Clayoquot refugees Continued from page ten takes out less than 75,000. MacMil- lan Bloedel was logging approxi- mately 400,000 cubic meters and its successor Weyerhaeuser has not logged.a stick of wood despite its part- nership with lisaak Forest Resources Ltd., a First Nations venture. lisaak is entitled to log between 120,000 - 130,000 cubic meters a year. live Pemberton, a former camp chairman at Kennedy Lake division, says that lisaak and Weyerhaeuser have a whole tree farm license to log under the 1995 Clayoquot Sound Scientific Panel Recommendations. “They have the whole Clayoquot portion of old TFL 44 and are the ones that are supposedly going to do something anal this date they haven't done anything,” he says. They were supposed to start log- ging in December of 1997. Now they say they will log in June or July of this year. Both Pemberton and Dziama say they will believe it when they see it. “for one reason or another, lisaak and Weyerhaeuser can’t seem to put. a business plan together,” says Dziama. To stay in the community as a Clayoquot “refugee,” Pemberton formed a small company called Clay- oquot Forest Engineering Ltd. along with partners and former Kennedy Lake members Dave Edwards and Reggie Payne. Only about 20% of their work comes from the forest industry. “FRBC is not forwarding as many projects as they used to, so there is areal struggle for us to keep work- ers working,” he says. Weyerhaeuser is doing some FRBC projects, but mostly out of Port Alberni while Interfor has shown a real commitment to dis- placed forest workers and the com- munities on the west coast, says Pemberton. _ So Pemberton and his partners have done various jobs like cartog- raphy, water pipeline projects, engi- neering, site preparations, munici- pal projects, and recreational projects like multi-use paths, trails and campgrounds, etc. Recently they have been working on a web- site for the Clayoquot Sound — one that will provide balanced informa- tion (see photo below). ¢ Local MLA Gerard Janssen, a constant supporter of workers on the west coast, recently visited a trail recre- enon yall. Left to right are Janssen, former Kennedy Lake road builder Bruce Geleynse, Len Dziama and Warren wart. Pemberton and his colleagues also design, plan, layout, adminis- ter and coordinate FRBC projects under New Forest Opportunities, employing I.W.A. members where they can (see pictures this page and opposite) and displaced forest work- ers who have bought a piece of equipment (i.e. a backhoe or a dump truck) just to stay on the west coast. Pemberton says two projects are never the same and that they are all projects that need doing. He and his partners try to complete projects that leave a legacy. When the Lumberworker visited a trail recreation site in early March, Pemberton pointed out that “this project will be here for the next 25 years. That’s the kind a project we like to get involved in.” “We don’t build regular trails, we build miniature logging roads,” he explains. “All of the concepts are exactly the same, it’s just smaller scale equipment. Former logging grade crews have a lot of transfer- able’skills that'can be used.” Pemberton hopes there will be logs coming out of the Clayoquot soon. “It’s desperately needed,” he says. “Most people who were here left the area and the people who are still here don’t have nearly enough work to keep them going the year around.” He is not entirely optimistic that logging, even under strict Scientific Panel guidelines, will occur again. “The Clayoquot Sound is an administrative nightmare to deal with to the point where adminis- tration kills any logging. The costs have become too high to do busi- ness there,” he adds. “The green groups (Friends of Clayoquot Sound, Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and the Rainforest Action Network) all want to see zero log- ging happening.” The Friends of Clayoquot Sound have launched a campaign to stop logging near the Pacific Rim Park as an effort to stop all harvesting activity in the Kennedy Lake area. Pemberton predicts that there will be conflict this summer over the issue. “There is no negotiating with them,” he says. “The word negotia- tion doesn’t apply. There’s not a reason why the green groups would want to change their standpoint, when everybody is rushing to meet them.” “Environmental groups continue to stop things while we are focused at getting people on the ground, doing the work that is forest and fish eco-system based,” says Brother Dziamaa. “Not only are loggers going out there to do their damnedest to responsibly log in a sustainable way that’s sensitive to the environ- ment, they are rolling up their sleeves and getting into the streams and scrambling up the hillsides to fix up past mistakes.” Dziama characterizes green groups as “immature and irrespon- sible” for standing on the sidelines and pointing their fingers at prob- lems, yet not participating in solu- tions. “The greens don’t like it when I.W.A. members say ‘hey wait a minute — there’s a whole other side to this — not only are we log- ging responsibly and we are going to continue to do that, as we go along, but our guys are fixing up mistakes that will never be made 5 ° Clockwise from left are ex- Kennedy Lake crew member Greg Dennis, Interfor forester Dave MacGregor, and scientist David White, brainstorming a website for the community (www.clay- oquot.org), Bruce Geleynse with loader on a local FRBC project anda sample of variable reten- tion cedar harvesting near Kennedy Lake, done by Interfor. | 2a LUMBERWORKER/APRIL, 2000/11