Vancouver Island land use plan: IWA

vows to hold government t

After a year-and-a-half of debate
and consultation with industry,
union, communities and environ-
mentalists, the B.C. Government
announced its final decision on a
land-use plan for Vancouver Island.
The decision, which was the Goy-
ernment’s eae to a report pre-
parce by CORE Commissioner

itephen Owen, ends months of un-
certainty and protest over the fu-
ture of logging on Vancouver Island.

In responding to the June 22 an-
nouncement, the IWA-Canada
stressed that the decision was far
from perfect. In interviews follow-
ing the announcement, president
Gerry Stoney said “The decision im-
poses compromise and will mean
additional hardship for woodwork-
ers. If it is to have any value,”
Stoney added, “the Government has
to deliver on three essential points.”

° Premier Harcourt must make
good on his promise that any IWA
members who lose employment as a
result of a land-use decision like
Las one will be guaranteed a new
job.

© The land-use plan on Vancou-
ver Island must bring an end to the
illegitimate and disruptive attacks
on forest workers and their jobs.
Logging road blockades and inter-
national boycott campaigns must
stop.

¢ In areas designated for logging,
especially those areas previously
classified as Regionally Significant
Lands, Government ministries must
immediately undo the bureaucratic
gridlock and allow logging to pro-
ceed this year.

Stoney noted that “it’s too soon to
tell whether the Government plan
can meet these requirements, but
our Union will be counting every job
to ensure that the essentials are
met in all cases.”

Stoney, speaking from a prepared
statement reviewed by the Provin-

cial Negotiating Committee, pointed
out that among the few benefits of
the plan are:

° Creation of a new Forest Land
Reserve which will include private
and Crown forest lands on which
harvesting is permitted, subject to
the new Forest practices Code;

° The scrapping of B.C. Commis-
sion on Resources and Environment
head Stephen Owen’s proposal for
“Regionally Significant Lands” in
addition to the 13% of the Island he
slated for protection. Harcourt stat-
ed that those lands will now be in-
cluded in the Forest Land Reserve
and timber harvesting will proceed
on them. As well, the Premier
promised that the new B.C. Forest
Renewal Plan will create jobs to re-
place those lost as a result of new
park development.

On that score, Stoney said the
new work must consist of “perma-
nent, high-quality, well-paid union
jobs in forest communities,” not
make-work jobs, and “forest compa-
nies must ensure that the planned
forest rehabilitation and intensive
silviculture work becomes a legiti-
mate and important part of their
on-going operations.”

Harcourt estimated job loss as a
result of the plan at 50 in the first
year, and up to 900 over five years.
He claims the Forest Renewal B.C.
will create some 1,000 new jobs.
“We'll have to watch and wait for
them to deliver on that promise,”
Stoney cautions. “They can be ab-
solutely sure that we’re going to
hold them to their promises — not
just on Vancouver Island, but right
across the province.”

Stoney reiterated that “For the
decision to have lasting value and
durability, it must:

° end the “war in the woods” on
Vancouver Island,

e guarantee new jobs to the peo-
ple affected by land-use decisions,

woe Er

0 its word

e Island plan will cause direct job loss. Alternate employment will be of-
fered says government.

° make the valley-by-valley con-
flicts a thing of the past,

e stop the boycott campaigns in
Europe, California and elsewhere,

© secure the future of forest com-
munities across the entire province.

The Government’s decision in-
cludes:

° 23 new protected areas covering
13% of Vancouver Island and in-
cluding such hotly contested areas
as the Upper Carmanah, Walbran,
Tahsish-Kwois and Tsitika;

° commitment of an immediate
$52 million from Forest Renewal
B.C. towards forest rehabilitation
and logging road reclamation;

e the Forest Land Reserve, which
will be comprised of commercial
forests on Crown land and privately

managed forest lands — mainly for-
mer E&N land-grant lands held by
major forest companies — including
“low-intensity” forest lands, which
were the “Regionally Significant
Lands” proposed by Owen, but
which will be available for harvest-
ing;

° anew Forest Jobs Commission-
er, assigned to help laid-off workers
find new jobs in the forest sector
and obtain needed training;

° creation of three community
skills centres, whose aim will be to
provide upgrading to at least 2,000
workers a year;

° a commitment that eight study
areas where logging had been sus-
pended, will be immediately re-
turned to commercial forestry.

Kootenay CORE
talks finish up

by Kim Pollock
Director Environment and
Land Use Department

Two more provincial-land-use
processes have ended inconclusively.

The East Kootenay and West Koote-
nay regional round tables of the B.C.
Commission on Resources and Envi-
ronment both wound up recently
without reaching agreement on a
Jand-use plan.

Both will now submit reports to
CORE commissioner Stephen Owen
who will submit to Cabinet recom-
mendations toward regional Jand-use
policies for the Kootenay-Boundary
region.

In West Kootenay the process end-
ed with the stakeholder groups far
from agreement on land use designa-
tions. So-called “benchmarks” or al-
ternative maps were produced that
would reduce the regional annual al-
lowable cut by 700,000 and 1.2 million
cubic meters, respectively, on top of
the effects of the new Forest Prac-
tices Code and the province’s Timber
Supply Review process. In combina-
tion with the Code and TSR, these
proposals would reduce direct forest
industry employment by about 840
and 1,810 respectively.

“Neither scenario is acceptable,”
says IWA-CANADA third vice-presi-
dent Warren Ulley, who represented
forestry workers at the talks.

LUMBERWORKER/JUNE, 1994/3