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WCEL
> Issues > Forestry
West Coast Environmental Law's Forestry Program provides hard-hitting legal analysis, educational tools and free legal advice aimed at making the fundamental changes necessary to ensure forest use in British Columbia is ecologically and socially responsible. West Coast's forestry program has four current components:
West Coast Environmental Law supports Aboriginal Peoples in their efforts to achieve recognition of Aboriginal Title and to protect the land and water of their territories.
We do so by providing legal and strategic advice, legal education and facilitation services to Aboriginal governments and organizations, including serving on the technical committee of the Title and Rights Alliance. The Title and Rights Alliance is a new initiative that brings together treaty, non-treaty and non-aligned bands and tribal nations from around the province to work together on land and resource issues.
Since 1999 we have provided capacity building and strategic planning workshops on forestry law and land use planning in First Nations communities, with a current emphasis on implications of the Provincial Forestry Revitalization Plan for Aboriginal Peoples. We are presently working with the St'át'imc Land and Resource Authority to develop a land use plan and Land and Resource Code for St'át'imc territory.
Visit www.titleandrightsalliance.org and www.statimc.net for more information about these initiatives.
Forest certification harnesses market power to change forest management by promoting products that use wood harvested in an ecologically and socially responsible manner. The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification system is the only one currently supported by West Coast Environmental Law.
West Coast is a leading member of the BC chapter of FSC-Canada and served as a technical advisor through the multi-year process of setting FSC certification standards for British Columbia. These standards, which received preliminary international approval in July 2003, will assure consumers that FSC certified wood they purchase comes from forests managed to stringent ecological and social standards.
West Coast Environmental Law is also proud to be an advocate member of the Canadian Eco-Lumber Co-op, which promotes and markets eco-certified forest products: www.ecolumber.ca.
Visit www.goodwoodwatch.ca for more information on forest certification
Forest Certification Publications
Control over the vast majority of British Columbia's land base is allocated to a small group of large forestry companies through licenses or "timber tenures." The tenure system is a major barrier to conservation and community self-determination in BC. Under the prevailing system it's very difficult for new businesses - particularly small, locally based businesses - to become involved in processing because they cannot get access to wood supply.
Now the softwood lumber dispute with the United States has brought the old tenure and pricing system under even greater question. West Coast has joined with groups across BC to fight for reforms that will not only resolve the softwood dispute but also assist community economic development and enhance forest conservation in BC.
West Coast believes the solution lies with recognition and respect for Aboriginal Title and Rights, a significant tenure take-back from the major companies, the creation of regional log yards as a foundation for market-based stumpage, and establishment, implementation and enforcement of strong environmental laws. With those changes the cut will be reduced and more wood will end up in high value manufacturing - creating jobs here in BC -instead of being shipped across the border with minimal processing.
That's why we are a founding member of the BC Coalition for Sustainable Forest Solutions, a growing coalition of over 50 major labour, environmental, social justice and indigenous peoples organizations. We have developed a comprehensive citizen's forestry reform platform. Working with the Coalition, and based on the outcomes of a series of "forest solutions forums" held in communities around the province in 2003, West Coast has produced a draft private members bill embodying the Coalition platform.
For more information on West Coast's work on tenure and the
softwood lumber dispute visit http://www.forestsolutions.ca/
Softwood and Tenure Reform Publications
From huge clearcuts to vast cuts of erosion along a decommissioned forestry road, BC has been known for some of the worst forestry management practices in North America. That began to change in the 1990's when environmental groups turned the public eye to the way forest companies made their money in BC's public forests.
1995's Forest Practices Code of British Columbia Act provided certain basic protections for non-timber forest values, while the introduction of wide-scale strategic land use planning involved British Columbians in forest land use planning to an unprecedented extent. West Coast was involved throughout the decade in promoting and developing these changes and in 1999 published the comprehensive guide to the laws, regulations and policies governing forest land use planning in British Columbia.
Despite these changes, there has been virtually no movement towards solutions to the more fundamental obstacles that undermine sustainable forest use in British Columbia. BC's tenure system and its legal requirements for forest planning and forest practices are driven by the desire to cut a certain volume of timber off the land each year and produce products such a pulp and dimension lumber as cheaply as possible for volatile global markets. From this perspective, protections for forest values such as water, fish habitat, biodiversity, species at risk, and cultural and heritage values are viewed as mere "red tape" - targets for deregulation.
Now the new BC government has taken steps to radically roll back and deregulate forest practices in BC. West Coast's analysis of the government's plan for a results based Forest Practices Code provided environmental organizations across BC with a tool to get involved in the Government's consultation process. As the government moves forward, West Coast is providing comprehensive analysis of the deregulatory initiatives and their potential impacts on forest sustainability in BC.
Deregulation Publications
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