a British Columbia Unity seen around environment, jobs Continued from page 1 Clinton Webb of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee agreed with Hag- gard and told conference delegates the same people who back the WCWC’s bid to pre- serve wilderness will also back wood- workers in their fight to make companies protect jobs, keep the value-added work in the region and to take away forest licences if companies don’t comply. All this occurred in a town where nine months earlier, MacMillan Bloedel—by far the biggest employer here — sent a newslet- ter to its employees threatening to eliminate 200-1,000 jobs if various stands of old growth forest were removed from the company’s licenced cut. The threat came largely in response to the WCWC’s vigorous campaign to preserve the 6,650 hectares of old growth forest in the Carmanah Valley. (The provincial govern- ment subsequently gave MacMillan Bloedel a green light to log half of the Carmanah, a decision which the WCWC is currently fighting.) At the Tin-Wis conference, Haggard, Webb and other delegates agreed forestry management issues will not be satisfactorily resolved until the forest tenure system is reformed and communites are given greater control. John Cashore, the provincial New Democrat environment critic and one of three New Democrat MLAs who took part in the conference, called the Tin- Wis phen- omenon “one of the most hopeful processes going on in the province” and said an NDP government would promote similar under- takings in other communities. “We need enabling legislation for a more effective process that allows communities to have significant input into, and control over these. resource management decisions,” Cashore said, “We have an opportunity here to do somethng in a creative way that could other- wise be tearing us apart. We have far more binding us together than separating us.” To date, the Tin-Wis coalition has received the backing of the B.C. Federation of Labour, the New Democrats, the Com- munist Party, the Green Party, the Nuu- Chah-Nulth Tribal Council and a variety of environmental groups and trade union lo- cals. The coalition has concentrated so far on laying the groundwork for those traditional- ly disaffected and often polarized groups to come together in an atmosphere of trust — a goal quite clearly achieved at the October conference. “This will substantially alter the way we interact with each other in the future,” WCWC director Laurie Gourlay said at the end of the conference. “Tt has allowed us to move past our con- frontation and difficulties to establish new ways of relating. And it has created a mech- anism that will allow local communities to find the jobs and the solutions to environ- mental problems and to address native land claims ina way that will reverse the destruc- tive and exploitative trends of the past,” Gourlay said. The coalition’s next step will be to devise acomprehensive action strategy based on 17 recommendations arising from the confer- ence. Some of those recommendations include distributing a regular Tin-Wis column to labour, native and environmental news- papers; initiating local education on privatization, local control, the corporate threat and the fragility of biosystems; and ensuring that local inventories of natural, cultural and economic resources are carried out. . If the coalition can move beyond the talking stage to implement its action plan, and if the Tin- Wis model is exported to other communities and regions, then government and major industry may find themselves facing an irresistible force for change. Kim Goldberg is a freelance writer in Nanaimo. Tin-Wis sets action on | PORT ALBERNI—The Nuu-Chah- Nulth Tribal Council can count on support from non-Natives for the council’s land claim covering the Alberni Valley and the west coast of Vancouver Island. And that support may include blockades or other forms of direct action. This message was delivered loud and clear at the “Claiming Community Control” conference of the Tin-Wis coalition, held here October 12-14. The Tin-Wis coalition’s three-point ac- cord, which has been signed by a variety of Native, environmental and labour groups in the region, recognizes aboriginal title and calls for the immediate commencement of negotiations on land claims. in that process is you. at free prizes. distinct analysis. We need 250 new subs For the last 55 years, the Tribune has provided a unique socialist perspective on the labour and popular movements in this province and around the world. And as times change, we’re continuing to reach activists as a distinct voice of social solidarity in this province. Over the next 14 weeks we want to reach 250 new readers. The link If you’re involved in the trade union, womens, solidarity, environmental and other movements, you can help others bring out their message by introducing a copy of the Tribune to them. Between now and Feb. ie our priority will be to make our voice larger and louder. Clip out the subscription form in this issue, and send it in. We’re also offering all new readers and top sub-getters a chance It’s simple. Clip out the subscription form for someone who would really benefit from getting the Tribune, and send it in. You’ll be benefiting the paper — and providing a new reader with the Tribune’s Strike one year old for a first contract. More than 100 turned out in Comox Oct. 5 as unionists joined members of the United Food and Commercial Workers in marking one year on the picket line outside the Comox Medical Clinic. Striker Sheila Peterson was one of several speakers, including NDP MP Ray Skelly, Campbell River Labour Council president Tom Curnow (r) and the Catholic Social Justice Committee’s Cathy Shaw, who addressed the rally, urging full backing for the strikers in their bid WATTS KEITLAH At the October conference, Native and non-Native participants alike spoke of the urgency of settling land claims before the land and resource in question were further degraded. “There is now a six-mile dead zone in the Alberni Canal,” Nuu-Chah-Nulth Tribal Council co-chairman Richard Watts told conference delegates. “We can spend $3-4 million in court and -go through all kinds of crises fighting for our rights. But what good are those rights if the things we’re fighting for are no longer in existence or are so damaged or in such small numbers that we can’t really utilize them?” Watts asked. The Nuu-Chah-Nulth Tribal Council submitted its land claim to the federal government in 1980. Three years later, the government accepted the claim for negotia- tion, but to date no negotiations have begun. Conference delegates agreed that the set- tlement of Native land claims was closely connected to increasing community control over local resources and the economy — another objective of the Tin-Wis coalition. Nuu-Chah-Nulth Tribal Council co- chairman Nelson Keitlah praised the bonds of trust that the Tin-Wis process has estab- lished between Native and non-Native people in the region and said conferences like October’s “could diffuse situations like what we’ve seen at Oka and elsewhere this summer.” “The process of (Native people) gaining and. claims some proper recognition in this country has indeed been slow,” Keitlah told delegates. -“One of the most important things we’re here for is to tear down some of these bar- riers separating us. If we are going to live side by side and have any hope for the children who follow us, then we’re going to have to get down to some very serious think- ing and talking.” Some non-Native delegates said they and their groups were ready to support the Nuu- Chah-Nulth Tribal Council by joining them in blockades or other forms of direct action to spur the negotiating process. A proposal that the Tin-Wis coalition es- tablish local phone networks to quickly mo- bilize bodies for blockades and other direct action on Jand claims was one of 17 action- oriented recommendations put forward at the October conference. Another proposal called for the coalition to spearhead the formation of land claims committees in various communities within the region to bring together local govern- ments and First Nations people to begin their own negotiating process. In the weeks and months ahead, the Tin- Wis coalition will hammer out a comprehen- sive action plan and strategy based on these recommendations. “This I know,” hereditary chief Simon Lucas of the Hesquiat Band told delegates at the closing ceremony as he stood in the centre of a 130-person circle. “Mother Earth is busting at the seams because of us. Last year we planted a tiny seed,” he said, referring to the February, 1989 conference where the Tin-Wis coali- tion was formalized. “From that seed, the roots have started to spread out into the ground. Let’s keep those roots going deeper and deeper. The coming years are going to be even more important.” —K.G. -). Pacific Tribune, October 22, 1990 + 3 canna ih nn ta wt