PORT HARDY -- B.C.'s Central Coast, a region the size of western Europe long caught up in First Nations land claims and environmentalist boycott campaigns, is one step closer to getting its economic engine firing on all cylinders again.

A meeting Wednesday brought together 17 diverse interest groups that function in the region.

Environmentalists, miners, forestry companies, local and provincial government, tourism and First Nations have been sitting down together for years to deal with Central Coast issues.

And on Wednesday two letters of understanding were signed with two First Nations groups, which represent most of the First Nations on the Central Coast, to complete their land-use plans for their territories by the end of the year, in time for government-to-government talks between the province and the First Nations to deal with jurisdictional issues.

(A third First Nations group, which has been keeping the completion table updated on its plans, is conducting its own talks with Victoria.)

The government-to-government round is scheduled to be completed by March 31, 2004, with the assumption that a comprehensive land-use and resource management plan for the area will be in place the following day.

"We think this is going to lead to certainty," says Jon O'Riordan, deputy to minister Stan Hagen in the Ministry of Sustainable Resource Development.

"The land-use plan will say where you can do business and where you can't do business and under what conditions, and that will provide certainty -- you won't be having to worry about that.

"It will provide certainty that the First Nations will not challenge that because they'll be part of the solution, so there'll be no legal challenges, which have been bedevilling investors over the years."