I was asked to comment about
recent developments in the
Seven Sisters mountain area.

Seven Sisters Society members
were not pleased that Westar,
Hazelton Division, went ahead
with road construction into cut
block $ on Seven Sisters moun-
tain from March 4 - 11, in con-
travention of a legal agreement
between the Ministry of Forests
(MOF) and the Society.

I was informed that this
trespass violated an agreement
dated April 3, 1987, ‘signed ‘by
Bill Fell of the Society and Ron
Mould, Acting District Manager
of Forests.

That agreement states that
there. will be no logging or con-
struction prior to completion of
a Management Plan that is ap-
proved by the public.

The agreement is a follow-up
to a position adopted Dec. 17,
1986, signed by Ron Mould,
Operations Superintendent,
Kispiox MOF.

In reviewing developments on
~ Seven Sisters, 1 found evidence
to suggest that the Forest Service
has a callous attitude towards in-
tegrated management principles.

MOE placed a moratorium on

Seven Sisters demonstrates

Commentar y by Jorma Jyrkkanen

violates legal agreements with
the Crown, the public is charged
and taken to court. But in mat-
ters like this, where the Crown
violates a legal agreement with
the public, where does the public
turn for redress?

I can think of only one way to
achieve redress.

Canadian law’ enables any
member of the public or group,
to sue a politician directly if it
can be shown that what the

politician is doing, or not doing,

is bad government.
I think that the evidence

within this document clearly

demonstrates bad government,

and that option should be con-

sidered by the Society.

Legal action notwithstanding,

logging in 1985 pending their §

own assessment of visual quality
values, but then they broke their
own moratorium prior to deter-
mining what those values were
by immediately logging Boulder
Creek.

Boulder Creek would have
been refused because of high

. visual qualities had they waited |
to find out what those values
were under standards sought by ie
the present Integrated Manage- |

ment Group.

In addition, their plans for the
area show that there will be only
one minor modification to one
of many cut blocks to accom-
modate integrated management
objectives, a trivial display of
concern.

In conflicts where the public

E’RE SEARCHING FOR

i

my question is: “‘Is it too much
to ask MOF to be more account-
able to the public whom they
serve?”

The Seven Sisters Society
spokesperson informed me that
the Society has already agreed to
logging of most of the Seven
Sisters, but they do want in-
tegrated management principles
to apply, and they believe it is
possible to have both logging
and other values protected.

They wonder if the recent
developments indicate abandon-
ment of this principle by MOF.
They are rightly concerned.

From other experiences, I
think that the problem goes
deeper than just regional! pre-
judices. I think that the Forest

This crew of “budding young journalists
duction run. As this photo shows, the g

” from Clarence Michiel Elementary School recently toured the Te
roup was obviously im-pressed.

Terrace Review — Wednesday, April 6, 1988 7

Act is just too single-resource
oriented and makes the MOF
too powerful.

The Act states: ‘‘...the Forest
Service may consult with other
agencies pertaining to integrated
management.”

“May”? is just too weak. They
just ‘‘may”’ not as well, It also
doesn’t require compliance with
the recommendations of other
agencies.

I have personallly seen many
instances of the use of the “‘may
not” option. -

In my view, this Act is too
weak to protect the other, in-
credibly high values of this
magnificent province.

We have visual values that are
a national heritage, and a
tremendous boon to tourism as
well as a vital source of personal

faults in Forest Act

dians. ;

We have unprecedented
wildlife values but no Act to
protect their habitat.

The care and protection and
preservation of these latter
resources is left gratuitously to
the whims of an apparently
single-resource agency — MOF
_— who “may”? do whatever they
wish.

We need an Integrated
Resource Management Act in
this province and the Forest Act
needs to be re-written to ensure
compliance. ‘‘May” should be
changed to ‘‘must”’.

The above chronology is but
one of many situations that I
have seen where an Act with
more teeth would have been
useful for the protection of the.
interests of all Canadians.

enjoyment of resident Cana-

rrace Review f

acilities during 4 pro-

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