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British Columbia

The Lytton and Mt. Currie Indian bands
took their campaign to save the Stein wil-
derness from logging directly to the share-
holders of B.C. Forest Products Thursday,
calling on the company to put people before

the “almighty dollar’’and to use its influence '

to press the provincial government to settle
aboriginal claims in the area.

More than 300 people, including renown-
ed scientist and environmentalist Dr. David
Suzuki and First Nations vice-chief Joe
Mathias, gathered outside the plush Pan
Pacific Hotel at Vancouver’s World Trade
Centre where the forest giant, owned by
New Zealand conglomerate Fletcher-Chal-
lenge, was holding its annual general meet-
ing.

After addressing the noon rally, Lytton
Band chief Ruby Dunstan and Chief
Leonard Andrew from the Mt. Currie band
attended the meeting to raise the issue of
logging in the Stein from the floor. Both had
arranged to purchase shares in the company
in order to attend the meeting.

Chief Dunstan said in an interview that
the company has an opportunity “to avoid
a fight between us and B.C. Forest Products
over logging.

“We want 'them (BCFP) to go to the
provincial government and convince them
to negotiate on aboriginal rights,” she said.

“But I believe we have to stand up for
what is right and what is rightfully ours,”
She told the rally to applause. “And it may
please the corporations for us to be on our
knees because then they can walk all over us
... but I’m tired of being on my knees.”

The band leaders got little response from
company officials inside the meeting, as
BCFP chief executive officer Ian Donald
continued to insist that the forest ministry’s
plan for some logging in the Stein Valley “is
a fair compromise to the demands of all
interested parties.”

But that compromise, the so-called “mul-
tiple use” plan for logging some parts of the
Stein while retaining others as wilderness,
will threaten the entire area and will trample
aboriginal rights in the process, environ-
mentalists and Native groups have con-
tended.

Chief Dunstan accused BCFP of “attempt-
ing to steamroll aboriginal rights” and
“spreading the word that the Stein controv-

Flanked by placards, Native drummers demonstrate outside B.C. Forest Products annual meeting April 21. Inset: Lytton
band Chief Ruby Dunstan.

ersy is an Indians versus jobs issue.”

In 1986, the government’s Wilderness
Advisory Committee, after studying the
Stein issue for several months, gave the Lyt-
ton band the option of retaining the Stein as
a wilderness. Since that time, Forest Minis-
ter Dave Parker has met on several occa-
sions with the band, purportedly to work
out an agreement.

“But every time we think we’ve agreed,”
said Chief Dunstan, “we get a letter from
Parker saying, no, it’s this way.”

Greetings and Solidarity on this
May Day, 1988

Fight privatization
and free trade

NZ

Canadian

Farmworkers Union

Sarwan Boal (President), executive, and staff
#1-4725 Kingsway, Burnaby, B.C. V5H 2C3

U

=
A

J
EE

Stop Privatization
& Free Trade

U.F.A.W.U. Ladner
Local 4

A March 25 letter to environmental
groups from Charles Johnson, acting direc-
tor of the Integrated resources branch of the
forests ministry, began with the words:
“The decision to allow some timber harvest-
ing in the Stein Valley has been a very diffi-
cult one for government.”

The letters also coincided with a renewed
campaign by government and industry to
aggravate the “jobs versus environment”
conflict. Both have claimed that mills in the
Lytton and Boston Bar area would be
forced to close if logging in the Stein Valley
is not allowed.

But according to the Stein Action Com-
mittee, a Lytton-based environmental
group, those claims ignore a 1986 report
from the government’s own forest service
which stated that improved utilization of
the existing timber supply would increase
the available supply by a greater amount
than by logging the entire Stein Valley.

The report, entitled Lillooet Timber
Supply Area Options Report, prepared in
October, 1986 by the Kamloops region of
the B.C. Forest Service, noted that the
improvements would involve changes in
logging and milling facilities to enable the
mills to handle smaller dimension logs. But
the change would increase the available

JIM RUSHTON
President

| MAY DAY GREETINGS |

from
PRINCE RUPERT
LABOUR COUNCIL

timber by 2.5 million cubic metres, it stated.

“More than an entire Stein Valley worth
of additional, good timber could be found
in surrounding valleys if the logging com-
panies would pull up their socks and stop
wasting so much,” Stein Action Committee
director Jessoa Lightfoot said April 2.

The Western Canada Wilderness Com-
mittee has also pointed out that since Dave
Parker became forest minister, the level of
raw log exports from B.C. has risen by 31
per cent “to an all time high.” —

“If Dave Parker and the government
really wanted to save jobs they would halt
unmilled raw log exports and keep the mill
jobs right here at home,” said committee
director Paul George.

At Thursday’s rally, Dr. Suzuki urged
British Columbians to support the Lytton
and Mt. Currie bands in the their demand
that there be no logging or road-building in
the Stein.

“As a scientist, as a father, as an envir-
onmentalist, I say to you that Indian claims
to land and to their rights are absolutely
crucial to our struggle to maintain some-
thing for our children,” he said. “I hope you
will join me in pledging support for the
aboriginal fights going on in B.C. and
across the land.”

JOHN KUZ
Secretary-Treasurer

12 ¢ Pacific Tribune, April 27, 1988

TRIBUNE PHOTO — SEAN GRIFFIN