by Art Joyce
In the wake of the worst forest fire season in more than 50 years, BC families are understandably preoccupied with more immediate concerns than government policy. Yet massive changes by the BC Liberals to forest legislation could devastate BC’s forests far worse than any wildfires.
In the fall sitting of the BC Legislature, the Liberal government plans to fast-track the ‘Working Forest’ legislation. All 45 million hectares of public lands and forests outside provincial parks will be legally designated the ‘Working Forest land base,’ with resource extraction the mandated priority.
The concept of Crown Land – lands held and managed in the public trust – will effectively cease to exist. The goal? According to the government’s Working Forest discussion paper, to “increase certainty on the land base for the forest sector and other users.”
But greater certainty against what? Shifting world lumber markets? Softwood lumber disputes? Not likely. For years now the BC timber industry has claimed its number one problem has been supply, despite a system of guaranteed annual allowable cuts (AACs). Under the Working Forest, permanent logging zones will have the legislative teeth to “minimize their shift to other uses.” Minister of Sustainable Resource Management Stan Hagen insists existing provincial parks won’t be affected by the Working Forest. But the real struggle will be in the creation of any new provincial parks, fish and wildlife habitats, protected drinking watersheds, or legislated scenic viewscapes.
The government claims they have no intention of selling off our public lands. Yet proposed changes by the BC Liberals to the Land Act under the Working Forest Initiative are designed to eliminate several of the steps currently involved in the process of selling Crown Land. The BC Government plans to null the effectiveness of one of two pieces of legislation that currently obstruct the sale of Crown forests for forestry purposes. As the legislation stands, Crown Land can be sold for logging and then real estate developments, but not for logging alone. However, the current Provincial Forest designation will be eliminated, to be replaced by the new Working Forest designation. This means the Forest Act, which only applies to the Provincial forest, will no longer obstruct the sale of Crown for est lands. The Land Act will remain the sole obstruction to selling public lands—for now.
“Why eliminate the legal barriers to selling off Crown forests for logging if you have no intention of actually selling them off?” says Western Canada Wilderness Committee executive director Ken Wu. “This is clearly leading to an outright privatization scheme of our public lands and forests.”
When the government called for public input on the Working Forest on its website, it got quite a shock. Literally 97% of a total 2700 submissions from the public oppose the policy. An independent report by Daryl Brown Associates commissioned by Hagen’s office only drove the point home.
“The general public, First Nations, environmental organizations, recreation interests, and some community interests strongly opposed the Working Forest Initiative,” states the report. “Only a handful of general public respondents voiced their support.”
Yet this has failed to dissuade the Liberals from going ahead with the legislation. Hagen has been on a whistle-stop tour of small towns in BC, hosting meetings on the Working Forest. Criticism from tourism, ecotourism, agricultural, mining, and other sectors who feel the policy ignores their interests prompted a name change to the ‘Working Landscape.’ But the change seems purely cosmetic.
The ‘open for business’ BC Liberals have fallen for the old Fraser Institute chestnut that businesses should be left to operate with minimum interference from government. The Working Forest discussion paper repeatedly stresses that monitoring of timber harvesting “will be done in partnership with the private sector.” At the same time, the Ministry of Forests has been stripped of its human and legislative resources to oversee logging activities, leaving logging corporations with a virtually free hand in the forest.
Bill 46, the Working Forest enabling legislation, will give Cabinet ministers unprecedented powers to allocate land use by orders-in-council, with no real public scrutiny or input. The Brown report reflects widespread concern this will lead to “loss of government control to manage Crown forest land in the broader and longer-term public interest on a sustainable basis.”
First Nations interests fare no better on the Working Landscape. The government says the policy “will not limit negotiations with First Nations in the treaty process… addressing aboriginal interests (as) a clear priority.” Yet the legislation reveals a clear bias toward corporate interests. Treaty negotiations will thus be even more convoluted and expensive to resolve. All of this ignores the fact that, in the absence of treaties, First Nations lands in BC have never legally been ceded to the Crown in the first place. A press release dated January 24, 2003 from the Union of BC Indian Chiefs makes their position crystal clear:
“Not so fast, Stan! Be advised that every stick, stump and tree within your so-called Working Forest legislative proposal is fully subject to First Nations unextinguished aboriginal title interests,” stated UBCIC President Chief Stewart Phillip. “Court decision after court decision has clearly affirmed and supported First Nations’ aboriginal right to fair and equitable access to natural resources within our traditional territories.”
The Liberals can’t blame environmental groups for crying wolf while offering no alternatives. The Coalition for Sustainable Forest Solutions, spearheaded by West Coast Environmental Law and the Dogwood Initiative, has drafted the Forest Solutions for Sustainable Communities Act. The proposed Act is nothing less than a sweeping, inclusive new vision of how we use the forest. It drafts a blueprint for a “new social contract,” based on, among other things:
1) Redistribution of the majority of tenure to First Nations and local communities;
2) A ban on raw log exports to ensure all logs cut in BC are processed here; and,
3) Regional log markets through which at least 50% of regionally cut logs must flow. Revisions to log market rules would require logs to be sorted and offered in lot sizes suited to the needs of local value-added processors.
The government of BC, the proposed Act notes, “must develop new mechanisms to share resource decision-making with First Nations, including… determination of annual allowable cut, tenure allocation and land use planning.” Most importantly, it promotes a management system with the long-term health of BC’s forest ecosystems as the ultimate goal.
The Working Forest is being sold to “working families” across the province as providing greater job stability in the forest industry by ensuring access to timber supply. But it’s a hollow claim. Under the BC Liberals’ Forest Revitalization Act, local milling requirements were eliminated on May 30. Critics of the policy see this as nothing more than a prelude to continued easing of restrictions on raw log exports. This is devastating news for communities already reeling from the effects of the US softwood lumber dispute.
“MLA’s… can give in to corporate control and elimination of thousands of rural jobs,” said Smithers Town Councillor Marilyn Stewart, “or they can set a new progressive social contract that creates rural jobs and improves sustainability. Voters will remember this moment.”
“While there can be no doubt the Liberals control the House,” writes Mark Hume in the Globe & Mail Tuesday, October 7, “the big question is, do they have any respect for the people who really own it? In this case, the message couldn’t be clearer: 97 percent say no to the Working Forest Initiative. The Liberals should listen up and shelve the bill.”
“What we need right now is an all-out fight, MLA by MLA, if we’re going to stop the Working Forest Initiative,” adds Wu.
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Art Joyce is a freelance journalist with more than a decade of experience writing for regional newspapers and magazines in the Kootenays and Victoria, BC. He is the author of two books on the local history of Nelson, BC, A Perfect Childhood, and Hanging Fire & Heavy Horses.
[From WS November/December 2003]
