A couple of announcements involving the Nazko First Nation were made following Monday’s Natural Resource Ministers Panel.
One featured a profit distribution cheque worth $100,000 to the Nazko Economic Development Corporation, the 2nd in the past three years.
It was issued by NAZBEC a joint company owned by the Nazko Economic Development Corporation and Pacific Bioenergy Corporation.
Don Steele is the Chairman of NAZBEC and the Chairman and CEO of Pacific Bioenergy…
“And what it demonstrates is that by working together with a First Nations group we can combine the interests and aspirations of a commercial operation such as ours with a First Nations group that have had a traditional activity in logging to come up with something that works.”
NAZBEC manages a forest license west of Quesnel where mostly mountain pine beetle killed timber is harvested and transported to a Biomass Facility which is located and operated by Tolko at the Questwood mill in Quesnel.
The logs are then sorted to use to produce lumber as well as chips and hog fuel for local pulp mills, with the residual then delivered for conversion into wood pellets at the Pacific Bioenergy facility in Prince George.
The second announcement, made by Steve Thomson, the Minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations, was the signing of a forest tenure opportunity agreement with Nazko for 20-thousand cubic metres.
Thomson says it is the first step towards moving to a First Nation area-based Woodlands license.
(Files from George Henderson)