Canada island at center of environmental fight

August 10, 2000
Web posted at: 3:11 PM EDT (1911 GMT)

In this story: Timber firms, green groups agree to co-develop management plan Gitga'at indians oppose logging, claim responsibility for the land Some native groups tolerate logging RELATED STORIES, SITES

HARTLEY BAY, British Columbia (Reuters) -- The new long house at Cornwall Inlet on the Pacific coast is dwarfed by surrounding mountains, but it stands large as a symbol of what could become a powerful alliance in a complex environmental battle.

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The Gitga'at Indians built the wood structure with funding help from the Washington, D.C.-based Natural Resources Defense Council. The two have teamed up to fight clear-cut logging on Princess Royal Island in Canada's coastal rain forest.

"When outsiders come in they take the resources and then they leave, and we're left to explain why it happened," Gitga'at band member Marvin Robinson said, pointing at stumps and debris from a recently completed clear-cut near the inlet's entrance.

Cornwall Inlet runs deep into Princess Royal, a largely uninhabited 900-square-mile island 240 miles northwest of Vancouver that has drawn world attention as a home of the rare white Kermode bear.

U.S. environmentalists want the island and bears protected by creating a park, but that has drawn fire from loggers who want to cut the trees and from some Indian bands who object to outsiders dictating the future of their traditional territory.

The wilderness of the British Columbia coast is striking, with soaring mountains, tall old-growth trees and deep ocean passages between its many islands. Thousands of tourists pass through the region each summer on cruise ships.

"We have a duty to humanity to save places like these. ... Destroying this is like destroying Notre Dame or the Mona Lisa," U.S. environmental activist Bobby Kennedy Jr. said during a recent visit to dedicate the long house.

In clear-cut logging, trees are harvested much the way a farmer cuts a field, taking a large swath out of the forest. The lumber industry says it is a more economical way to log and safer for crews working on steep terrain.

Environmentalists say the practice destroys wildlife habitat and creates soil erosion, ruining salmon breeding streams for short-term economic gain. They say selective tree cutting will keep the forest environmentally and economically sustainable.

Groups such as Greenpeace have organized an international boycott of old-growth timber cut in the Midcoast region, which they call the "Great Bear Rainforest," and have designated it as one of the world's most threatened rain forests.

Worried about the financial impact of negative publicity, four major timber firms recently negotiated an agreement with a coalition of green groups to develop jointly a management plan for logging in the region.

The talks have drawn the ire of some of the region's Indians and provincial officials, who say outsider environmental groups and corporations are trying to decide the future of lands where native communities have lived for thousands of years.

"We're the ones that have to live with the consequences of whatever anybody does within our territory, whether they be an environmental group, logging or sport fishing," said Art Sterritt, chief treaty negotiator for the Gitga'at.

Building a long house symbolizes for the Indians their occupancy of the land. Gitga'at leaders say the new structure on Cornwall Inlet also shows that their people are taking more responsibility for stewardship of the territory's resources.

The Gitga'at, also known as the Hartley Bay Band, purposely built the long house on land that provincial forestry officials and the International Forest Products company (Interfor) had planned to use for a logging road.

For the Natural Resources Defense Council, which was not directly involved in the logging talks, the long house is a way to differentiate itself from other international environmental groups that may share the goal of protecting the island but use different political tactics in dealing with native groups.

The NRDC, well-connected politically in the United States, has used alliances with Canadian Indian groups to win other environmental battles. It teamed up with northern Quebec's Cree Indians in the 1990s to stop a major hydroelectric expansion.

Interfor recently gave its logging rights on Cornwall Inlet to the Gitga'at but is actively cutting on other parts of Princess Royal Island. It charges it has being unfairly targeted by environmentalists from outside Canada.

"Anytime you run a (public relations) campaign like this you need a villain," said Ric Slaco, Interfor's chief forester.

The forestry industry has also questioned the scientific validity of claims a park is needed on the island to protect the Kermode Bear, which green groups call the "Spirit Bear" and have made into the poster child of the fight.

Slaco said the industry does not oppose setting aside more land for a park but feels decisions on where and how much must be made by people living in British Columbia, not by outsiders.

Not all native groups object to cutting trees on Princess Royal. The Kitasoo/Xai'xais Nation claims the majority of the island lies in its territory and it included clear-cutting sections of it in its recently completed land-use plan.

The Kitasoo/Xai'xais say they are also committed to protecting the environment, but with the collapse of the region's fish stocks such as salmon and herring, the band must log if it is to survive.

"This territory has always sustained my people ... and it must continue to do so," said Percy Starr, the Kitasoo's chief treaty negotiator and a longtime tribal leader.

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