Rainforest Summit Condemns British Columbia's Forest Practices
9/5/96
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Date: Thu, 5 Sep 1996 17:16:38 -0700 (PDT)
From: ranmedia@ran.org (Melitta Tchaicovsky)
Subject: Internat'l groups condemn BC injustice
RAINFOREST ACTION NETWORK
For Immediate Release: September 5, 1996
Press Contacts:
Christopher Hatch-rainwood@ran.org
Mark Westlund-ranmedia@ran.org
Colleen McCrory, Valhalla Wilderness Society-vws@web.net
International Rainforest Summit Condemns
British Columbia's Democracy-Slam in Slocan Valley
Human Rights and Environmental Groups Gear Up For World-wide Boycott as
B.C. Ignores Citizens' Land Use Plan
LONDON, England - At the international summit meeting of the World
Rainforest Movement, Rainforest Action Network Executive Director
Randall Hayes charged that British Columbia's provincial government
willfully suppressed the democratic process by awarding pork-barrel
logging contracts in the Slocan Valley despite overwhelming citizen
opposition. Moreover, Hayes charged, the B.C. government acted in bad
faith on its pledge to support community forest management decisions by
refusing to adopt an ecosystem-based land use plan for the region,
prepared by the Silva Foundation, and paid for by citizens of the area.
Rather, the government granted logging giant Slocan Forest Products
permission to clear-cut the region's watershed. Ninety-seven per cent
of all Slocan Valley residents opposed logging of this sort because
local communities depend on the effected watershed for clean drinking
water.
Reacting to this situation, World Rainforest Movement member
organizations signed a declaration Wednesday, September 4, condemning
both British Columbia's failure to uphold democracy, and its logging
practices in the forests of Slocan Valley.
The declaration was short and to the point, comprising only eighty-three
words: For decades B.C. governments have gravely exploited its forest
resource with little sign of changed approach. Now the Silva Foundation
has published a land-use plan that incorporates local citizens' and
indigenous peoples' concerns in balance with logging on a sustainable
basis. The crisis in the Slocan Valley is the result of the logging
company and government's refusal to implement the Silva Plan while
simultaneously attacking the watersheds of the valley citizens. If this
continues, we the undersigned will consider a world-wide boycott of
Slocan Forest Products. Representatives of twenty-three international
environmental groups signed the declaration, including Forest Peoples
Programme (UK), Rettet den Regenwald (Germany), Bothends (Netherlands),
Third World Network (Malaysia), as well as groups and individuals from
Japan, Congo, Belgium, Sweden, Italy, Cameroon, Uruguay, Guyana, India,
Philippines, Suriname, and the United States.
"The more we find out about B.C.'s logging practices, the more we
realize the situation is worse than we thought," said RAN's Randall
Hayes, "and the government of British Columbia is only making matters
worse by ignoring the concerns of the people who live in forest
communities. What we are seeing in Slocan Valley is not only the
destruction of one of the world's rare ecosystems, but also the death
of true democracy. The B.C. government is nothing more than a clear-cut
auctioneer, and in that regard is no better than Borneo, Burma, or
Malaysia. We fight for the people there to have a voice in their own
destiny, and we'll fight for that same basic right in North America,
too."
The campaign to save the Slocan Valley is headed in B.C. by the Valhalla
Society's Colleen McCrory, a Goldman Environmental Prize-winner and
grandmother who has pledged to fight logging there, even if it means
getting herself arrested. "After twenty years of effort protecting the
watersheds and old growth forests," she said, "we're not about to sit
back and let the NDP do what previous Socred governments wouldn't dare.
When push comes to shove, the B.C. Government shows its true colors.
It'd sooner bulldoze democracy than stand in the way of its beloved
timber interests. The only people who want this logging to happen is
the logging company itself. It's making democracy a farce when all that
matters is corporate profits."