Again, that is an excellent question.
We just talked about the forest products industry's environmental credentials and our third party certification through the international certification standards such as FSC, SFI, and so on. There is a component of that in which they look to see your engagement with aboriginal people. So this has been a long-standing practice of the forest products industry. As part of our credentials as a good corporate citizen, engaging with neighbours on the landscape is part of our forestry practices. It is a requirement of our provincial forest certification processes.
So ongoing engagement with first nations is not a new territory for the forest industry. It has been in place with us for a long time. Hence the employment results that I mentioned earlier, where on average we have twice the number of first nations people working in our sector as in the population generally. Why? One reason is proximity. A second is that we see it's good business practice to be working with our partners on the landscape.
We've done a number of specific things. If you go to our website you will see we give two annual awards. One is an aboriginal youth award for an upstanding member of a first nations community who is studying forestry or engaged in a forest company. So promoting young people to come into the forest industry is one example of a very specific thing we do. Each of our companies does many more things on the ground, but as a national association that's the one we lead.
We have a good working relationship with the aboriginal business council, and we give an annual award to the aboriginal forestry business of the year. So again, there is opportunity. There are many subcontractors in the forest industry and many opportunities for first nations. If you go to our website, you will see the winners for the last four or five years—first nations businesses engaging in making a living on the land, working with forestry companies to do forestry practices, trucking, hauling, and lots of the supply chain they work with us on.
So both with individuals and by corporate connection is how we work across the landscape.