The role of communities in regenerative innovation
Reflections from the first public event of the Pôle d’innovation régénérative de l’Abitibi-Témiscamingue, Rouyn-Noranda, June 18, 2026
ARTICLETOURISME RÉGÉNÉRATIF
Emilie Penazzi
8/25/2026
Article summarised in TourismExpress: here
Anicinabe land for millennia, shaped by forests and mines for over a century, Abitibi-Témiscamingue brought together a diverse group of actors on June 18 in Rouyn-Noranda, united by a common purpose around the same table: the mining sector, tourism, municipal government, academic research and the social economy. This milestone event was also the first public gathering of the region’s Pôle d’innovation régénérative, led by its Director France Lemire with support from the MT Lab, Québec’s incubator for tourism innovation. After months of work and reflection, they succeeded in bridging multiple sectors and establishing a shared dialogue around a common sense of belonging to the same territory.
Is regenerating a territory an expertise applied from the outside, or an intelligence that communities produce together?
The day reinforced a conviction shaped by my years in the field: regenerative innovation gains depth when it draws on genuine collaboration between a territory’s communities and its institutions, far more so than from solutions developed in isolation. Where sustainable tourism seeks to limit its footprint, the regenerative approach aims to actively restore and transform the territory through the collaboration of its communities. Three dimensions of this collaboration emerged over the course of the day’s exchanges: a historical dimension, recalling what ground and what memory we build upon; an environmental dimension, anchoring the process in a lived-in place; and a social dimension, creating connection as much as value.
Regeneration begins with knowing what you’re building on
On the margins of the official programme, I had the privilege of a long conversation with Ejinagosi Kistabish, an Anicinabe spokesperson whose lifelong role has been to bridge languages and worlds. His teaching casts a particular light on everything that was said on June 18. In his view, regeneration risks building on a void when it takes hold of a territory whose names and history it ignores. To work together more meaningfully, to anchor a process that truly makes sense, one must first remember what land one walks on and what history one is building upon.
This, too, is what regeneration means, and perhaps first and foremost: giving back to the community, each in their own way.
Among the six projects gathered within the MT Lab’s Empreinte+ regenerative cohort, the Cartographie des Présences Invisibles (Mapping Invisible Presences) defines itself as a participatory storytelling laboratory, inviting residents and visitors to co-create immersive trails and bring local memories to life. Giving voice to the presences that the hurried eye overlooks also transforms the visitor’s experience, shifting from crossing a landscape to inhabiting a story. We truly care for what we know and what we belong to.
Regenerating a place you inhabit
The second dimension roots the process in the territory’s material reality. France Lemire, Director of the Pôle, framed it with a precision that cuts through false debates: mining in Abitibi will continue, because the world needs metals. The real question becomes how to regenerate sites after extraction. Achieving a regeneration model in a resource region, she says, would tip the balance and offer an example other territories could follow. The regenerative cohort’s projects bring this ambitious vision to life. Flotexa develops vegetated floating islands that harness plants, micro-organisms and mycelium to improve water quality and regenerate aquatic ecosystems. EcOasis, for its part, restores natural environments damaged by human activity. One heals the water, the other the land, and both turn France Lemire’s promise into measurable action on the ground.
Regeneration starts with connection
The third dimension touches on what regeneration produces before any measurable outcome: connection between the people who share a territory. Martin Lessard, General Manager of the MT Lab, articulated its finest mechanism. The Pôle, he points out, “supports the relationship before supporting the solution.” The adjustment is meant to be reciprocal, with the market educating as much as the young enterprise adapts, and the search for a replicable model taking precedence over the one-off solution. A good idea, even an excellent one, takes root only when the region recognises the need and makes it its own. The Hub du Vieux Noranda embodies this logic: a shared techno-creative space in the heart of the neighbourhood, it brings together repair workshops, coworking, a green park and community radio to nurture local entrepreneurship and civic engagement. Value emerges from the encounter between project leaders and a community ready to welcome them, far more than from importing a ready-made answer.
A system, far more than a sum of good intentions
These three dimensions hold together. An environmental regeneration disconnected from its historical grounding builds on a void. A social innovation isolated from cross-sector collaboration falls back into the very silos that June 18 sought to break open. Frédéric Arsenault, President of Tourisme Abitibi-Témiscamingue, expressed at the opening of the day his hope that business, education, research, tourism and the social economy would converge toward a shared goal: development that benefits communities and can be passed on to future generations. A territory becomes regenerative when its communities agree to read themselves together, across their history, their environment and their solidarities, rather than stacking parallel initiatives side by side.
This convergence already rests on concrete action at the heart of the territory. The day’s panel brought together three faces: Geneviève Aubry from Collectif Territoire, Patrick Lavoie from Eldorado Gold Québec, and Mélanie Perreault from Centraide Abitibi-Témiscamingue et Nord-du-Québec. A community mobilisation actor, an industrial actor and a social solidarity actor around the same conversation. Since 2020, Eldorado Gold Québec has been running an Energy and Ecological Balance Plan that, in partnership with the Association forestière de l’Abitibi-Témiscamingue, has resulted in the planting of over 87,000 trees and the reforestation of former mining sites, capturing more than 11,000 tonnes of CO2. That a mining company and a social economy organisation share the same table to discuss regenerating a territory speaks volumes about the potential of breaking out of siloed work.
In Anicinabe, Abitibi means the place where the waters divide. Millennia later, this may be where they come together again, where extraction and regeneration cease to be opposites.
This article is accompanied by the full recording of my conversation with Ejinagosi Kistabish, Anicinabe spokesperson, set to music. His words carry the memory of those who inhabited these lands long before they were given another name, and of the children torn from their families in the name of an assimilation that marked generations. Understanding these stories is the first condition for grounding regenerative work in respect for each territory and each culture that calls it home.
Photo: France Lemire, Director of the Pôle Innovation Régénérative, photo credit Christian Leduc.
Through Emilie, Bonjour !, I help structure and guide tourism and accommodation projects from vision to delivery. Have an idea you'd like to discuss? Get in touch for a free introductory meeting.
