© Environment News Service (ENS) 2000
August 1, 2000
By Neville Judd

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Canada, August 1, 2000 (ENS) - A temporary ceasefire in the long running battle over Canada's west coast rainforest has not stopped continued protests in the Upper Elaho Valley, north of Vancouver.

Four forestry firms and four environmental groups announced Friday in Vancouver that they are co-sponsoring work on a proposal for a new management approach to temperate rainforests on the Central and North Coast of British Columbia.

Canadian Forest Products, Fletcher Challenge Canada, Western Forest Products and Weyerhaeuser will defer logging in 30 sensitive valleys while the plan, described as a conservation based ecosystem approach, is being developed.

In return, Greenpeace, the Sierra Club of B.C., the Rainforest Action Network and the Coastal Rainforest Coalition will stop targeting those four companies in the worldwide boycott and public relations campaign against B.C. forest products.

Conspicuously absent from the new plan is International Forest Products (Interfor), whose latest application for an injunction barring protesters north of Lava Creek in the Upper Elaho Valley was granted last week by the B.C. Supreme Court.

The injunction did not stop four protesters from scaling trees and perching on a platform 150 feet up. About 30 Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officers, including an emergency response team tried unsuccessfully to remove the four on Friday.

Bryce Gilroy-Scott of Friends of the Elaho told ENS Monday that although police had removed the protesters' roadblock and reopened the Lava Creek bridge, the four remain in their treetop perch.

"They have a rainwater catchment system and are prepared to stay up there for weeks, said Gilroy- Scott.

The tree platform is outside of an injunction zone granted to Interfor by B.C. Supreme Court Justice Ian Pitfield last Tuesday.

Environmentalists want the area, home to trees more than 1,000 years old, turned into a national park called the Stoltmann Wilderness. Interfor claims it has a legal right to log two cutblocks. The company has not returned repeated phone calls from ENS.

Clashes between protesters and Interfor employees have been the subject of numerous court cases. Five Interfor employees face assault charges to be heard in December in connection with an incident in the Elaho Valley last September, after which three conservationists were hospitalized.

In May, four protesters who broke earlier injunctions were jailed for terms ranging between 14 and 56 days. Two more people charged with violating an injunction are still before the courts.

Western Canada Wilderness Committee founder Paul George called the situation a tragedy. "We have a sympathetic public that wants to have this precious place with its ancient forests and giant thousand year old trees saved. But we also have a lame duck government that lacks leadership and is hiding and hoping that the conflict situation in the Upper Elaho just goes away."

George called on B.C. Premier Ujjal Dosanjh to bring all the stakeholders together to create a solution that includes both protecting the ancient forest and creating more jobs.

That kind of attitude epitomizes Friday's announcement by forestry companies and environmental groups of a new approach to managing B.C.'s forests.

Scientific and technical strategies will be developed in discussion with First Nations and local stakeholders. The framework will be tabled this fall with coastal Aboriginal Leaders, the Central Coast Land and Resource Managing Planning process, government and other decision making bodies.

The ecosystem management framework being developed will encompass the full range of ecological, cultural and economic values found in the region.

Both the companies and environmental groups involved in the initiative see it as an effort to reduce immediate conflict between them and create new options for decision makers seeking environmental and economic solutions for coastal British Columbia.

"The conflict between us had reached the point where we felt it had become institutionalized, and we were both prepared to push for a breakthrough," said Linda Coady, vice president of Weyerhaeuser.

"In order to create a meaningful opportunity to explore approaches capable of changing the status quo, we believe it is necessary to establish a conflict free period."

"This initiative is potentially a significant and precedent setting step towards ending many years of conflict over forest management on the coast of B.C.," said Greenpeace forests campaigner Catherine Stewart.

"The global market is changing and the future of the B.C. forest industry will depend on the conservation of endangered forests and truly sustainable practices on the remaining land base," she said. Error: Unable to read footer file.