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Tin-Wis meet broadens unity
of Strathcona Park campaign

Continued from page 1

© Opposition to the policies of the pro-
vincial government in land use and resource
management.

@ Respect and support for aboriginal
title and the resolution of land claims.

@ Commitment to the principle that
environmental protection and job creation
are not incompatible.

The Tin-Wis conference revised those
objectives by giving a clear priority to the
land claim struggle and naming transna-
tional corporate control over resources as
the common problem for both Natives and
non-Natives.

Kelly summed up the “common ground”
acheived at Tofino in four political state-
ments:

@ The need for action in support of abo-
riginal people towards the achievement of
their recognized title.

@ The need for non-Natives to develop
their own sense of community with the
environment, based on policies of sustaina-
ble living and development.

@ The removal of multinational corpo-
rate control of resources from the vision of
the future, and the development of regional
coalitions to work towards the end.

@ The need for education on the meaning
and significance of aboriginal title.

It was a large step for many organizations
at Tin-Wis to come to terms with the idea
that achieving recognition of aboriginal title
to land and resources under claim is basic to
a democratic resource management and
environmental policy for the province.

The practical linkages between the land
claim struggle and resource management
and environmental issues have been high-
lighted dramatically by the Haida’s struggle
to preserve Lyell Island and more recently
by the injunctions secured by the Gitksan
Wet’suwet’en against logging along the

- Babine River. The Social Credit govern-

ment last year pushed through amendments
to the Forest Act enabling the cabinet to.
more than double the amount of timber
under Tree Farm Licences in the province.

LUCAS

MCCRORY

The expansion of the already massive
TFLs, however, would involve giving new
cutting rights for land where land claims are
outstanding.

For environmental organizations like
Valhalla Wilderness Society and the West-
ern Canada Wilderness Committee, embrac-
ing the struggle for Native land claims

_ Strengthens their own hand at stopping

what they perceive to be the destruction of
the forests through overcutting. The
WCWC’s own policy paper, brought to
Tin-Wis, called for “a moratorium on
further alienation of land under Tree Farm
Licenses until land claims are settled and
sustainable local community development
plans are drawn up.”
_ For IWA-Canada representatives, the
Issues Were not as easy. Their membership
faces blackmail from the forest companies,
which counterposes their jobs and envir-
onmental and Native concerns. IWA-
Canada representatives wanted clarification
of what aboriginal title would mean for the
forest industry, and they weren’t prepared
to give unconditional support to particular
land claim settlements in advance.
Another problem is that the dominant
position in the IWA-Canada supports the
present TFL system of tenure. However,
one IWA-Canada representative agreed
that there could be common ground with

the Native movement and the others at Tin-
Wis around opposition to any further

‘ expansion of TFLs until land claims are

settled.

But the potential for the gap between the
IWA-Canada and the Native and environ-
mental movements to widen was dramati-
cally underscored at one of the conference
workshops. IWA-Canada_ vice-president
Roger Stanyer argued that Native Indians
have a poor record of reforestation on their
lands. Another [WA-Canada representa-
tive from Port Alberni pointed to Native
economic development projects which are
non-union.

The IWA comments sparked a fiery
response from Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Coun-
cil leader Simon Lucas. “How many of your
members have lost their jobs?” he asked
rhetorically. “And you expect us to adopt
your way? You say the resources are owned
by all the people of Canada. But who owns
the resources? What say do you have over
them? When we say that we own the land, at
least we know what we mean.”

But the overwhelming sentiment at Tin-
Wis was that a wide area of common
ground had been established among a
diverse and large number of organizations.

Nu-chah-nulth staff member and confer-
ence organizer Bill Green said that the
response was far beyond expectations and
pushed the Tin-Wis facility to its maximum
capacity. The conference had 40 trade
union delegates registered, 70 environmen-
talists, 27 Native representatives, 20 from
peace groups, and others from social justice
and action groups as well as the NDP,
Green and Communist parties.

One hope for the success of the new coali-
tion is based on a surprisingly strong show-
ing by the NDP at Tofino. Three MLAs,
Joan Smallwood, John Cashore and
Gerard Janssen, and MP Bob Skelly were
present, along with party president Elaine
Bernard and party activists Adrienne Pea-
cock and Dick Gathercole.

STORIES BY FRED WILSON

Time and again the Tin-Wis conferer-
ence was forced to return to a central ques-
tion: what would aboriginal title over land
under land claim mean to B.C.?

Two answers emerged. The first is that
no one knows or could know now the
practical consequence of aboriginal title,
for it must be negotiated. But second, the
uncertainty cannot be allowed to diminish
unity in the fight to establish aboriginal
title.

In a bold effort to deepen appreciation
of what the Native movement seeks in
securing aboriginal title, Tin-Wis heard
five Native leaders outline the “aboriginal
vision for the future of B.C.”

There was a broad convergence among
the Native leaders, but also important
points of divergence, both in regard to
ultimate goals and tactics for the move-
ment.

Simon Lucas, the 50-year-old heredi-
tary chief of the Hesquiat Nation and co-
chair of the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal
Council, who hosted the Tin-Wis proceed-
ings, was the clearest in his perspective that
aboriginal title would involve joint man-
agement of resources.

“Our vision of a sustainable future is
not at the expense of non-Native people.
To say that it is would be ludicrous,” he

explained. ““We want to share our land
and share our resources with people
devoted to thriving Native and non-Native
communities.”

Lucas said that resource management
should be based on “decentralization”
and “co-operation and confederation”
between Native and non-Native people.

He also put strong emphasis ona policy
of sustainable development. “We cannot
continue to have an open line of credit on
our resources,” he said.

There was a different emphasis from
Gitksan Wet’suwet’en Tribal Council co-
ordinator Don Ryan. Ryan did not speak
of shared resources. He detailed tradi-
tional forms of Native ownership of land
based on “house territories” which allo-
cated specific territories to family groups
within the Native community.

“Our vision of the future is to retain our
insitutions and forms of ownership,” he
said explicitly.

Ryan said he did not think much of the
decision to create a new national park
around Lyell Island on South Moresby
Island, nor was he impressed with propos-
als from the environmental movement to
declare wilderness preserves.

““We don’t want any more parks in our
territory,” he stressed.

Whereas Lucas placed stress on coali-
tion building and education programs,
Ryan called for direct action based on the
somewhat contradictory tactics of secur-
ing injunctions from the courts, and civil
disobedience.

Ryan explained that the reasoning
behind securing an injunction against
Westar Ltd. from logging in the Babine
River area was to block the creation of any
further ‘third party interest ... be they
TFLs, parks or whatever” on land under
claim. He said that the Gitksan intend to
follow up on the Westar ruling with a
spate of applications for injunctions to “tie
up huge tracts of land.”

The Gitksan leader also called for civil
disobedience to stop the Kemano II hydro
project. “We need to take over and occupy
Alcan’s land — the dam site, the spillway
and the Kemano town.

“The rhetoric is over, the romantic

‘visions are over. We are down to the

action,” he said. -

The other Native leaders who spoke to
the aboriginal vision of the future of B.C.
were Sophie Pierre of the Kootenay Tribal
Council, Lorene Plant of the Nisga’a Tri-
bal Council and Levina White of the
Haida Nation.

Tribal
council
honours
Suzuki

Geneticist and broadcaster David
Suzuki has made the Native struggle
his own, and for the Native peoples
on the West Coast of Vancouver
Island, he is one of them.

Amidst the considerable cerem-
ony. of the Fin-Wis conference, the
Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council Sat-
urday evening honoured Suzuki.
There was a lavish feast for over 400
people, dances.and songs reserved
for the most special occasions (some
so sacred that the video cameras had
to be turned off), and gifts galore for
Suzuki and his spouse Tara Cullis.
Most significant of the honors was a
name — “Nuche” or “mountain”.

Suzuki and Cullis had played per-
sonal roles in the organization of the
Tin-Wis conference, but the honours
for Suzuki were for his strong public
identification with Native struggles
and environmental issues.

That was the theme he struck in a
passionate speech to the feast in
which he declared that indigenous
peoples, with [~ |
their special
connection to
the land and
their intimate
knowlege of -
resources are
“the greatest
source of
knowlege” we
have to stop
environment-
al destruction.

“Land claims are the top of my
agenda,” he declared, identifying
himself with the dominant theme at
Tin-Wis that the winning of aborigi-
nal title to the land is essential to
environmental protection.

Suzuki had just returned from six
weeks in Brazil and is planning to
return shortly, and he devoted much
of his speech to the destruction of
the rain forest in Brazil and its devas-
tating impact on the indigenous
peoples. :

He had brought back from Brazil
with him an Indian Chief who spoke
to more than 3,000 in Toronto and
another 800 in Ottawa. Suzuki paid
for the visit by soliciting funds from
the banks that have investments in
Brazil, and got money out of all
them save one —the Bank of
Tokyo. He called Japanese capital
“the major predator in the world
today” and declared: “Japanese dol-
lars are not for our benefit, they are
serving destructive purposes.”

There was a definite Malthusian
trend to what Suzuki said, however,
which left many Tin-Wis delegates
wondering what solution he was
offering. He said:that humankind is
“a malignancy ... humans are every-
where, like a cancer out of control,
sucking resources out of the planet.”

But the Nuu-chah-nulth people
were hardly interested in the discus-
sions that Suzuki’s speech pro-
voked. For them, David Suzuki has
earned his name and their honour.

SUZUKI

Pacific Tribune, February 13, 1989 « 3