As global political and economic tensions escalate and new tariffs threaten our economic stability, people across Canada are feeling the strain. Nowhere is this more pronounced than in rural, remote, and Indigenous communities, which often depend on natural resource exports like seafood, wood products, and minerals for their livelihoods. These stressors are the result of decisions being made far away from the people most affected, exposing the deep fragility of Canada’s extraction-based economy.
But this moment is also bringing something else into sharp focus: the need for a different path forward.
At Ecotrust Canada, we believe that path begins with place. With self-sufficiency, yes, but also with the interdependence that comes from people and communities sharing a common bond and shared responsibility for the lands and waters they call home. This common bond, along with the economic responsibilities and opportunities that come with it, has always been central to our work.
That’s why we focus on building place-based economies. These are economic systems where the wealth extracted or generated from a community, a watershed, or a region stays local for the direct benefit of the place and its people. This is why it’s our mission to build an economy that provides for life grounded in local stewardship, innovation, and equity.
Over the coming months, we will share stories with you about how our work in the past, present, and future deliberately advances place-based economies while responding to the economic uncertainty and systemic fragility many of us are experiencing today. This includes:
- Developing Community Fisheries programs that help to create the conditions for fish harvesters to thrive while meeting the food security needs of their communities.
- Creating new programs like Roots to Routes, which support the return to Indigenous-led systems of trade, governance, and relationships that have fostered thriving, sustainable economies for generations.
- Catalyzing foundational work in the Central Interior of BC, where we address the economic and climate crisis facing forest-based communities not as two separate problems but rather as an interrelated whole system.
- Advancing Community Energy work that directly addresses the acute financial pressures people are facing as they confront the escalating costs of simply meeting their most basic home energy needs.
- Strengthening our presence in Prince Rupert, working side by side in a community that has long been a home to us, co-developing both marine and land-based approaches to enhancing food security and sovereignty.
This is a moment of collective reckoning for us — our organization, our community partners, and for Canada. It is an opportunity for us all to come to grips with the long legacy of colonial capitalism that has left communities vulnerable to changes that are now beyond their control. It is time for us to commit to alternatives that foster resilience, self-determination, and a more sustainable future.
It is a time when the concepts of “people in place” and “place-based economies” have never been more essential. In many ways, Ecotrust Canada has been preparing for moments like these over the course of our 30-year history. The time to act — together and in place — is always now.