Landmark logging agreement teetering

Page 2

A so-called landmark agreement between the B.C. government and Clayoquot Sound Natives over restricted tree-harvesting in that region may be felled before it's even enacted.

The chiefs from the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council, which represents five bands on the southwest coast of Vancouver Island, will not ratify the two-year interim agreement on logging if Premier Mike Harcourt's NDP government refuses to give them any decision-making power, Tla-qui-o-aht Chief Francis Frank said.

While the deal provides Natives with an advisory role on a joint management board with the province, it will not allow them to over-rule government decision, he said.

"If the First Nations are left with the impression that it is an advisory body, we won't ratify it. It's as simple as that...There is nothing in the agreement that makes any references to it being an advisory body but that is what Premier Harcourt interpreted it to be. Unfortunately, that's not what the negotiators agreed to."

The deal, reached Dec. 10 after weeks of negotiations, agrees to establish a Central Region Board composed of representatives from the Ahousaht, Hesquiaht,

Tla-qui-o-aht, Ucluelet and Toquaht First Nations and the province. The board will oversee logging on Flores Island and in the southeast quarter of the Clayoquot River Valley.

The province will provide $250,000 this year and $500,000 for each year the agreement is in effect to train Natives in forestry standards inspection, park stewardship and other aspects of forestry management. The agreement also calls for a combined First Nations - provincial working group to develop other economic opportunities in the region such as tourism.

Forestry giant MacMillan Bloedel will be allowed to harvest up to 70,000 cubic metres of trees annually in the two-year agreement. About 60,000 cubic metres will come from trees in the Clayoquot River Valley. An additional 10,000 cubic metres could be harvested from Flores Island, but only in 1995.

There are, however, no specific cutting areas mentioned in the agreement, Frank said. The tribal council only identified areas that the board could consider for some continued forestry activity.

Although clear-cutting was virtually outlawed, the agreement will not affect the April 1993 deal allowing MacMillan Bloedel to cut trees in the sound. About 20 per cent of the sound has already been logged.

"We're not opposed to logging in general but we are concerned with any size of clear-cutting," Frank said. "

And if we can influence and change the way some companies carry out their practises, through the joint management board, we intend to do so."

But so far, the negotiations have not provided the First Nations with the feeling that their issues were being addressed seriously, Frank said.

Advisers to the premier have said the agreement is a powerful argument against the notion that all of the sound's old-growth forests must be preserved for future generations.

One adviser, who did not want his name used, told the Globe and Mail two weeks ago that environmental groups like Greenpeace and The Sierra Club, which have been protesting against logging in the sound since June, can no longer use the argument that the Natives want to preserve all the forests.

That's not very flattering for the First Nations, said Frank.

"I think (the government) would be ill-advised to thumb their noses at anyone."

The tribal council was looking to preserve 100 per cent of the river valley from loggers, he said, and the province should be more careful about how it uses Natives' interests to justify logging in the region.

"We didn't conclude negotiations on the thought that the environmentalists people had to jump on board. As far as our First Nations are concerned, we had to be a little bit more conciliatory than that."

The council has until the middle of January to ratify the deal. In the meantime, the Tla-qui-o-aht, the Ahousaht and the Hesquiaht First Nations plan to file a land claim dclaration with the B.C. Treaty Commission in mid-December.

Their claim will encompass the entire sound.