treaty negotiations. Most coastal communities have experienced significant population declines in the past two decades as people (particularly youth and skilled workers) migrate to urban areas for jobs. In contrast, most First Nations have seen population growth during this period. Between 1996 and 2006, Canada's First Nations population grew 3.5 times faster than did the country's non-Aboriginal population (Statistics Canada 2006).

EC was born into a well-publicized conflict centred in Clayoquot Sound, on Vancouver Island. This conflict, known colloquially as the “war in the woods,” pitted environmentalists against forestry companies for more than a decade. It culminated in 1993 with ten thousand protesters blockading logging, followed by the arrest of over eight hundred people and what was at that time the largest trial in Canadian history (Stefanick 2001). Two years later the B.C. government accepted the recommendations of a scientific panel that, for the first time in Canada's history, was made up of both scientists and hereditary Aboriginal leaders. The panel made recommendations that restructured the scale and scope of forestry activity in the region, reducing the total allowable harvest by one third, with the loss of close to four hundred forest sector jobs (Goad 2007). The current President of EC recalls the sense of both opportunity and crisis that resulted from that decision:

An industrial forest landscape that had historically created good unionized jobs and regional wealth, at a serious cost to the environment and with very limited benefit to First Nations in the region was suddenly over. A new economy was needed—and fast! The void created by massive reductions in logging was serious and threatened the very viability of these communities. (personal communication)

The polarization of interests ran deep, feelings were intense and constructive ways forward had yet to be created. EC came into this chasm with a vision of an alternative way of doing business, which combined community building and economic development with a strong environmental ethic. It was established as a Canadian registered charity, inspired by an American non-profit, Ecotrust, which was created in 1991 by conservationist Spencer Beebe to test ideas about conservation-based development across the ecoregion of Pacific temperate rainforests.³ The current EC president explains:

EC came up the middle…and said, “Let's look at this, it doesn't have to be either/or. We already know that protection won't work; we already know that mass industrial-scale resource extraction won't work. Is there any way to marry the interests of Aboriginal people, local communities and industry to design an economy for this place that works for the environment, for the citizens and for financial success?” (personal communication)

A brief history

There are three distinct stages in EC's history. These phases represent the shifts the organization has made as it navigated in a polarized and ever-changing geopolitical landscape. Through all three phases the organization's mission objective of triple bottom line development did not waver, but the path that EC took was not linear. There is clearly a belief within EC that the process of citizen-led innovation must be iterative, learning from what works and what doesn't, and this process has required that the organization have an adaptable institutional frame.

Phase one: (1996–2002)

Until the mid-to-late 1990s, resource extraction was occurring in coastal B.C. at an unprecedented rate, largely at the hands of international corporations operating with the single bottom line objective of making profit. Local communities were captive to boom and bust cycles of commodity prices and Aboriginal communities, on whose unceded territories much of the industrial activity was occurring, were largely ignored. In this context, EC focused on forming strategic alliances with a number of communities on the coast where the model of industrial resource development was being challenged by local groups and First Nations. The leading edges of this resistance were: in the north on the islands of Haida Gwaii led by the Haida Nation; on Vancouver Island in Clayoquot Sound supported by a coalition of environmental groups and Nuu-chah-nulth Nations; on the Central Coast in the Kitlope, a sacred place for the Haisla Nation and in the Koeye, where the Heiltsuk Nation claims its home.

The Heiltsuk First Nation saw land-use planning as a way of being proactive in dealing with pressures from resource industries to get access to their lands. They asked EC to help them develop a plan of their own. The Heiltsuk's intention was to develop their own Nation's land use vision which they hoped would influence the larger lands and resource management process taking place in B.C. at the time. Over five years, EC worked closely with both the leadership and the community members of the Heiltsuk Nation and in 2005 their land-use vision entitled For our Children's Tomorrow was publicly released. It called for the protection of 827,000 hectares of land as areas of natural and cultural significance and established zones of use for forestry and economic development. This work has continued to guide the Nation's decision-making to this day.

EC's objectives in its work with communities were to: (1) provide excellent information for decision-making; (2) create and hold a space for the articulation of an alternative land and resource use vision and (3) bring private and foundation capital into play to support the realization of each community's vision. During this period, EC published More Than the Sum of our Parks (1997), Seeing the Ocean Through the Trees (1997) and North of Caution (2001). These publications helped establish EC's profile. EC was asked by the Council of Haida Nations and the Nuu-chah-nulth to help their organizations create mapping departments and to assist in the raising of capital for the repatriation of the Koeye. EC relied on a combination of geographic information systems (GIS), mapping and storytelling tools that enabled these communities to define and present their interests. This approach also provided communities with facilitation and negotiation tools aimed at strengthening alliances and communications tools that allowed local and regional stories to gain attention like never before. This first phase of EC's history defined the organization as a friend and ally of communities and First Nations in coastal B.C. that were trying to chart a different course from the industrial resource extraction model.

Phase two: (2003–2009)

Early in the new millennium some space was gradually being carved out for community and Aboriginal interests in large resource development projects. This was catalyzed by several successful B.C. Supreme Court challenges that, in the absence of treaty settlements, recognized the inherent right of self-government of Aboriginal people in their territories.

While this gave the potential for a bigger slice of the resource pie for local communities and First Nations, it did not lead to a significant shift from an industrial resource-extraction model to a 3E model. To catalyze this shift EC saw a need to change their focus from “visioning” to “demonstrating” a conservation economy.

This second phase of EC's history was defined by actively working with communities to support the development of new kinds of enterprises. Business planning, developing markets, facilitating producer/consumer interfaces and brokering capital were the central activities of this phase. One of the organization's most significant undertakings was the creation of a $4 million loan fund that focused on mission-based lending to entrepreneurs engaged in 3E businesses (more details on the Coastal Loan Fund below).

Another major undertaking was the Working Sound initiative in Clayoquot Sound, begun at the request of eleven shellfish growers. Clayoquot Sound was a good place to demonstrate the possibility of a conservation economy: radical reductions in logging had left a significant hole in the local economy; the region had been declared a UNESCO biosphere reserve; oyster farming was present albeit in a marginal way; 50 percent of the resident population was Aboriginal and the region boasted at least a million tourists annually. As a result of EC's work over a five-year period in organizing and helping finance small oyster producers in the area, oyster production nearly doubled, new farms owned by First Nations came online and zero-discharge regulations were enacted to protect the marine environment.

In 2005, EC brokered over $1 million CDN to purchase the last remaining fish plant on the Tofino waterfront, bringing together local investors to own the plant, local fishermen to supply it and local restaurants as the primary market outlet, thus creating a “circle of local wealth.” In Clayoquot Sound, EC has supported Iisaak Forest Resources (100 percent owned by five Nuu-chah-nulth Nations) in a number of ways over the years: providing a low interest loan to enable the company to obtain the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification;⁴ raising philanthropic capital to support their communications and marketing efforts internationally and ultimately stepping into direct management of the company for nearly two years at a critical stage. This experience is also one of EC's best examples of how conservation economy principles could be successfully embedded in business and yield triple bottom line results. EC's more active and direct involvement in enterprise development during this phase also included support for businesses that added value to forest products, a fishing-licence bank that allowed small-boat hook-and-line fish harvesters to share and get access to quota they could not afford to acquire on their own and the creation of an enterprise to help businesses measure, reduce and offset their carbon emissions (Climate Smart).

Phase three: (2009–present)

The 2008 financial crisis created challenges and opportunities for EC. Philanthropic funding was tight, communities were focused on jobs as a top priority, often at the expense of the environment and many traditional institutions and businesses upon which people had come to rely began to show signs of instability. It was a challenging time for EC as well as for the communities with which it worked: its 2009 Annual Report described some hard decisions that had been made, including selling 50 percent of the Climate Smart enterprise, winding down the coastal loan fund, selling the Trilogy fish plant and restructuring the staff time (Ecotrust Canada 2009). With the founding President moving to establish Ecotrust Australia, a new president was appointed to lead these changes. As she now points out, there were also opportunities that accompanied these challenges. One of these opportunities was that the financial crisis generated a public mood that was becoming more receptive to new economic models:

The global financial crisis gave us an opening that we did not have before. When the economy was buzzing along quite fine, it was difficult to get traction for our ideas about alternative approaches to business and economic development. Nobody needs a new idea when the current one is working just fine! Prior to the recession, we had “openings” only where there was a crisis; usually a crisis caused when industry threatened community well-being and we could intervene and demonstrate a different approach. The recession meant that suddenly everybody was alert to the need for a new way of doing business—and we have been able to advance our work...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Planting the Seeds of a New Economy: Learning from Citizen-Led Innovation
• Humility and Audacity: The Story of Vivre Saint Michel en Santé
• New Dawn Enterprises: Becoming a “Community Instrument through which the People can do for Themselves”
• A Vision of Flipping the Iceberg of Power: The Greater Edmonton Alliance Faces Big Land and Big Oil
• Everyday Good Living and the Two Row Wampum: The Vision of the Ontario Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres
• A Quiet Movement: Inuit Self-Determination
• Ecotrust Canada: Building the Conservation Economy
• Resident Ownership and Neighbourhood Transformation: The Village at Market Creek
• Pushing for Green Solutions to Urban Neglect: The Work of People United for Sustainable Housing (PUSH)
• Permeating the Mainstream: Rural Action for a Sustainable Future for Central Appalachia
• Reclaiming Land, Reaffirming Culture: The Deep South Community Agricultural Network
• Reaching Back to Move Forward Towards a Future of HOPE: The Story of Sandhills Family Heritage Association
• Back Cover