° The “Great Bear Rainforest” will see the loss of hundreds of IWA. jobs on the central coast and greater uncertainty.

Coastal IWA membership hit
hard with land-use decision

n April 4 more bad news hit

already suffering union mem-

bers in B.C. logging and
sawmilling operations when the
provincial government announced
an accord that sets aside huge areas
of forest land taken directly out of
the working forest.

On the mid-Coast region of the
province, forest companies, environ-
mentalist, First Nations and others,
have cut a deal to set aside large
forested areas forever. Over 600,000
hectares may be permanently pre-
served in protected areas and an
additional 536,000 hectares are to
be deferred for 12-18 months while
studies determine whether they will
be open to logging or preserved.

The vast central coast region
stretches from just north of Bute
Inlet in the south, on northwest to
‘Tweedsmuir Park and from Princess
Royal Island in the northwest over
to the Kitlope and Tweedsmuir Park
boundaries.

On Princess Royal Island alone,
over 96,000 hectares are to be set
aside to protect the Kermode brown
bear, the poster animal used for
environmental groups’ anti-logging
campaigns.

Forest companies, reacting to the
collapse of international markets
for western hemlock and growing
environmental boycotts, hope to
walk away from their license obliga-
tions with millions of dollars in com-
pensation. ry

Environmentalists are claiming
victory in the battle for the so-called
“Great Bear Rainforest,” a term
which has been coined for an area
exceeding 48,000 square kilometres
and greater than the size of Van-
couver Island.

But for workers the pain will be
immediate and real.

“Once again loggers and millwork-
ers have been the ones to get the
short end of the stick,” says national
I.W.A. president Dave are aa C
“Bveryone went to the LRMP table
with something to gain but the work-
ers. The companies got compensa-
tion, the green groups claim victory
and the workers get hung out to

”
Oy W.A. Canada has done its best
to assist members dealing with the
impact of the plan, noted Haggard.

‘e termed to so-called “mitiga-
tion-transition plant negotiated by
the union “good but not era

Under ihe terms of the plan,
announced on the eve of a provin-
cial Bleaton Dy, B.C. Forests Minis-
ter Gordon Wilson, industry and
government will create a trust fund
of up to $55 million for workers hit
by. ase lan. %

I.W.A. national second vice presi-
dent Harvey Arcand, will be one of
four plan trustees, along with repre-

sentatives of contractors, industry
and government.

“We expect to play a primary role
in delivering the funds because we
know our members best and we can
minimize bureaucracy and over-
head costs,” he said.

Arcand says it’s “too early to say
exactly what measures will be taken
to deal with job loss, but he sug-
gested that early retirement and
severance packages, as well as more
apprenticeships, will likely play an
important role.

“The bottom line is that we want
as many of our members as possible
to land whole with dignity. Nothing
else really matters.”

International Forest Products
estimates that there will be direct
job losses of 220 workers in its
sawmills and dryland sorts alone.
On April 18 it announced the clo-
sure of its Fraser Mills sawmill and
foisted blame on the provincial gov-
ernment (see story below).

Western Forest Products, which
has seen half of its logging crews
out of work since last Spring, claims
direct logging job losses in the 150
person range while Weyerhaeuser,
one of the main drivers of the accord,
stands to lose 23 jobs.

Over 1,000 spin-off jobs are to be
lost in the processing end and that
number could grow higher.

Overall there could be as many as
800 direct jobs lost in the camps
and in mills. Other Interfor mills in
the Lower Mainland and
Doman/Western sawmills on Van-
couver Island will also be hit by the
curtailment of fibre flows by a mini-
mum of 15% and up to 40% if all the
deferrment areas wind up being
preserved.

“There are a lot of areas in which
we don’t know if we are ever going
to work in again,” said Darrel Wong,
President of Local 2171, whose mem-
bers take the brunt of the accord.
“It’s a shame. This deal doesn’t cre-
ate any certainty — it only creates
uncertainty. We could very well lose
major company and contractor
camps in the central coast area.”

But both Haggard and Wong note
that the many of the areas desig-
nated as protected areas and option
areas, are lands that various Native
bands have under land claims.

“We are looking forward to work-
ing with Native bands in the region
to ensure a continuation of logging
operations,” said Haggard. “The for-
est industry is the main economic

Fraser Mills to shut down says Interfor

On April 18, the same day the B.C. election was called, International
Forest Products announced it intends to close the historic Fraser Mills in
Coquitlam at the end of October, 2001. Putting blame on the NDP gov-
ernment, Interfor pointed to the central coast jand-use accord and its
future loss of timber as the main reason.

The I.W.A. reacted angrily and called on the provincial government to
conduct an independent audit of the company’s timber supply. Fraser
Mills has close to 300 Local 1-3567 members.

National president Dave Haggard pointed out that Interfor and other
major companies have been undercutting their quota on the coast and
noted that the company just announced the purchase of two Primex
mills, both of which have no timber attached to them. 2

As for the “Great Bear Rainforest” accord, Haggard said Interfor is try-
ing to deflect blame on the NDP government when it was really it and
the other forest companies that cut the deal with the environmentalists.

“They (Interfor) basically wanted to walk away and get compensated
for doing so,” said Haggard. “They cut the deal with the greens and now
it’s workers who are paying the price while Interfor tries to foist blame
on the government.”

1-3567 president Sonny Ghag said the local also wants the inyes-
tigation of Interfor’s timber ho! Sines:

“We want the government to do an independent audit and find out
exactly how many cubic meters of total (annual allowable) cut that they
have and what they are doing with it,” he said. “We don’t think they can
justify shutting a mill down.”

“They (Interfor) have been exporting logs out of this province like it’s
going out of style and for them to shut a mill down and put 300 people
out of a job is not acceptable to us,” added Brother Ghag.

He questioned how Interfor would be able to run two Primex mills
wih no timber attached to them when Fraser Mills is attached to public

nure.

With the provincial election in full swing, the union is waiting to meet
with ie) a government and push for the audit to be properly done and
completed.

A few days after the Fraser Mills announcement, Doman/Western
announce that it will close on of its mills down in the next 90 days.

engine in the region and we have no
doubt that First Nations people
want to have a closer look at the
potential economic benefits of these
areas before any decision is made to
lock them up permanently.”

Former Greenpeacer Tzeporah
Berman, speaking for the protec-
tionist group ForestEthics, greeted
the accord and termed it “an interim
level of protection.”

She said ForestEthics , formerly
the Coastal Rainforest Coalition,
and which has promoted boycotts
against old growth B.C. forest prod-
ucts along with the San Francisco-
based Rainforest Action Network,
and the Washington-based Natural
Resource Defense Council, can use
green groups’ resources to boost the
economy. She promised to, bring
“investment dollars to help with
future conservation and by using
the marketplace to support new
green products as they emerge.”

In early April Ric Careless, execu-
tive director of B.C. Spaces for
Nature, an environmental group,
told the Northern Forest Products
Association convention that “I
believe the war in the woods is over.”

“In short, there is not another
Great Bear Rainforest somewhere
out in British Columbia lurking to
hit you next,” he commented.

“That’s fine for Mr. Careless to
say, but our experience with green
groups has shown that they have an
unending agenda and will never be
satisfied,” said Brother Haggard. “It
would be great to say the ‘war in
the woods’ is over but we remain
skeptical.”

Local 2171’s Darol Smith, who sat
at the LRMP table for the I.W.A.,
says the union knows that the green
groups’ agenda is to turn deferred
areas into protected areas.

But during the 12-18 month defer-
ral period the union intends to see
that logging occurs. | :

“During the negotiations we talked
about option (deferred) areas being
used for pilot projects,” he said. “In
order to prove that ‘eco-based’ foresty
works you have actually got to go
out and do it on the ground.”

Smith does point out that under
the framework agreement, signed
off under the accord, ecological prin-
ciples must ensure sustainable har-
vests of old growth and second
growth timber.

“We have to pay attention to this
part of the agreement to ensure that
you have to go out and actually har-
vest old growth timber if you are
going to do sustainable logging,” he
added.

The “Great Bear Rainforest”
accord is, for the most part, a con-
solidation of the objectives of a so-
called Coast Forest Conservation
Initiative (CFCI) cooked up between
boycotted forest companies and
green groups. Early last year forest
companies on the central and north
coast were ready to cut a deal with
Greenpeace Canada, Greenpeace
Germany, Greenpeace International,
the Sierra Club of B.C., the Rainfor-
est Action Network and other green
groups to defer logging on vast tracts
of old growth forests in exchange for
the lifting of consumer boycotts pro-
moted by the green groups.

The union was critical of the CFCI
process and was critical of the com-
panies involved, including Interna-
tional Forest Products, Weyer:
haueser, West Fraser Timber,
Western Forest Products, and Cana-
dian Forest Products.

“Despite our previous concerns

over the CFCI process, it looks like
it has been enshrined in the central
coast LRMP decision,” said Hag-
gard.
Last year the union sought assur-
ances that workers’ jobs would not
be lost and that a huge fund be put
into place to create long-term forest
sector jobs on both the central and
north coast regions.

LUMBERWORKER/April, 2001/3