In October of 2023, Tłı̨chǫ Grand Chief Jackson Lafferty signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Tree Canada and Let’s Plant Trees Ltd., officially launching a three-year agreement to plant one million trees on Tłı̨chǫ land.

Recently the Tłı̨chǫ Government came to an agreement with Natural Resources Canada’s (NRCan) 2 Billion Tree (2BT) Program, which will sponsor the planting of an additional 12 million trees. This report describes the elements related to the first 2 million trees to be planted. Altogether, the project aims to align western science with Tłı̨chǫ traditional knowledge, and work within the Tłı̨chǫ Land Use Plan. Let’s Plant Trees has contracted several forestry professionals and industry representatives to support the different phases of this project.

Our Goals

The overall goal of the project is to reforest areas that were recently burned by wildfire and are not naturally regenerating. Information shared by Tłı̨chǫ elders helped identify important areas to the community to focus reforestation efforts, and also helped identify white spruce and paper birch as important species to replant. Reforestation plans will be designed to:

• Maintain the historic structure and composition of ecosystems
• Accelerate the development of winter foraging habitat for the Bathurst herd of barren-ground caribou (Rangifer tarandus groenlandicus)
• Promote the growth of low-flammability vegetation and culturally important tree species closest to the community of Behchokǫ̀

Changing wildfire frequency and intensity, and changes to ecosystem recovery from wildfire in the north is one of the primary reasons this project was initiated.

A significant proportion of Tłı̨chǫ territory has burned in the last ten years, and community members have expressed concerns about the areas of winter forage habitat for caribou recently burned in large fires. A review of the available scientific literature supported these observations. It also found evidence that forests are not regenerating in the same way after wildfires as in decades past.

The overall goal of this project is to regenerate forest stands that, when mature, will be favourable for caribou use as winter forage habitat.

This is a multi-phase project, and planning and preliminary assessment work has already been completed. More activities will occur between the winter and summer of 2025 before the tree-planting work itself takes place, as shown in the diagram below. The following sections describe each project phase.

Approximately 95 person days of employment have been generated for Tłı̨chǫ community members to date as part of this project.

Tłı̨chǫ crews completed approximately 30 person days of work during the site assessments in June 2024, primarily clearing helicopter landing pads, as well as completing Environmental Monitor and Bear Guard duties. In addition, Tłı̨chǫ Environmental Monitors and Bear Guards were employed for 8 person days in August 2024 for a ground-based assessment in the Behchokǫ̀ area. Chickadee Reclamation hired a Tłı̨chǫ crew in 2023 and 2024 to collect cones. In 2023 this provided 29 person days of employment, and in 2024 this provided 28 person days of employment.