The First Nations Climate Initiative (FCNI) announced on Oct. 17 that they have signed a memorandum of understanding with the Halfway River First Nation.
The FNCI is a collaboration between the Haisla, Nisga’a and Metlakatla First Nations that was formed in 2019 to tackle climate change and poverty in First Nations communities.
By signing the memorandum last month, the Haisla and Nisga’a, and Halfway River nations acknowledge their efforts to collaborate to find nature-based solutions to mitigate the environmental impacts of liquefied natural gas projects, while strengthening Indigenous economic self-sufficiency.
Both the Nisga’a and Haisla nations are establishing their own LNG export facility projects, with the Nisga’a working on the Ksi Lisms project near Gingolx, and the Haisla Nation starting their Cedar LNG project near Kitimat. Both of these projects are floating export facilities, with Cedar LNG connecting to the Coastal GasLink pipeline, while Ksi Lisms are currently evaluating two different pipeline projects.
Chief Darlene Hunter of Halfway River First Nation said that her nation has been working with the FNCI since its inception in 2019, but signing this memorandum made it official. The next step, following the signing, is to determine which course of action would be best based on their pre-feasibility studies on different nature-based solutions to addressing environmental impacts of LNG extraction and transport.
FNCI’s Climate Action Plan, which was released in September, will work as a guideline for the collaboration to follow. The plan outlines proposals of expanding carbon markets, incentivizing low carbon systems and investing in energy transmission and renewable energy.
Info sessions on these possible solutions took place between Oct. 17 and Oct. 20 in Vancouver.
