[van-announce] Cheam prepares to defend unceded territory from development and logging

[Calvin Woida]

***PLEASE FORWARD AS WIDELY AS POSSIBLE***
(apologies for cross-postings)



The message below is lengthy, but please read it to get a complete picture 
of the situation which the Cheam Nation has been having to deal with from 
greedy and rapacious governments and corporations.

If you are lucky enough to still have a decent-paying job, seriously 
consider making a donation to the Cheam (the needed information is below).

If you have more time than money, as well as building skills, the Cheam need 
your help to build cabins, as well as help with their direct actions against 
the developers and logging companies (no experience or skills required for 
that!).

There can be no justice for us who are not indigenous, as long as we allow 
this type of colonialism to exist.


NO JUSTICE ON STOLEN NATIVE LAND!



>Logging and Ski Resort Development Threaten Pilalt Territory
>(see further below for background information)
>
>Efforts to protect the mountains and forests continue here at Cheam.  Last
>  night at a ‘consultation’ meeting the people from Resorts West were told,
>in  no uncertain terms, that the people of Cheam will not tolerate any
>development on our mountains.
>
>
>YOUR HELP IS NEEDED
>
>In response to June Quipp’s press release regarding the development of Mt.
>  Cheam, we have been asked what one can do to help.  Here are some
>suggestions of possible help:
>
>-	Financial support is needed, as we are working with a zero balance 
>budget.
>   Donations will be accepted at Royal Bank #23 6014 Vedder Rd. Chilliwack,
>V2R 5M4 transit 1420 Account # 5000971
>-	People power with any direct action necessary to stop the development of
>  the mountains and surrounding foothills.
>-	People power to help build some cabins on the mountains to assist us in
>reclaiming our territory.
>-	Tools and knowledge required to build cabins.
>-	Non perishable food
>-	Research and expose Catermole Timber, and Resorts West
>-	Help to educate and inform yourself and others. Read the background
>information below    and Check out these web sites:
>-	www.elkcreekrainforest.org
>-	www.wildernesscommittee.org
>-	www.elpmedia.com.offline/resorts
>
>
>CONACTS:
>
>June Quipp @ 604 794-5715, junequipp at hotmail.com from Cheam
>Gabrielle Friesen @ 604 823-6454 and Mr. C Marvin 604 794-7454 from Elk
>Creek Conservation
>Joe Foy – Western Canada Wilderness Committee (604) 880-2580
>
>Letters can be written to:
>
>Resorts West				resortswestbc at yahoo.com
>
>     12473 - 71A Ave. Surrey, B.C.  V3W 0T9
>
>Cattermole Timber			                420-1055 Hastings St. W
>		                          		Vancouver BC
>					(604) 685-7200
>
>Robert Nault				Fax No. (819) 953-4941
>Minister of Indian Affairs
>
>David Anderson
>Minister of the Environment	10 Wellington St., 28th Floor
>Hull, Quebec, K1A 0H3
>(819) 997-1441
>(819) 953-3457 (fax)
>david.anderson at ec.gc.ca
>
>Hon. Stan Hagen				PO Box 9054
>Minister Sustainable			Stn PROV GOVT
>Resource Management			Victoria BC V8W 9E2
>						Fax: 250 356-8273
>
>Mr. Kerry Grozier			46360 Airport Rd.
>Ministry of Forests			Chilliwack BC V2P 1A5
>Chilliwack Forest District			Fax: 604 702-5711
>
>Mr. Brian Clark
>Regional Manager, 			2nd flr, 10470 152nd St.
>Environmental Stewardship		Surrey, BC V3R 0Y3
>Ministry of Water, Land &		Fax: 604 582-5380
>Air Protection
>
>Mr. Barry Penner			#105-8615 Young Road
>MLA					Chilliwack BC V2P 4P3
>							Fax: 604 702-5205
>
>	      Mayor Clint Hames and			8550 Young Road
>	      Councilors				Chilliwack BC V2P 8A4
>							Fax: 604 795-8443
>
>
>
>
>
>See also www.elkcreekconservation.org and www.wildernesscommittee.com
>where  sample letters can be found
>
>
>
>Save the Mountains
>Unceded Pilalt Territory Threatened by Development
>
>Aboriginal Title and Self-Determination
>
>For almost 50 years members of the Cheam First Nations have been trying to
>  convince various levels of government to settle outstanding land claims.
>  Many people do not realize that prior to that it was illegal for
>aboriginals  to lay claim to any of our ancestral lands.  Our rights and
>our land were  taken from us.  Since 1953 we have been patiently and
>peacefully trying to  find a solution.
>
>As Indigenous people, we have inherent rights to our traditional
>territories, including the whole circle of life, from the trees, to the
>water, the fish and the animals. Our rights stem from our use and
>possession  of the land as warranted in our own legal and social systems
>since time  immemorial.
>
>After long judicial struggles, the courts recognized our rights to the
>land  and water. The Supreme Court of Canada recognized Aboriginal Title
>in the  1997 Delgamuukw Decision as the collective proprietary interest
>indigenous  peoples hold in their traditional territories. Our rights
>include control of  resources sufficient to support and direct our lives
>and communities.
>
>In spite of this, the provincial government of British Columbia continues
>to  steal our land through legislation and Cabinet decisions.  While
>private  corporations are given privileges to log vast areas of forest,
>and to  commercially harvest salmon on a massive scale, they continue to
>ignore any  rights the Cheam people have to the land and resources that
>have been part  of our lives and our ancestors’ long before the arrival of
>European  settlers.  We have never ceded our territory, never signed any
>treaties,  never diminished our claim to our land.
>
>The United Nations has recognized that indigenous people have the
>inalienable right to self-determination, including the right to sustain
>and  protect their culture. As a central part of our traditional and
>spiritual  life, water, mountains and forests are elemental in the
>protection of these  rights. Yet these rights are not a priority for the
>Canadian government.  They have allowed our title and rights, and the
>knowledge about
>sustainability, to be undermined by poor provincial management that bows
>to  corporate pressure, and international trade agreements that do not
>recognize  our claims to resources in the protection of our culture.
>
>Cheam leaders, over the years, have tried in good faith to settle these
>differences in a peaceful and reasonable manner, with no success.  In the
>meantime, the provincial government continues to take as much land as
>possible, while delaying meaningful resolution of any land & resource
>issues  at the table.  We have tried negotiations, litigation and written
>notices,  so far none of these tactics have worked.  It does not matter
>what we say,  governments, and big corporations go ahead and do what they
>want even if it  means destroying someone else’s life. No other Canadian
>citizen would stand  idly by while land was stolen from them.  Why should
>we?
>
>
>Over the years we at Cheam have become well know for our struggle to gain
>recognition of our rights to fish for salmon on the Fraser.  In addition
>to  this, and other ongoing struggles, we are currently facing an assault
>on the  Mountains that are sacred for us.  Against our strong objection,
>logging has  already started at Elk Creek and plans for a ski resort on
>the mountain are  well underway.  Because of the strength of our claim to
>aboriginal title,  our position is that our actual consent is needed for
>any such projects to  proceed.  Our position links directly to the issues
>of our title to the  land, our unique relationship with the resources on
>our land, and our right  to determine the use of our land and resources.
>
>
>Cheam Connection to the Mountains and Forests
>
>The old-growth temperate rainforest of the Elk Creek and adjacent
>watersheds  is a remnant of an ecosystem that was, until fairly recently,
>wide-spread  throughout Pilalt Territory.  Now the Elk Creek Rainforest is
>one of the  last remaining mostly intact examples of this forest type in
>the Lower  Mainland.  These areas, their forests, mountains and waters,
>have been a  part of our Pilalt territory and culture since time
>immemorial.  They  continue to be a source for gathering plants and
>berries for food and  medicinal purposes, and for hunting mountain goat,
>deer and elk.  Our life,  and everyone else’s, depends on the food and
>materials that come from the  land.
>
>To this day, the mountains (including Elk, Archibald and Cheam) are used
>as  sacred mountains for vision questing, fasts and other spiritual
>practices.   Mount Cheam and the surrounding peaks also have Halq’emeylem
>place names  that correspond to their roles as ‘transformer’ sites – a key
>part of our  origin story - where spirits interacted with the physical
>world, turning  certain people and animals into stone formations.  Place
>names in the  Halq'eméylem language mark an important relationship to the
>land.  Halq'eméylem place names give the land a voice through the meaning
>of the  names and the stories that are associated with them.  As one of
>our late  elders said “the mountains are our leaders, the mountains are
>our idols, the  mountains are our source of food, medicine and
>communication, a place for us  to pray, and a place of teaching and
>learning.”
>
>From these forests we have traditionally utilized the wood and bark of the
>  cedar –our sacred tree.   Recently, archaeologist  D.Shceape conducted a
>field trip during which a dozen bark-stripped western red-cedars were
>found  along the banks of Elk Creek.  These trees are physical evidence of
>  sustainable use of these forests by Sto:lo First Nations.  Three of these
>  trees, known as Culturally Modified Trees, are located in Cut Block 101a
>scheduled for partial cutting.
>
>Elk Creek is also documented as an ethnographic heritage site and a
>Halq’emeylem place name exists for Elk Creek Falls – ‘Skwikwetstel’
>meaning  ‘cut fish.’  This likely refers to the availability of exposed
>slate  outcrops in the area.  For over 3,000 years pre-contact the Sto;lo
>manufactured slate knives that were used exclusively for cutting fish.  It
>  is possible that this site contains a pre-contact slate quarry.   There
>is  also community based knowledge, including contemporary traditional
>activity,  which attests to an ancient travel, trade and communication
>route and camp  site in the area and along the surrounding ridges.
>
>Current development plans put all this spiritual, historical, cultural,
>and  practical connection to the land at risk, and consequently put us,
>our way  of life and our means of sustenance in jeopardy.  In our lives it
>is not the  cycles of the economy that determine our prosperity but rather
>our fortunes  wax and wane with the cycles of the land and the river.  We
>depend directly  on the natural bounty for our survival.
>
>
>Development plans in our Backyard
>
>We are now facing an onslaught of attacks on our title to the land and our
>  way of life in the form of development plans being approved, against our
>will, in our own backyard – on our unceded territory. There are currently
>nine cut blocks in the Ministry of Forests’ "five year plan" which
>threaten  to destroy the ecological integrity of the Elk Creek Rainforest.
>  In spite  of strong objections from us and other local residents,
>Cattermole Timber  Co. has already begun felling in one old-growth
>cut-block in Elk Creek -  home to Western Red Cedars and 300 foot tall
>Douglas firs that are many  centuries old.
>
>The extra-ordinary biological diversity of the interconnected web of life
>found in this forest includes old-growth trees and their unique
>assemblages  of mosses, lichens, birds and invertebrates, and several
>endangered plant  and animal species.  The Elk Creek watershed is known to
>support populations  of Pacific giant salamander, Pacific water shrew,
>mountain beaver and Keen's  long-eared bat; these four are all red-listed
>species.  Significant  vegetation present includes angled bittercress,
>pacific waterleaf, Fendler's  waterleaf, leafy mitrewort and tall bugbane.
>The latter specie was thought  to be locally extinct in B.C.  This type of
>forest is also habitat for the  disappearing spotted owl and the Harlequin
>duck.
>
>In addition, Elk Creek is home to many significant fish species including
>Chum and Coho salmon and Cutthroat trout. The Coho salmon are believed to
>be  a genetically unique stock that spawns in the winter. The lower
>reaches of  Elk Creek provide important spawning habitat for these fish
>which are our  primary source of food and employment.  Activities anywhere
>above the  spawning beds can adversely affect the stream below and
>compromise the  fishes’ ability to reproduce.
>
>Forests play a key role in regulating water flow and temperature.  When
>the  trees aren’t there to absorb and slowly release moisture, rains
>run-off  rapidly causing unusually high flow rates followed by parched
>stream beds.   An increased volume of water combined with decreased soil
>stability means  high levels of silt that can inundate spawning habitat.
>Logging removes  shade and can lead to significant fluctuations in
>dissolved oxygen levels  and high water temperatures which further degrade
>fish habitat.
>
>This threat to our water quality and our river’s ability to support fish
>is  an assault on our ability to sustain ourselves and a desecration of
>our most  sacred treasures.  To us water is life. It is our greatest gift
>from the  Pilalt ancestors. We celebrate it in our families, in our
>communities, and  in our daily lives. Water is one of the foundations of
>our traditions and  our survival as Pilalt people.
>
>On the ridge directly above these cut-blocks, and on the surrounding
>peaks,  Resorts West is planning to develop a massive elite ski resort.
>The plans,  if completed, will bring 20 ski lifts on 8 peaks, three resort
>villages, a  golf course, retirement community, condos, and over 400,000
>people each year  to our backyard.  These developments will displace our
>traditional  activities, dominate our sacred mountains, ruin our berry
>patches and  hunting grounds, and compromise our ability to reach a
>satisfactory  settlement that recognizes our title to our land.  It will
>threaten our  capacity to sustain ourselves and our communities, our
>traditions and way of  life and will erode our potential for
>self-determination.
>
>
>We Need Action
>
>Because of the strength of our claim to aboriginal title, our position is
>that our actual consent is needed for any such projects to proceed.  Our
>position links directly to the issues of our title to the land, our unique
>  relationship with the resources on our land, and our right to determine
>the  use of our land and resources.
>
>We, some of the people and Elders of Cheam, have been voicing concerns
>over  the development of the ski resort and logging within the Pilalt
>Territory.   At a recent Band meeting, with about 20 members in
>attendance, there was  near unanimous agreement that there should be no
>logging and no ski resort –  no development of our mountains.  These
>concerns have fallen on deaf ears. We cannot sit back any longer and allow
>these developments to proceed.
>
>We have tried negotiations, litigation and written notices so far none of
>these tactics have worked.  It does not matter what we say, governments,
>and  big corporations go ahead and do what they want even if it means
>destroying  someone else’s life.  This attitude leaves us no other
>alternative than to  take action to protect what is rightfully ours. This
>shameful theft by  governments and corporations has to stop.

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