IWA. parley meets .... see page 12

Tribune

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1970

NEW PUBLIC PROBE NEEDED

SAVE OUR FORESTS

\ tins
JOBS NOT HYSTERIA ANSWER TO YOUTH NEEDS. Photo shows you

radio aimed at stirring up anti-youth hysteria sought to cover ma

on Page 2.

ng people in Vancouver's armory just
before being moved to Jericho. Unprincipled attacks on young people by Mayor Campbell, the press and

in issue: need for jobs for youth. See articles

—Photo P. J. O’Kane

Crash program for jobs

demanded by city labor

Organized labor will demand a
crash program for housing, school
and hospital construction to
relieve the harsh unemployment
‘situation in Vancouver, it was
revealed at the Tuesday meeting
of the Vancouver and District
Labor Council.

Spearheaded by Local 213 of
the International Brotherhood
of Electrical Workers, who have
close to half their members
unemployed despite the end of
CLRA’s lockout, a brief to be pre-
sented to city council demand-
ing action for jobs was endorsed
by delegates.

The brief will also go to the
senior governments.

Delegate Constable of the elec-
tricians union, Wm. Stewart of
the Marine Workers, Wally Way-
ward of the Carpenters union
and others made scathing refer-
ence to Welfare Minister
Gaglardi’s contention that 10,000

jobs were available if workers
would only take them.

Burrard Drydock had 150
welders at the peak; today there
are only 6 on the job, Stewart

said. One hundred welders will

go anywhere in the province
Gaglardi can find them work,
but the family men who have put
in from 25 to 30 years on the job
in this city where they have their
homes and family are entitled to
the development of industry
within the area.

Stewart stressed the need to
build a Canadian merchant
marine. ‘‘We have one— just one
— deep sea merchant ship! ” he
said. -

Delegates chuckled when a

voice asked, ‘‘That’s the ~

restaurant, isn’t it?”’

“It makes one ashamed to be a
citizen of this province,’’ said
John, Hayward, A.T.U. delegate

-in speaking to a resolution

condemning the reforestation
policy of the provincial
government.

“Nowhere is reforestation -
adequate,’ he charged. ‘‘We*
must replace equally to what we
cut. . . the inheritance of future
generations is simply not being
planted. The public has been the
victim of a snow-job on the part
of government and the big
forest concerns.” :

An executive recom-
mendation receiving approval
was one which would see the
Vancouver Labor Council
assisting candidates of COPE
and the NDP in the December
civic elections.

Delegates spoke enthusias-
tically of the need for unity to
defeat NPA and TEAM
candidates, and methods of
carrying on the campaign. Bob

‘See pg. 12

Vol. 31, No. 38

eS"

TOc

Overcut for profit
threatens resource

By MAURICE RUSH
With half the economy and jobs of the province
depending on its forests, the disclosure this week by
the B.C. Forest Service that our forests are being
whittled away and that only one acre of trees is being
replaced for every seven being cut will come as a

shock to most people.

Those most directly threat-°

ened by the overcut of our
forests by the big monopolies in
their search for profits are the
tens of thousands of wood-
workers whose livelihood and
future is being rapidly
destroyed.

The situation is so serious
that the public, and particularly
the unions in the forest industry,
should lose no time in demanding
the immediate launching of a full
public inquiry into all aspects of
B.C.’s forest industry. Such an
inquiry is long overdue.

Some months ago the Pacific
Tribune carried a feature article
warning that the forests were
being overcut. At that time the
facts were not all available since
the provincial government has
covered up the actual state of
affairs. Now the facts are out,
and they reveal the following:

. To restock our forests 100
million trees should be planted
each year covering 200,000 acres.
Instead, we have been planting

WILLIAM KASHTAN, Communist
Party leader, opens a national
speaking tour in B.C. this week
on the Party’s campaign for a
million new jobs. See details of his
meetings inside.

25 million trees on only 200,000
acres — less than a fourth of the
trees needed.

. This situation goes back
over many years so that there is
now a disastrous backlog.
According to the B.C. Forest
Service over nine million acres
of forest land are insufficiently
restocked. That’s an area larger
than Vancouver Island. :

« The above covers the
coastal region. In the interior of
B.C.. the problem is even worse.
There over 313,000 acres were
logged but only 12,206 acres have
been replanted.

. Reforestation is not even
keeping up to the acreage
destroyed by fire. Over the last
10 years 2.7 million acres were
burned. During that same period
only 428,000 acres, or about one-
sixth has been reforested.

Both the Socred government
and the big forest monopolies
cover up the actual replanting
being done — or not being done.
While the government has been
cutting back on its expenditures
for reforestation, the forest
kings are not spending the
money required to replace
logged areas.

POLICY FAILS.

Over twenty years ago the
government introduced what it
called scientific management of
the forests under which there
was to be a perpetual yield based
on replacement of trees cut.
Under this plan it was held that
B.C.’s forests would be managed
like an agricultural crop with a
constant cycle of new trees
replacing the ones taken out.

The government’s main
legislation provided for the
issuing of forest management
licences (or tree farm licences)
to large corporations in
perpetuity. The major condition ~
of these licences was that these

See FORESTS, pg- 12 <9