HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2019-03-21, Page 10PAGE 10. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 2019.
White takes leave to work with Indigenous communities
After spending a number of years
working on stewardship and biology
for Huron County, Rachel White has
taken on a new challenge, working
with Indigenous communities across
the country.
White is now working with the
Guelph-based company Shared
Value Solutions after she decided to
take a one-year leave from her job as
the county’s biologist and
stewardship co-ordinator.
In late 2017, White was brought
on full-time by the county after
working on contract for a number of
years. However, when this next
opportunity came up, she couldn’t
turn the challenge down and decided
to take it, making the tough decision
to leave a job she
says she absolutely
loves.
White said the
county has been
very understanding
in allowing her to
take a one-year
leave from the job,
ensuring that if her
position with
Shared Value
Solutions isn’t a
good fit, that she
can return to the
county. However,
the intention
behind the leave,
she said, is that if
she likes her full-
time position in
Guelph, that she
would stay there.
The company,
White said, is in a
growth phase,
expanding rapidly
in recent years
after its founding a
decade ago. It has
attracted the
attention of several
former Huron
County employees, White said,
which is how she heard about the
company.
“We have deep context and
experience behind the
recommendations we provide,
having worked for our clients on
almost every major project in
Canada over the last 10 years,” the
Shared Values Solutions website
states. “We assist Indigenous
communities with regulatory advice,
negotiation and business strategy,
relevant supporting studies and
technical reviews related to major
development projects such as mines,
hydroelectric facilities, transmission
lines, highway expansions, oil and
gas pipelines and nuclear power.”
Since beginning with the company
last month, White said she has been
a good fit, though the position has
been very challenging with a
dramatic learning curve.
The company was looking for
someone with knowledge in the
world of land use planning, but also
biology, so it was a job tailor-made
for White.
White’s job will essentially entail
working as a liaison between
developers and First Nations
communities to ensure that special
community needs are met and
traditions are upheld when
development is proposed on their
land.
When development is proposed,
White said, the team at Shared Value
Solutions will complete a technical
review of the environmental work
that’s required prior to the potential
development.
The goal is to ensure that if
development proceeds, it’s done in a
way that respects Indigenous rights,
and has mutual benefit (a shared
value) to the community and
developer.
It ensures that what’s important to
that community, whether it be
hunting, fishing, collecting
medicinal plants, or other culturally
important practices or places, will
remain important after the
development takes place.
Because she’s so new in the
position, she’s currently relying on
data that has been collected for these
communities over the last few years.
The research, she said, takes years to
collect.
White is also working in the
development of land use planning
for Indigenous communities. To
develop a land use plan, White said
there will be plenty of consultation
with Indigenous communities,
looking at the needs, opportunities
and the ability to grow, while also
caring for the land.
White says that her work for the
county and her close relationship
with its farmers has uniquely
prepared her for her new position.
Working with farmers and
landowners and seeing first-hand
their stewardship of the land,
whether it be for agricultural or
environmental reasons, taught her a
lot about a community’s connection
to land and its unique, individual
properties, depending on the
community.
White is originally from the
Markham area, just north of Toronto.
She made her way to London for her
post-secondary education before
coming to Huron County.
After earning her Bachelor of
Science in Biology with a focus on
ecology in London, White obtained
her Master’s Degree in Biology,
focusing on community ecology and
botany. White said she had been
interested in biology for as long as
she could remember and it was great
to be able to study it in hopes of
turning it into a career.
She would get that chance when
she graduated and found a job with
the Ministry of Natural Resources in
Clinton. However, before she made
her way to Clinton, her true career
path was revealed to her on a trip to
Kenya where she was able to
connect her two passions together.
Not only has White been
interested in biology and ecology
since she was very young, but she
was also interested in stewardship
and how the science manifested
itself in a community setting; how
better stewardship and better science
results in better health and a better
living situation.
When she studied the ecosystem
in a region of Kenya, White’s area of
focus would be a freshwater lake and
how pressures on it were affecting
the community.
The community had been
struggling with an unemployment
rate of over 40 per cent and was in
dire need of industry. A flora
producer then sprung up and,
because of the immense amount of
water being taken from the lake,
threw the ecosystem out of balance.
Not only did she study the lake’s
connection to sustainability for the
community and its people, but the
project aimed to educate the people
of the community and arm them
with the knowledge to know how to
keep their home community in
order, while supporting business,
and make informed decisions about
their future.
It was that project that connected
White’s passions of biology and
ecology with many societal issues
and she saw that one could greatly
influence the other.
She said that was the first merging
of the two she had seen and she hoped
to continue practising community
stewardship in her next job.
That led to White’s position with
the county, working as its
stewardship co-ordinator. The
position began with the Ministry of
Natural Resources in Clinton, but
was then adopted by the county in
2014, after the ministry discontinued
the program.
Soon after White was officially
brought on, Huron County formed a
new partnership with the Huron
Stewardship Council. She would go
on to serve in a number of other
capacities within the county. By the
time White left the county, she was
the chair of the Lower Maitland
Stewardship Group and the treasurer
of the Huron-Perth chapter of the
Ontario Woodlot Association.
For more information on Shared
Value Solutions, visit its website at
sharedvaluesolutions.com.
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Municipality of
Huron East
FIRST
INSTALLMENT
OF INTERIM
TAXES
Property owners are reminded
that the due date for the first
installment of interim taxes is
March 29, 2019
P. Michiels
Treasurer - Finance Manager
New experiences
Rachel White has taken a leave of
absence from her Huron County position
to work with Shared Value Solutions in
Guelph, a group that assists Indigenous
communities with planning and
regulatory issues. (File photo)
By Shawn Loughlin
The Citizen
Sting of defeat
The Blyth Brussels Midget Crusaders Rep team took to the ice against the BCH Ice Dogs over
the weekend. The match was the Crusader’s second straight against BCH, and the second
straight loss, as the Ice Dogs edged out Blyth Brussels 3-2. As of press time, the Midget
Crusaders Rep team have no more games scheduled. (Nick Vinnicombe photo)