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To: "BC.ENGOs":;, BCENForestCaucus:;, Kootenay/Boundary ENGOs:;,
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From: Anne Champagne <annec@vws.org>
Subject: REVISED forests in trouble: deteriorating democracy in BC
Date: Tue, 20 Oct 1998 11:46:51 +0000
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Canada's Future Forest Alliance
P.O. Box 329, New Denver, BC, V0G 1S0
Telephone: (250)358-2333; Fax: 250-358-7950
October 20, 1998
HUMAN RIGHTS AND LAND USE DEMOCRACY DETERIORATE AS THE GOVERNMENT OF
BRITISH COLUMBIA UNLEASHES LOGGING COMPANIES ON REMAINING OLD-GROWTH FOREST
RELEASED FROM EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT PRESS ROOM, STRASBOURG, FRANCE
Clearcutting had virtually eliminated old-growth forests in a number of
Canadian provinces before the public knew anything about the devastating
impacts of clearcutting on biodiversity and water. But British Columbia's
forest is being ravaged by clearcuts in spite of the fact that the impacts
are well known and the majority of the public is protesting.
"The BC government is deliberately, wantonly, unleashing massive
environmental destruction that will push species towards extinction and
jeopardize the health and safety of human beings," says Colleen McCrory, a
founding member of Canada's Future Forest Alliance. McCrory explains that
BC is in a crisis caused by decades of clearcutting. "The logging
companies have depleted the timber supply within economic reach of their
mills. Instead of conserving timber and jobs, the BC government is turning
the corporations loose on steep slopes above communities, highways, houses
and water supplies. Claims that the logging will be done 'carefully' are
fraudulent. The government is removing environmental controls so the
companies can butcher these areas. There have been over 550 amendments to
the Forest Practices Code.
"Species like grizzly bears are doomed to disappear if this goes on," says
McCrory. "Human residents are facing a province-wide water crisis as the
logging companies clearcut the watersheds of thousands of rural British
Columbians. This is a well-known health risk. Logging and roads
contaminate drinking water with dirt and disease; clearcutting can also
reduce the quantity of available tap water. In BC, landslides caused by
clearcuts and logging roads are numerous and have killed people. As
clearcuts accumulate, flooding occurs and lives and property are at risk.
These impacts are well-known in BC and can be expected to increase to
crisis proportions."
"Reliable sources in government tell us that all significant land use
decisions are being dictated at the political level, straight from the
Premier's office," says McCrory. "Budget cuts have virtually disabled the
capacity of the Ministries of Environment and Forests to perform their
regulatory duties such as inventory, monitoring and scientific studies.
Meanwhile hundreds of millions of dollars are being funnelled to logging
corporations that are teetering because of decades of clearcutting and
overcutting.
Government sources who wish to remain unidentified say that public forest
planning may be abolished altogether. "If this happens, the public will
not be able to learn how much logging is going on and where it is going to
happen," says McCrory. "These laws, regulatory agencies and our land use
plans are not being destroyed, they are being gutted of their content. The
empty shells are used as propaganda tools to create the appearance of an
environmentally progressive province.
"The government is ignoring the most massive protests," she says. If
residents block logging roads, they are arrested and charged with criminal
contempt of court. In the Slocan Valley, the BC government is actually
suing a number of rural residents just because they were standing on the
site of a peaceful logging blockade. Slocan Forest Products, BC's largest
timber corporation, is also suing people who attended logging road protests
but did not block the road. These people were not arrested; they were
attending the protest because scientific reports had said their water was
at risk of contamination and their homes threatened by landslides.
"The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights says that
everyone has the right to freedom of conscience," says McCrory. "According
to the UN Declaration, everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful
assembly and association; and everyone has the right to a standard of
living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family.
These rights are being eroded by intimidating lawsuits. A government or a
logging company that hits protesters with a lawsuit is more sophisticated
than one that hits them with clubs, but it achieves the same results -
people are becoming afraid to attend protests, Meanwhile the legal
recourse to public review of logging plans is narrowing rapidly and may be
totally foreclosed.
"The economic crisis is no excuse for this," says McCrory. "We're dealing
with logging corporations worth billions of dollars. The Asian market
collapse is only a temporary part of the problem. The crisis is mostly
caused by clearcutting and overcutting. The government and the corporations
are bent upon liquidating the remaining old-growth forest. Canada did not
excuse Brazil for logging and burning its tropical rainforest, even though
it was a poor country that needed development." says McCrory. "So why
should we excuse environmentally brutal logging in British Columbia?"
Phone 250 358-2333 for more information.
Valhalla Wilderness Society
Box 329
New Denver, B.C. Canada V0G 1S0
phone: (250) 358-2333, fax: (250) 358-7950, e-mail: vws@vws.org
Colleen McCrory: colleenm@vws.org Erica Mallam: ericam@vws.org
Marilyn Burgoon: marilynb@vws.org Craig Pettitt: craigp@vws.org
Daniel Sherrod: daniels@vws.org Robin Sherrod: robin@vws.org
Anne Sherrod: anne@vws.org
Anne Champagne: annec@vws.org general: vws@vws.org
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