[mobglob-discuss] Working Forest: Rally Saturday

[Bella]

When: Saturday, Mar.13, 2004
Time:  12:00 to 1:00 pm
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery (Robson St. side), Vancouver

Saturday:  Environmentalists, Forestry Workers, and First Nations to
Protest the BC Government’s “Working Forest” proposal and other Forest
Privatization Initiatives

A diverse crowd of environmentalists, forestry workers, and First
Nations will protest this Saturday, Mar.13, in downtown Vancouver
against the BC government’s “Working Forest” proposal and other forestry
privatization initiatives. About one hundred people are expected to show
up. Speakers will include:

Jenny Kwan – NDP MLA
Arnold Bercov – Pulp, Paper, and Woodworkers of Canada Union (PPWC)
Chief Stewart Phillip – Union of BC Indian Chiefs (UBCIC)
Ken Wu – Western Canada Wilderness Committee (WCWC)
Gwen Barlee – WCWC
Jessica Clogg – West Coast Environmental Law Association (WCELA)
Adriane Carr – Green Party of BC leader

 There will also be some street theatre, with a 3 metre long, papier
mache mascot “Mr. Raw Log”, who will have giant glasses, a suitcase, and
a hitch-hiker’s sign “Need a Ride to USA”

Some BC government initiatives to privatize and pseudo-privatize public
forests include:

- The Working Forest Initiative, which would establish legally-binding,
guaranteed logging zones (known as “Timber Targets”) that future
protected areas on 45 million hectares, or 100% of BC’s unprotected
public forest lands. It would also streamline and expedite the process
for selling off public lands to private real estate developers by
leaving only one man, Minister of Sustainable Resource Management George
Abbott, in charge of all approvals for companies engaged in “one-stop
shopping” for Crown lands. Despite the fact that 97% of 2700 respondents
in the BC government’s own public input process opposed their Working
Forest proposal, they still plan to implement it through an “order in
council” (Cabinet decision) before June. Visit www.workingforest.org for
more info.

- The Forestry Revitalization Act, which was passed last October. It
eliminated the local milling requirements and other parts of the “social
contract” that companies once had with rural communities.

- The Forest Practices and Range Act. The new regulations have just been
announced, where logging companies can now log up to the banks of salmon
spawning streams as long as they don’t “damage fish habitat” – to be
determined through the company’s own self-policing programs - and must
no longer must make their proposed logging roads and cutblocks available
for public review.

- Raw log exports, which have increased by 300% since the Liberals took
power. One in four coastal logs are now being exported out of BC to
foreign mills – along with BC jobs.

More info:   Ken Wu, Executive Director, WCWC Victoria   (250) 388-9292