Growing together: A principle-based approach to building collaborative Indigenous partnerships in Canada’s forest sector

Abstract

While a great deal of recent research has focused on opportunities for Indigenous participation in Canada’s forest sector, relatively little has explored how to translate various lessons learned into inclusive and mutually-beneficial collaborative processes. Through a review of recent peer-reviewed literature examining Indigenous participation in forest management and development, this paper seeks to fill the current knowledge gap by proposing a set of five principles, with twentythree underlying supporting mechanisms, that can be adopted by Indigenous communities, resource managers and government policy makers to help facilitate meaningful collaboration within the forest sector. These principles include: building respectful relationships; broad community engagement; bridging knowledge and value systems; flexible and holistic management systems; and clear and relevant measures of success. Although the proposed principles may be implemented either individually or in various combinations, to both improve ex...