"She brings knowledge, credibility and heart to this board," Stewart Muir, President and CEO of Resource Works, commented on Jennifer Woodland's appointment.
Photo: Resource Works.
Resource Works, the British Columbia-based non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the responsible development of natural resources and advocating for economic growth in Canada, has announced the appointment of BC aquaculture leader Jennifer Woodland to its Board of Directors.
"Jennifer has spent her career proving that sustainable production, Indigenous partnership and thriving rural communities go together," said Stewart Muir, President and CEO of Resource Works. "She brings knowledge, credibility and heart to this board, and we could not be prouder to welcome her."
The pride is mutual. "Incredibly proud to be appointed to the Board of Directors for Resource Works," Woodland wrote on her LinkedIn profile after Resource Works announced her appointment, stating that it is fortunate to have her voice at the table.
"Resource Works speaks for the people whose livelihoods depend on responsible resource development, and those are the people I have worked for my whole life," Woodland had previously stated in the announcement of her appointment to the Board.
"Canada has an enormous opportunity to lead the world in sustainable food production. I am honoured to join a board that understands what is at stake and what is possible," she added.
In that same announcement, the advocacy group highlighted that the current Director of Corporate Relations at Cermaq Canada brings to the position decades of experience in sustainable food production, Indigenous reconciliation, and rural economic development, making this appointment a natural continuation of the causes that have guided her career from the beginning.
The Resource Works article by Angela Wrigley, in which the society announces Woodland's arrival on its Board of Directors, looks back to recall how her connection to the natural resource economy has existed practically since the beginning.
A native of Newfoundland, she grew up in the environment of commercial fishing and experienced firsthand how the 1992 cod crisis devastated the communities around her. "That collapse fueled her conviction that aquaculture can feed a growing world while easing the pressure on wild stocks," Wrigley writes.
"I know what it looks like when a resource economy disappears, because I lived it," Jennifer Woodland confessed to the author of the article. "The cod moratorium taught me how important sustainability is. It's the difference between a community with a future and a community without one."
That conviction also led her to develop her professional career in aquaculture, with a trajectory that spans both coasts of Canada. She began in her homeland of Newfoundland, where she worked for several years at Cooke Aquaculture, contributing to the revitalization of communities on the region's south coast. She then moved to BC, where she started as a business development specialist for the federal government's Aboriginal Aquaculture in Canada Initiative.
It is there, in British Columbia, that she has developed the rest of her career, becoming a renowned aquaculture leader in the region. After her time with the Aboriginal Aquaculture in Canada Initiative, Woodland spent almost ten years at Nuu-chah-nulth Seafood LP, a First Nation-owned commercial fishing company on Vancouver Island, where she started as Manager of Aquaculture Development and ended as CEO.
After that, she joined Grieg Seafood BC where she served as Managing Director until February of this year, when, after the divestment of Grieg Seafood in Canada to Cermaq Group—the exit of the operations in Newfoundland and British Columbia was completed in December—she moved to her current position as Corporate Relationships Director at Cermaq Canada.
In addition to her extensive professional career, Jennifer Woodland also has experience serving on the boards of directors of various associations. From 2011 to 2014, she was President of the Newfoundland Aquaculture Industry Association (NAIA). She also chaired the Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance (CAIA)—where she is currently Vice-Chair—for two years, from 2020 to 2022, and is now serving her third term as Chair of the BC Salmon Farmers Association.
