And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: The following article is from The Vancouver Sun newspaper in Vancouver BC. posted on September 9, 1999. Its website is at http://www.vancouversun.com. More bands consider logging without permit The Vancouver Sun Kim Pemberton in Kelowna and Jim Beatty in Victoria Two more B.C. Indian bands may join the Westbank band in logging land without Victoria's permission, band representatives said Wednesday. Members of the Okanagan and Adams Lake bands will vote within the next two weeks on whether to go ahead with their own logging operations. The B.C. government was expected to issue a formal stop-work order to the Westbank band today, after the band ignored a verbal request from forest ministry officials Wednesday to stop logging. Chief Ron Derrickson said the work will continue until he gets a commitment from Victoria to negotiate a timber deal for the band. Forest Minister Dave Zirnhelt spoke with Derrickson on Wednesday, but refused to negotiate a timber deal. "We won't negotiate while they're conducting an illegal activity." Zirnhelt said there is nothing in the province's Forest Act that allows government to directly allocate large quantities of timber to native bands. That, he said, would have to be negotiated at the treaty table. Meanwhile, Okanagan band Chief Dan Wilson told a press conference at the Westbank tribal nation's office Wednesday that native groups are frustrated with just "getting the crumbs" in their own territory. "We fully agree with the Westbank strategy," said Wilson. Penticton Chief Stewart Phillip, who is also president of the B.C. Union of Indian Chiefs, said aboriginal communities are becoming angrier about being denied access to resources on their own land. "The government continues to pursue a policy of economic marginalization. In our view it's economic racism." More than a dozen Westbank band members began logging on Crown land without the appropriate tree-cutting licences at about 1 p.m. Tuesday. By late Wednesday, they had filled 20 logging trucks as they cut into 19 hectares of timber claimed as being on traditional territory. The logging is taking place about 20 kilometres northwest of Westbank, just across Lake Okanagan from Kelowna. Both Derrickson and Zirnhelt took steps Wednesday to quell fears the logging could turn violent. "I have instructed my staff unequivocally that they are not to use foul language, there will be no drinking, there is to be no one there that is unauthorized," Derrickson said. "If somebody tries to arrest them, [I've told them to] lay down." Said Zirnhelt: "Above all we intend to keep the peace." Aboriginal Affairs Minister Dale Lovick said the province has no easy solution to the Westbank band's problems. "Even though we want to do something with First Nations to give them the economic wherewithal to prosperity and success and all of that, you can't overnight suddenly manufacture harvesting rights because the resource is allocated [to forest companies]." The province annually issues timber cutting licences to large companies for about 7.6 million cubic metres of wood from the aboriginal area claimed by the Westbank Indians. Of that, the band asked the province for 600,000 cubic metres of timber annually. But the forest ministry offered small amounts of wind-blown and burned timber outside the band's traditional territory. Reprinted under the Fair Use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html doctrine of international copyright law. &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit) Unenh onhwa' Awayaton http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/ UPDATES: CAMP JUSTICE http://shell.webbernet.net/~ishgooda/oglala/ &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
