BC Liberals At It Again

Spruce Lake Park is a Holy Grail for the environmental movement in B.C. Conservationists have tried to have the area preserved as a park since 1937. In 2001, the NDP government granted their wish. But Thursday, Sustainable Resources Minister George Abbott announced 20 per cent of the park will be removed and opened to mining.

Joe Foy of the Western Canadian Wilderness Committee is outraged. "They're carved off 20 per cent of the Spruce Lake-South Chilcotin Mountain Park. They've taken it out as a gift to the mining industry." Foy also fears this could be a dangerous precedent. "The mining industry wants into other parks and they see this as an easy first inning."

But local mayors support the government's new Land and Resource Management Plan. Mayor Chris O'Connor says he was shocked by Foy's comments this morning on the CBC Radio program Daybreak. "I heard it this morning and I was boiling on my back porch," he said. O'Connor says the deal was reached after 10 years of negotiation between local government, industry and environmental groups.

"What we have now is a compromise we can all live with." O'Connor says the deal is important for local towns, because the area around Spruce Lake Park is heavily mineralized. He's hoping this agreement on mineral exploration could lead to an economic boom for the region. Meanwhile, NDP leader Carol James says the fate of Spruce Lake Park will be a major issue for her party in the next provincial election. She says the Liberal government has made a habit of breaking agreements and she sees the boundary changes to Spruce Lake Park as just one more example.

"When is a park a park? With this government it appears it doesn't matter what's in place – they're going to go into the direction they want anyways." James says she has two main concerns about the decision to open part of the park to mining.

One is the loss of important habitat, particularly for grizzlies. The other is the precedent this could set for other parks in BC. Sustainable Resources Minister George Abbott bristles at that suggestion. Abbott says it was the NDP who ignored years of consultation with local communities. "There needs to be a balance, and our plan achieves that balance, unlike what the NDP did to them in 2001," he said.

http://vancouver.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename=bc_park20040723

[I saw on CBC that South Chilkotin park north of Lillooet is being opened up to mining & forestry also - NSay]

Note: http://vancouver.cbc.ca...