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Defenders insist on park status for South Chilcotins

Government considering boundaries as logging continues on park borders

The South Chilcotin Mountains Wilderness Society wrote a terse letter to Premier Gordon Campbell and the Liberal government two weeks ago to set the record straight about the current status of the disputed South Chilcotin Mountains Park.

The letter was sent in response to comments made by Yale-Lillooet MLA Dave Chutter in the Legislature on April 21. According to Chutter, the "Premier of the day (Ujjal Dosanjh) ignored both options and arbitrarily created a protected area – not a park, as the Wilderness Committee claims – just before calling an election… Opposition leader Carole James has falsely suggested that a consensus on the LRMP has been reached and wants this House to endorse her plan."

SCMWS begs to differ, pointing out in its reply that the South Chilcotin Mountains Park was created as a result of the previous government choosing one of two options presented by the Lillooet Land and Resource Management Plan forum.

"There was no cherry picking," wrote the SCMWS, "when the previous Government selected the Conservation, Recreation, Tourism and Community offer, without any modification whatsoever."

Furthermore, Order In Council 524 – which was approved in 2001 on the former government’s last day in power – states that the regulations of the Park Act would apply to the area until the boundaries were made official through legislation.

As a result, the SCMWS takes the position that the area is already a de facto park, and that any decision to redraw the borders or allow activities such as mining and forestry would require the government to redraw park boundaries or revoke park status – decisions that would be extremely unpopular.

For its part, the current government believes that the Order In Council creating the park ignored the wishes of people living in the Lillooet Land and Resource Management Plan area, and was issued outside of the normal LRMP process. Therefore, the government denies that the area has any kind of park status and reserves the right to alter the boundaries and to discard special management zones that were created outside of the boundaries through the Order In Council.

In a letter to a member of the Association of Whistler Area Residents for the Environment, Premier Campbell himself stated that "Contrary to false claims by some groups, there is no provincial park in the South Chilcotins."

AWARE director Eckhard Zeidler says the government’s position is hard to understand, given the facts.

"In the minds and hearts of British Columbians, it pretty much is a park," he said.

"We’re disappointed that our members are being told that it’s not a park, when they know there’s an Order In Council to direct it to become a park… we don’t appreciate the provincial government telling them it never received anything even approaching park status, when it has."

The recent war of words over whether the 72,000 hectare South Chilcotin Mountains Park exists in any way, shape or form is just the latest in a long battle to determine the future of the area, which includes the popular biking, hiking and horseback destination of Spruce Lake.

The mining industry has drawn a line in the sand over the issue, telling the government that any decision to create a new park would drive investment out of the province – despite the fact that previous explorations have revealed that there is very little potential for mining in the area. Instead, the mining industry has asked for a smaller park of less than 3,000 hectares, which conservation and recreation groups find unacceptable.

At the same time that the provincial government rejected the Order In Council directing government to treat the area as a provincial park they also threw out several special management zones that were created outside of the South Chilcotin boundaries that would have allowed mining but not forestry. Now logging companies have been able to cut in an area called the Bonanza Finger, which is essentially the gateway to the park. The clearcuts are also visible from within the park itself, as the Bonanza Finger juts into the northeast corner of the park.

The first logging in the area took place in December of 2001, and the logging company returned last winter to add six more cutblocks.

Joe Foy, the campaign director for the Western Canada Wilderness Committee says the government is quietly attempting to dismantle the park by discrediting the process that created it.

"It is park. The Order in Council says it is to be managed as if it is a Class A provincial park and we say if it walks like a park and quacks like a park, then it’s a park. The Order In Council is a law, and if you break it there are problems," said Foy.

As for why the government is taking more care recently to clearly specify that the area is not a park, Foy believes that it’s in their best interest to get the word "park" out of the discussions.

"They know that British Columbians love their parks, don’t want them stolen, don’t want them trashed, so elements within the government are trying to spin it as simply tweaking a land use plan," said Foy.

"People are getting used to the idea (of a South Chilcotin Mountains Park), and politicians know that people don’t like rolling back the boundaries of a park, so they put their spin doctors on it.

"But it’s not working. When you look at the government’s own Hansard reports, you even have government ministers calling the place a park. The people in Lillooet, when you look at the tourist brochure, they’re very happy to proclaim their new park, and so they should because it’s a great draw to the community."

Foy does not know when the government will make its final decision over the area and the Lillooet LRMP. The Ministry of Sustainable Resource Management has not set a date to finalize a decision after a series of delays, and did not respond to a request for more information at press time.

As for the mining industry’s claim, Foy says that the only way to make a profit out of the South Chilcotins would be to roll back the boundaries, stake claims, and seek compensation when a future government attempts to restore the boundaries of the park to their original locations.

"The only thing that’s mine-able in the South Chilcotins is the tax-payers’ pockets," said Foy.

The recent logging in the Bonanza Creek area is also a sore point for Foy, the South Chilcotin Mountains Wilderness Society and AWARE. They believe that the government should have honoured the special management zones endorsed through the Order In Council until the future of the area is decided once and for all.

"We think it’s disgusting, and shows that those involved with this simply cannot be trusted. It’s a high elevation site," said Foy.

"I don’t know how much money this made for B.C., but it’s wrecked a beautiful entranceway into the park.