Ulkatcho First Nation has embarked on a mission to plant more than one million trees over the next seven years.
With funding from the Two Billion Trees, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Forest Employment Program and the Caribou Habitat Restoration Fund, 200,000 trees will be planted each year in the nation's traditional territory until they reach their target.
Alysha Knapp, the nation's natural resources manager, said over the last 40 to 50 years the area has been heavily harvested by forestry.
"In the last 10 years, we have been devastated by forest fires as well, and lost almost 40 per cent of our territory to forest fires."
This year they are also experiencing 60 to 70 per cent drought conditions.
With the project, she said the nation will have the ability to plant what it wants where it wants and put biodiversity back into the landscape to help retain moisture in the ground.
Historically, the Ulkatcho people lived off the land and were able to sustain themselves.
Her own grandparents relied on trapping, hunting, fishing and medicine from the land to live a healthy life.
"We are losing our animals, our waters are getting warmer, there is no water in some of the streams, the salmon runs are depleting and we have already seen that the caribou are almost gone. The moose population is dwindling and there is so much going on out there right now that we are not able to sustainably live off the resources on our land."
The hope is to restore habitat for caribou, provide shade in wetlands and bring jobs for community members.
"We need to ensure we are not just helping people now by getting boots on the ground and money in their pockets but we are also helping our future," she said. "As remote as we are, it takes a community to support a community. This is going to be us supporting ourselves."
A planting ceremony was held Wednesday, June 12 with students from Anahim Lake School and Nagwuntl’oo School, Chief Lynda Price and Janie Jack, who has been teaching the Ulkatcho language for 40 years.
Each student put a wooden stake bearing their name next to the tree they planted.
"Some of the students even built little forts around the trees," said Mike Pedersen, a forester working with the nation on the project.
After the planting, the students visited a site three kilometres away where there were 18-year-old trees growing so they could see for themselves how much growth to expect.
Pedersen said site preparation was done last year and Torrent Silviculture from Quesnel is doing some of tree planting for the nation.
Four of the company's planters attended the planting ceremony to demonstrate for the students how to plant.
Pacific Regeneration Technologies, also in Quesnel, prepared all the seedlings.
"We had decided that our nation needed to do more active management when it came to restoration," Knapp said.
Leading up to the tree project the nation started a guardian program to do monitoring, initiated camera trapping studies and wolf culls.
"We have been trying to take a holistic approach to bring back supporting the caribou populations."
Another idea is to do lichen transplants because there are some studies that lichen mosses can help support moisture in the ground and to plant other tree species and shrubs.
"Alder, for example, is moose browse and is absolutely wonderful near wetlands," Knapp said. "Once they are fully formed they offer shade and nutrients to the water."
During the planting ceremony Knapp spoke, giving most of her focus to the students.
"I told them, what they are doing is mostly for their grandchildren, to go back and water those trees and check on them to see how they are doing."
Three students told her they want to work on the land when the get older, one said he wanted to be a forest firefighter who would protect the trees they had planted.
"It was amazing to see the students out there along with leadership and all of us planting trees side by side," she said.
The project, she added, is a massive step toward reconciliation and honouring UNDRIP legislation.
"This is bringing management back to our people and putting the power in our hands to fulfill our duty to protect our territory. I'm super excited about this project and cannot wait until I am an elder to see what our territory looks like after this planting."
