Description

In Parksville, some 300 woodworkers demonstrate outside provincial government hearings into legislation governing forest practices in B.C. They called on forests minister David Parker, conducting the hearings, to suspend grants of Tree Farm Licenses and strike a royal commission into forestry practices. At issue was the forest firm Fletcher Challenge, a New Zealand corporation that had recently taken over B.C. Forest Products and was overcutting its allotments and wasting wood, the demonstrators charged. Meanwhile, the firm had laid off 425 workers. More than 100 organizations including wood unions, environmentalists and First Nations groups presented briefs to the hearings, even though the results were not binding or would necessarily affect Bill 28, amendments to the Forest Act which rolled over and extended the reach of TFLs. Many presenters said the TFL system was not working for communities in that it did not guarantee locally cut wood would be processed in local sawmills.