First Nations Forest Carbon Project on Nionwentsio Land

The First Nations Forest Carbon Project on Nionwentsio Historical Land is publicly listed on the CSA CleanProjects Registry and has been 3rd party verified under ISO-14064-2 by Fournier Toupin CPA Inc. The project rehabilitates degraded lands, maintains forestry potential of the region, protects biodiversity and the reconstructing of wildlife habitat. This results in protecting the integrity of the forest, preserving the aboriginal values of the community and inhering carbon sequestration opportunities by way of improved forest management and afforestation as well as reforestation activities.

A total of 2,260,000 trees were planted (1,295,000 coniferous and 965,000 hardwood) on over 28,500 hectares by the project from 1995 to 2010 inside the boundaries of the “Seignerie de Perthuis” which is located West of Quebec City in the Portneuf region. The trees were planted on degraded land as defined under CDM methodology AR-ACM003. Through those activities, the project allows the forest to grow and to sequester CO2 within the biomass through the natural process of photosynthesis for at least 100 years.

The project is carried out in collaboration with the Quebec Huron-Wendat First Nations. The project proponent and the Huron-Wendat agreed to realise a major archeological initiative aimed at the discovery of some Huron-Wendat ancestral settlements. This project is conducted in partnership with Laval University and will take place in the “Nionwentsio” which is the customary territory of the Huron, covered by the British Treaty of 1760. The project will enable the discovery and protection of heritage sites, including artifacts, as well as historic and archaeological sites of the Huron-Wendat First Nation. This archeological project is large in scale and very exciting in term of discoveries that its already called by several scholars and media as: “the Lascaux” of Canada.

The Social Co-Benefits of the project include:

• Maintaining living environments and economic activity areas (rebuilding and protecting traditional hunting and trapping sites and protecting sources of raw material for craftsmanship);
• Protection of cultural sites (cemetery, burial site, artefacts, heritage sites), traditional activities (Canoe ride, snowshoes path, heritage tales and legend sites, Shamanique Quest sites);
• Archeological research