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BACKGROUNDER:
HOW would Campbell's Working Forest privatize our public lands?
Facilitating Outright Privatization by Removing Steps and Barriers to the Sell-off of Crown lands:
- It will eliminate 2 of 3 steps currently involved in selling-off public forests to private interests
- It will nullify 1 of 2 pieces of legislation that currently obstruct the sale of Crown forest lands for forestry purposes
- [sustainable resources minister Stan] Hagen continually points to Section 23 of the Land Act which obstructs the sale of Crown lands for a forestry purpose. This can easily be changed in the future, and industry insiders are indicating it WILL be changed should the BC Liberals be re-elected for a second term.
- Also note that the BC government, and Stan Hagen in particular, are already heavily involved in the sale of Crown forest lands for real estate purposes.
De Facto Privatization by increasing private, corporate rights on public lands:
- It will establish "timber investment areas" with "unique administrative provisions that minimize their shifts to other uses" (pg.8) ie. it excludes the creation of parks, watershed reserves, and other forest protections, as well as undermines First Nations treaty settlement.
- It will establish "area-based targets" (pg.10), primarily "Timber Access Targets" ,which right now only exist in the Cariboo-Chilcotin land-use plan (after which the Working Forest is partly modeled after), within each tenure. This is a quantification of the area of forest lands that must be made available for logging. It's designed to limit the geographic extent of smaller landscape-level protected areas, such as Ungulate Wintering Ranges, Scenic Viewscapes, Wildlife Habitat Areas (for species at risk), Riparian Management Areas, and Old-Growth Management Areas, which are still to be established under the Forest Practices and Range Act.
- Any increase in certainty increases the compensation price that logging companies can demand from BC taxpayers when denied access to public forests.
BC Liberals pass the working forest's enabling legislation
workingforest.org
Note: BC Liberals pass the wo...
workingforest.org
Stumble It!
This working forest rip-off is not even really needed for them to do environmental damage. In the eastern end of the Lower Mainland they have allowed a lumber company to log one of the last few remaining pockets of forest that the spotted owl calls home. Driving a species to extinction matters not when profits are to be had!!
Next up is the rest of BC Hydro. Control will be handed over to Accenture (of enron fame) and a consortium of US power companies. The contract provisions mean all pricing and decisions will be made in the US.
Its going to be a year of protest and tear gas - I can see it now. More dangerous tree-hugging grannies to locked away...
Roy