 |
Summer of Solidarity |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Welcome:
|
S.V.W.A. home page | EACT door-to-door Survey | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Elliott
Anderson
Christian
Trozzo
Watershed
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Water Users
Committee
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
website
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
on-going efforts to maintain water quality and quantity with local resource management in an effort to establish a profitable but sustainable resource industry
We focus on specific concerns in relation to potential road construction and
logging activities in the Elliott Anderson Christian Trozzo Watershed. While
writing this we were continually drawn to a much larger question; one that,
for us, lies at the core of the problem. We do not understand the meaning and
the rationale of the continuous destruction that is taking place on this planet.
This area under review for development, commonly known as the EACT watershed
is part of a larger bio-region, which in its turn belongs to and is connected
with planet Earth and its biosphere. This biosphere is presently undergoing
a major crisis. In the 1940's extinction was mainly mentioned in relation to
dinosaurs. Today this tragedy has become a daily occurrence. In Canada colour
listed species are constantly increasing in number. On Nov.18, 1992 a document
titled "World Scientists' Warning to Humanity" was released. It was signed by
more than 1600 senior scientists from 71 countries, including 1/2 of all Nobel
Prize winners. The document begins by saying:
"Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course. Human activities inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment and on critical resources. If not checked, many of our current practices put at serious risk the future that we wish for human society and the plant and animal kingdoms, and may so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know. Fundamental changes are urgent if we are to avoid the collision our present course will bring about."
The warning goes on to mention the crises in the atmosphere, water resources,
the oceans, the soil, the forests, biodiversity and human overpopulation. It
continues:
"No more than one or a few decades remain before the chance to avert the threats we now confront will be lost and the prospects of humanity immeasurably diminished. We the undersigned, senior members of the world's scientific community, hereby warn all humanity of what lies ahead. A great change in our stewardship of the Earth and life on it is required, if vast human misery is to be avoided and our global home on this planet is not to be irretrievably mutilated."
It is upon this background that we address all the concerns discussed in this report. The destruction of BC forests is a serious global issue. Recent forest inventories show that temperate forests are globally more endangered than tropical forests. It has become general knowledge that the forests of British Columbia are being over harvested. "Logging in Canada's province of British Columbia in 1989 was 30% higher than sustainable yield" (D. Meadows, J. Randers, Beyond the limits, 1992, P.61) . Large corporations have invested in a vastly oversized infrastructure, which has become part of the justification of an unsustainable rate of harvest. The longer we delay the inevitable changes and continue to pursue profit instead of reason, the more severe and challenging such changes will be. Although these facts are being addressed and widely acknowledged in science, in education and in the voices of many concerned citizens, government and SFP still plan to proceed with road-building and logging in domestic use watersheds of the Slocan Valley during the summer of 1998. We ask you, the decision-makers, how you are able to awake each morning and contribute to decisions that encourage greed, vested interests, unjust power structures, and that put at risk your fellow neighbors and also your own children and grandchildren (all those who, through your positions of responsibility, you are asked to represent)? Do you simply dismiss warnings such as the quote above as untrue? Or do you assess them as exaggerated? Or are you aware of the impending and present destruction to our natural environment, but do not see a relation between what happens with forest practices in British Columbia and the Slocan Valley and the global situation? Are we not ca/led, as humans, to make decisions that will allow life on earth to exist for generations to come? And does this not begin with and influence our decisions and actions on both a small and large scale?
We strongly feel and recognize that it is time for humanity to wake up. It is
time for each one of us to wake up and to be willing to make a giant leap into
a new way of approaching our relationship with the species that surround us.
The Slocan Valley is ready for the transition. We have most of the ingredients
in place for such a transition:
The only criteria which
remains to be met is the concern and action of our government and logging companies.
A healthy and continuous population requires that people in decision-making
positions like you, to take a stand for this planet, for us all, and for our
children. Will we rise to the occasion?
- also see News Releases
On May 26th, 2000, Slocan Forest Products began building a road into the South end of the Elliott Anderson Christian Trozzo watershed. The residents have been protesting in the form of blockades but were restricted from doing so by police intervention. The protest has been peaceful -- there was ample opportunity for protesters and forest workers to engage in meaningful conversation about the issues at stake.
This spring, a survey (see 'Survey') was conducted of almost all the households in the EACT watershed. The result is an overwhelming disagreement with industrial logging in this watershed. Can the people have local control of the resources in their backyard? Will the government listen to the people? What is the government's agenda?
Slocan Forest Products began building a road into the north end of the EACT Watershed August 10, 2000. This is the second road being built by SFP this summer into the fragile domestic use watershed, the first being the Trozzo Creek road. For twenty years the EACT Water Users Committee has been working to educate the public, the company and government about the threat to their water sources that industrial road building and logging pose. Simultaneously the water users have been promoting sustainable alternatives. As of now government has not come forward to endorse such an alternative, and the crisis in the Slocan Valley continues.
On this year's summer solstice, residents of the Slocan Valley joined in solidarity with other commuities around BC and beyond to stand for the protection of water and fragile ecosystems. Other communities involved in this stand for solidarity include:
Elaho Valley
BC Saltspring island
BC Hat Creek
BC Great Bear Rainforest
BC Clayoquot Sound
BC Fall Creek
BC Sunshine Coast
BC Caribou
BC Quenel river
BC Goat River
14.4 km of new road to be built before October 2000
15 000 cubic meters of wood hauled out in the first 5 months (November 00/March 01); 500 loaded logging trucks coming down Fern Road in winter conditions. 8% of their yearly Annual Allowable Cut for the entire Arrow Forest District
90% of local residents say NO to industrial logging in consumptive watersheds
Elliott-Anderson watersheds to the NORTH: Planned to be roaded and harvested in the year 2000
Baldface to the EAST: Planned to become biggest snow cat operation in the world
Winlaw watershed to the SOUTH: Planned to be developed for logging in the next few years
Slocan River to the WEST: Already roaded and developed
Blue listed Wolverine live in the watershed; Important wildlife corridor for many species; No indepth wildlife studies done to date; Important Fish recovery area
Will employ a maximum of 34 full time people for the 5 month period; Most of the profit will leave the community; The watershed will be degraded for at least 60 to 100 year
http://www.freevoice.kutni.com/environment/board/ - Kootenay regional internet site with online discussion on EACT and related issues.
Government of British Columbia Forest Practices Code
http://www.co-motion.net - Co-sponsors with EACT of the May-June 2000 Action Camp non-violent civil disobedience training/workshop camp.
http://www.tinmen.org - site full of relevant , regional & provincial information/media on water and logging issues.
http://www.tao.ca/~elaho - the web presence of the Elaho environmental action
*more comming soon!*
Copyright © 2000 Elliott
Anderson Christian Trozzo Watershed Alliance. All rights reserved. Web by
Kurt Heimbach.