And now:[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 09:11:01 -0400 (EDT)
From: Mark Little <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Subject: [nativeamericanlaw] Canadian Indians win interim land rights victory
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
CANADA: September 29, 1999
VANCOUVER - A British Columbia judge handed Indian tribes a
potentially significant victory in the battle over their rights to
natural resources in timber and mineral-rich western Canada.
Supreme Court judge William Davies said the province cannot proceed
with a stop-logging order against Westbank First Nation without also
resolving the issue of whether the tribe has a constitutional right to
resources in its historic territory.
Although the order is only the first step in what will likely be a
lengthy legal battle, it is the latest in a series of court victories
for Indians as they press for greater control over their historic
lands in Canada.
"It is exactly what we wanted," said Chief Ron Derrickson, of the
Westbank band, which is located in the Okanagan Region of central
British Columbia near Kelowna.
Provincial officials went to court against the band when aboriginal
loggers began cutting trees without a permit on public-owned land
within what the Westbank people consider their historic territory.
Westbank leaders said they were forced to begin logging because of a
lack of progress in negotiations for land rights treaties. It is one
of more than 40 Indian groups in British Columbia involved in such
negotiations.
The question of Indian land rights has been largely unresolved in
British Columbia since Europeans began arriving in the 1800s, and the
issue is seen as casting a cloud of uncertainty over the province's
resource-dependent economy.
A spokesman for the B.C. Forestry Ministry said the province and
federal governments had been negotiating about land rights in good
faith, and needed to study Monday's ruling before deciding what to do
next.
Like the United States and Australia, Canada has long struggled with
how to balance aboriginal and non-native rights.
Natives also scored a victory on Sept. 17, when Canada's Supreme Court
said tribes that had signed treaties with England did not break the
law by fishing for profit without the required modern-day licenses.
Derrickson said he would consult with other Native groups also
considering logging before deciding on Davies' request for a voluntary
suspension of tree-cutting until the legal issues are resolved.
"The First Nations (Indians) are part of British Columbia too, and
we've been lied to for years and years and years and my responsibility
is to them not to this judge," Derrickson said.
Story by Allan Dowd
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
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/
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
