Testimonial : Inlailawatash Partnership – Science and Technology Internship Program – Green jobs
Transcript
Jason: My name is Jason Forsythe. I’m the CEO of Inlailawatash Limited Partnership.
James: My name is James Sandover. I’m the Renewable Resource Coordinator for inlailawatash.
Jason: So Inlailawatash in 100 percent indigenous owned by the Tsleil Waututh Nation. Its main focus is around renewable resource management, so renewable resources being sustainable fisheries, ecosystem based forestry and clean energy development.
James: So my main role with Inlailawatash is I’m the general manager for Salish Seas, which is a commercial fishing enterprise that we own with two other first nations. We own a boat, as well as we have multiple licenses that we lease out to community members. What we do is we put them out to bid so my job would be to manage the bidding process as well as when somebody wins the bid, kind of manage the process that goes along with that. The other big part of it is manages the vessel we own, so the Pacific Battler itself, which catches all of our halibut quota, our black cod quota, as well as one prawn license.
Another aspect of my job is working with Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, so there’s a lot of reporting, applying for funding, we're always looking at buying more quota, or adding new licenses ‘cause that’s really the quickest and best way for us to expand.
Jason (background): “So that’s fantastic, so…”
Jason: Green Jobs really takes the risk out of the hiring process for us. And it gives these young people a chance to start their careers and really get moving and give them some momentum. James has been involved with the company now for about three months. He comes with a solid banking background in HR and his finance degree. He also represents the first Tsleil Waututh member that’s joined our senior management team.
James: On the ecosystem side, we run ecosystem restoration projects. We’re the lead. A good example of that would be our current project that we are working on right now which is at Buntzen Lake. It’s a very well known spot in Vancouver. A lot of the bridges there have been there for quite awhile. They’re starting to kind of rot away and become unsafe. So it was our job to figure out which bridges needed replacing and put the kind of project in place to get that done.
We’re really interested in getting involved in clean energy projects.
So behind me we have a large solar panel that helps run our daycare here on Tsleil Wautuh and this is a great example of our use of clean energy and this is definitely something that I’d be interested in working on in the future.
Jason: In the long term we're looking to pass some of the management reins on to james and really, the sky is the limit for James in terms of what he’s going to do with our company.
James: Being a Tsleil Waututh member my goal was always to come back to my community and work for my nation. The Green Jobs really did help start me off with Inlailawatash and now that I’m working fulltime with them I have to opportunity to diversify and grow myself, grow the company and also help grow my community.
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