[news] Clayoquot First Nation Evicts Interfor

[resist]

http://www.alternatives.com/prms/2003/focs0728.pdf

July 28, 2003
For Immediate Release

CLAYOQUOT FIRST NATION EVICTS INTERFOR

Tofino, BC -- The Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations have issued a notice of
eviction to International Forest Products (Interfor), informing the
logging company to leave their traditional territory in Clayoquot Sound.

"We've had enough," said Chief Moses Martin of the Tla-o-qui-aht. "This
logging tenure was given out decades ago without our consent, and
Interfor and the government continue to operate without meaningfully
accommodating our interests. Distant corporations will only ever pay lip
service to  sustainability and  ensuring long-term jobs and benefits for
local communities. The only real solution is for us to manage the tenure
ourselves."

Recently the Ministry of Forests approved a 10-year forest development
plan by Interfor for 19,000 logging trucks worth of wood, ignoring the
rejection of the plan by the Clayoquot Sound Central Region Board. The
Board, a local body established under an interim measures agreement
between the Clayoquot Sound Hereditary Chiefs and the Province in 1994,
proposed changes to the plan that Interfor refused to make. "This
unresponsive attitude makes a mockery of the Board and the agreement we
signed in 1994," said Chief Martin. 

The eviction notice, addressed to Ric Slaco, Interfor's Chief Forester,
states:

"Effective immediately, you will cease and discontinue all activities
associated with forestry operations within Tla-o-qui-aht Territory,
including all engineering, road lay out, road building and forest
harvesting.

The Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations demand control over how the forest
resources within our traditional territory, as well as all other
resources, are managed to enable our people to achieve our goals now and
in the future. We will negotiate with the Province of British Columbia
in support of transferring control of Tree Farm License 54.

We will explore our full range of options to vigorously defend our
Aboriginal rights and title against infringements related to the
alienation of resources from our traditional territory."

The eviction notice comes just weeks before a major gathering in Tofino
on August 9 marking the 10-year anniversary of the Clayoquot protests
that put BC in the international spotlight for bad forest practices.

For more information contact Chief Moses Martin, 250-726-8418 
or Councillor Simon Tom, at 250-731-9154