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Blockade of two ships
carrying Raw Logs goes into second day.
Thursday, Nov. 19th 4:30 P.M., Vancouver
- Members of the Conservation groups Forest Action Network (FAN) and People’s
Action for Threatened Habitat (PATH) occupied log booms at 12:00 Wednesday and will
continue to prevent the ships Oriente Noble and the Royal Forest from loading logs bound
for Japan at the Ballantyne Pier in Vancouver Harbour.
"We will be back tomorrow and will continue coming back until Raw Log Export licenses
are revoked. These multi-national companies are exporting our jobs, and virtually killing
our BC economy," said Tracie Park of PATH.
A projected one million cubic metres of raw logs will be exported from the province in
1998. This figure is 4 times higher than in 1997 and equal to the entire harvest in the
Great Bear Rainforest. There are another 18 shipments of Raw Logs expected to leave
Vancouver this year. This is enough wood to provide 2000 jobs for BC.
There have recently been over 20 mill closures in British Columbia, and this wood
represents enough fibre to put everyone back to work. The industry has told British
Columbians for years that the only way to keep jobs in BC is to support the large
multinational Forest Companies, such as INTERFOR, MacMillan Bloedel, Timber West,
and Western Forest Products, in their massive clearcutting and mill jobs.
"The mill up in Squamish, near the highly contested Stoltmann Wilderness, just
closed, leaving 185 BC citizens out of work. We could save the Stoltmann and still have
the small communities of BC working if we processed the wood here". said Jmaes
Jamieson of PATH.
The truth is, these companies will continue clearcutting the ancient forests, without
supplying local mill jobs. For years, environmentalists have demanded more secondary
manufacturing and better forest management which is more labour-intensive.
"Members of the Long Shoremens Union expressed support for our actions and wondered
why the IWA was not here protecting their members jobs". These logs come
from the old growth valleys of British Columbia, some of the only remaining ancient
temperate Rainforests in the world and they are being exported without any value added; if
the IWA is concerned about jobs being shipped out of BC they should join our
protest," said Gavin Edwards from FAN.
"Our demands are pretty simple, unload the ship!" explained Barney Kern of PATH,
"I want Glen Clark and the Forest Industry to keep their promises of job creation,
which was heavily advertised at BC taxpayers expense (The Jobs and Timber Accord), and I
want both Federal and Provincial governments to stop granting log export licenses."
For more information contact: PATH: Barney Kern (604)729-8933
FAN: Gavin Edwards (604)836-6341
FAN:Louise Malloy (250)799-5800