New Battle in British Columbia's Woods Wars
7/16/97
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New Battle in B.C.'s Woods War
Wed Jul 16 1997
NEW DENVER, British Columbia, Canada, July 16, 1997 (ENS) - More than one
hundred people gathered in New Denver Monday and again on Tuesday blocked
a logging road into the New Denver Flats area of the Slocan Valley. An
equal number of people blocked another road at Perry Ridge, a highly
contentious domestic watershed in the south end of the Slocan Valley.
The Slocan Valley is a fertile strip tucked into the mountainous southern
interior of British Columbia.
"We have extremely sensitive watersheds in the Slocan Valley because of
the very steep valley walls and wet, unstable soils," said Colleen
McCrory, chair of the Valhalla Wilderness Society (VWS). "The government
has declared its intent to log every one of them, in spite of
foreknowledge that this will ruin people's drinking water and bring
destructive landslides down on roads and into creeks," she stated.
Logging was held off waiting for the decision of the B.C. Supreme Court on
the lawsuit brought by the VWS against the B.C. government and Slocan
Forest Products. That ruling late last week triggered the logging trucks
and brought out the demonstrators on yet another battleground in B.C.'s
war in the woods.
The Society asked the court to invalidate Slocan's permit to log New
Denver Flats and require the government to set up a community resource
board that was promised during the CORE process and in the government's
Land Use Plan.
Such a board was to provide advice for implementation of the Special
Management area designated in the Slocan Valley. But Justice Ray Paris
ruled that promises made under the Land Use Plan would have to be
legislated to be enforced.
The decision appears to have concluded that the mandate and authority of
the Ministry of Environment, Lands, and Parks is, in fact, non-existent.
"...the Minister acting under the Land Act has no administrative power
over lands in Provincial forests.... Only the Minister of Forests has that
power," Justice Paris wrote.
Anne Sherrod, one of the directors of the Valhalla Wilderness Society, was
bitterly disappointed by the ruling. "We have nothing to which to appeal,
except to the conscience of the government - and it appears to have none,"
she mourned.
The second major issue in the court case was the status of provincial
Watershed Reserves created in the 1970s. The government argued that the
Ministry of Forests has jurisdiction over the reserves and that they can
be logged. Counsel for the Valhalla Wilderness Society contended that the
Ministry of Lands has jurisdiction and that they were not to be logged.
Justice Paris ruled in the government's favour.
This decision has implications for approximately 200 watersheds all across
the province. These reserves act as catchments for rainwater and provide
drinking water for small rural agricultural and resort communities.
New Denver Flats and Perry Ridge residents and several other communities
in the valley are feeling a threat their domestic and agricultural water
supplies, according to the Slocan Valley Watershed Alliance (SVWA), a
group that has worked for 15 years to protect consumptive use watersheds.
"Water users have a right to be recognized as stakeholders in planning
decisions that affect their water supplies," said Richard Allin, a
director of the SVWA. "We have motions from village councils and petitions
signed by 90% of residents In the valley, communities are demanding that
government recognize this right, "said Allin, "but the response has been
to issue road and cutting permits over massive public objection."
Most residents in the valley depend on small creeks for their domestic and
agricultural water supplies. These fragile creeks have their headwaters
atop steep valley walls and are not protected under the Forest Practices
Code which allows logging right up to the stream edges and on very steep,
wet slopes, says the SVWA. "Our water comes from the forest, and to
protect our water we must protect the forest," said Allin.
The SVWA has been pushing government to adopt an ecosystem-based approach
to forest planning which establishes ecologically-responsible logging
standards and requires that maximum value be extracted from each tree cut.
The SVWA has worked with the Slocan Valley-based Silva Forest Foundation
to develop such a plan, but thus far government has refused to take this
alternative logging plan seriously.
"Although there are some significant efforts underway to improve forest
management," said Allin, "we're worried we won't get the benefits of these
improvements. Logging plans have been submitted for virtually every
watershed in the valley."
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