Court sends a chill through the woods

PATRICK BRETHOUR, Globe and Mail
VANCOUVER — British Columbia’s forestry industry is about to find out who is really in charge of deciding what trees can be cut, and where. Hint: It isn’t the Ministry of Forests.
The Gitanyow First Nation has won a big legal victory in its six-year quest to exert control over forest licences [...]

Natives gain more influence over logging

ROBERT MATAS, Globe and Mail
VANCOUVER — Natives will have significantly more clout over forestry in British Columbia after a court ruling that found the provincial government renewed licences granting the right to log in public forests in northern B.C. without meaningful consultation or adequate accommodation of aboriginal interests.

Russia sees what B.C. doesn’t: Raw log exports cost forest industry jobs

Bob Matters, Vancouver Sun
After years of doom and gloom, some B.C. forest company executives have suddenly seen a light at the end of the tunnel, a light so bright they think they’re in heaven. What could possibly break their mood of doom and gloom?
Log exports.
And you say: “Are you kidding, Matters?

Humboldt Tree-sitters Victorious!!! (We hope)

by David Askaripour-Forest Defender
Can you believe it! Both current Humboldt County tree-sits are officially saved and protected. Yesterday I, other Forest Defenders, and a crew from National Geographic accompanied Chief Forester and President of the newly formed Humboldt Redwood Company, Mike Jani, to Fern Gully Tree Village, Freshwater, CA, and the grove around the tree [...]

Highlands angry over CRD water stance

Bill Cleverley, Times Colonist
The Capital Regional District is stepping on the Highlands’ toes over the thorny issue of water supplies to an expanded Bear Mountain development, Highlands Mayor Mark Cardinal says.
By recommending to the province that the five-year Regional Growth Strategy review settle the question whether to open CRD water taps to service an expansion [...]

Juan de Fuca residents riled over CRD’s planning process

Staff turnover, recent zoning changes endanger region’s future, group claims
Judith Lavoie, Times Colonist
The sprawling area that makes up the Juan de Fuca electoral area is a powder keg of development pressures.
But the Otter Point and Shirley Residents and Ratepayers Association says the Capital Regional District’s lack of planning services for lands west of Sooke is [...]

Green Party duped over Clayoquot clearcut

Image used at rally actually taken from Interfor logging site
Sandra McCulloch, Times Colonist
There was extensive international news coverage of the “Save the Clayoquot” rally in Tofino on Aug. 2, with many reports suggesting another war over old-growth logging was brewing in the West Coast wilderness.
But now it appears the location of a clearcut depicted in [...]

Heiltsuk Vickers family takes stand for threatened Ingram-Mooto watershed

Bella Bella, B.C- The Vickers family traveled to the threatened Ingram-Mooto watershed in Heiltsuk traditional territory on Friday, July 25, 2008. During this time, they erected signs in the Ingram-Mooto that demand the halt of any road building and logging plans. “The lack of consultation has left us no choice now as a family [...]

Regional government may sue over development

By ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY, Globe and Mail
VANCOUVER — A standoff over the future of a vast swath of forest on the southern tip of Vancouver Island, estimated to be worth about $150-million, is heating up as a regional government contemplates taking a forestry company to court to block its plans to subdivide the area [...]

Restore CRD’s power to rezone WFP

by Maurita Prato, Dogwood Initiative, Times Colonist editorial
Re: “CRD, WFP tangle over forest roads,” Aug. 7.
The situation has gone beyond enraging and has become ridiculous.
How can a Western Forest Products official openly state that the company is clearing roads for subdivision development, and then state that it doesn’t have to provide development permits to the [...]