Band plans blockade to protest forestry agreement

The Nadleh Whut'en Indian band near Prince George wants non-native forestry contractors off its traditional territory and is threatening a blockade beginning at midnight tonight in an attempt to get the province to renegotiate a money-losing forestry licence agreement.

Chief Martin Louie said that since the band signed a forestry and range agreement with the province in 2005, the venture has lost money and small-scale logging operations in the Fraser Lake region west of Prince George are undercutting its prices.

The FRAs are granted by the provincial government to native communities as one- to five-year logging contracts on their traditional lands. The agreements also allow other loggers into the area. The plan was conceived as an interim measure between the Ministry of Forests and aboriginal communities until final land treaties are negotiated. Around 120 agreements have been signed in British Columbia since it was introduced by the Gordon Campbell government in 2003.

The Nadleh Whut'en has a licence to log 150,000 cubic metres of timber a year for five years until 2010. They have managed to sell only 125,000 cubic metres to two companies: Canfor and West Fraser. Mr. Louie said the smaller, non-native firms that have licences in the area are undercutting their prices, with massive amounts of wood being harvested and sold locally as a result of the mountain pine beetle infestation.

The chief said the band wants financial help from the province to sell its lumber outside the immediate area, where prices are higher.

Mr. Louie said the agreement created about 20 jobs, but the band's revenue-sharing grant of $196,000 per year is being whittled away by costs of about $55,000 per year for the licence and other expenses.

He said the Nadleh Whut'en are not satisfied with the outcome of discussions this year about reopening the deal, including some with Mr. Campbell and Forests Minister Rich Coleman. A meeting with Deputy Minister Doug Konkin on Tuesday did not go well, said the chief, and they decided to consider a barricade option.

"We are going to go in first and ask the [non-native logging contractors] to leave and if they don't, then we'll do what we have to do," he said. "We never wanted to do this. We feel like we've been pushed into these things."

Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, said that other bands that signed FRAs with B.C. are worse off today.

Other aboriginals have also gone public over their problems with the FRA process.

In February, 2005, the Huu-Ay-Aht native community of Vancouver Island won a judgment against the ministry that stated that the FRAs do not represent meaningful consultation and accommodation and do not satisfy the Crown's constitutional duty.

Mr. Coleman was not available for comment, but an e-mail from the Ministry of Forests and Range stated: "Forest and range agreements do have merit, and can provide First Nations with new economic opportunities and make them greater participants in B.C.'s forest sector. The ministry recognizes that forestry is not an easy business to enter and appreciates the concerns about the viability of first nation tenures."