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South Chilcotin Park under review, again

It’s been less than one year since the South Chilcotin Mountains provincial park was created, but its future still hangs in an uncertain balance.

It’s been less than one year since the South Chilcotin Mountains provincial park was created, but its future still hangs in an uncertain balance.

The Liberal government has decided to review an NDP decision that saw the creation of this 71,000-hectare park last March, to see if there are other viable sustainable resource management options there.

"I did a five hour helicopter flight over this area and it's extremely beautiful," said Stan Hagen, the minister of sustainable resources. "But at the same time, there are natural resources there and, as you know, the way we pay for health and education and other government services in this province is we extract natural resources. So we must find a balance to deal with this."

The decision to review the area over the next four months comes as a huge blow to environmentalists.

"It's an absolute travesty," said Eckhard Zeidler of the Association of Whistler Area Residents for the Environment. "Finally they did the right thing by creating the park... and now it's all up for grabs again."

There were valid reasons for the Liberals to take a second look at this decision, according to Hagen.

The former government approved of the creation of the park just one day before former NDP premier Ujjal Dosanjh called a provincial election.

"There is always the suspicion that the decision is being made for political purposes rather than good public policy purposes. I think it was released for political purposes," said Hagen.

He also said there were a lot of complaints from people who live and work in the region who did not feel as though their views had been heard. Specifically, most of them felt that there was not sufficient attention paid to the interests of the forestry and mining industries in the area.

"I would ask that they would allow mining exploration and development in that areas that were defined as hot, geologically speaking," said Russ Oakley, the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District's Area A director, who represents the Gold Bridge-Bralorne area. "Modern mining techniques have very little environmental impact," he added.

The opponents of the NDP decision also felt there needed to be a socio-economic study of the area, something that was not done under the previous government.

The Liberals have since completed a social and economic analysis of the proposals and will be using this new information as well as the work from the former table in making their decision about the future of the park.

The debate over this area has dragged on for more than five years now. The Lillooet Land and Resource Management Plan (LRMP) table was unable to achieve consensus this year and as a result of the impasse they presented two land-use options to the NDP.

The NDP government chose the "conservation option" over the "resource option" and in March implemented Phase 1, essentially creating the boundaries of the South Chilcotin Park in the process.

"We are very disappointed about their decision particularly in light of the fact that Phase 1 was concluded with a lengthy process with a lot of stakeholders," said Zeidler.

Environmentalists are extremely concerned that by opening up the discussions again, the Liberal government will opt for the second choice – the resource option.

"I have no idea (what the final decision will be) but the indications are that the government could go with accelerated resource extraction as the best thing for B.C.," said Paul George, the founder of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee. "This means deep and long-term impoverishment for British Columbians."

The environmental side of the table essentially sees a sustainable future in tourism and recreation through the protection of the wilderness areas.

"That area's value is in sustainable tourism not unsustainable resource extraction," said Zeidler.

But the many of the local residents just don't see it that way.

Oakley would like to see the size of the current park made smaller or, failing that, he would like there to be an option to go into certain areas of the park to explore and develop gold mines there.

"I think Stan Hagen has done the right thing. I agree that they should look at the two proposals and come up with something in the middle," said Oakley.

This might not be an option for some environmentalists who already consider the size of the current park too small to sustain the grizzly bear population in the area.

"The most important reason for the area needing more protection is that it is a link between the southern grizzly bear population and the northern population," said George. "It's already quite fragmented."

With all the different voices to take into account, Hagen is aware that the planning table is still very polarized.

Over the course of the next four months there will be ongoing discussions between stakeholders and people in the sustainable resources ministry.

"I've asked them to bring me a decision by the end of March so it's a fairly short timeline. The reason that we need to do that is that we need to bring certainty to the land base so that the people who live and work there will know what the uses of the land base will be," said Hagen.

Hagen is asking the environmentalists to have patience and to participate in the ongoing process.

"I'm being very objective in looking at this. We want a balanced decision," he said.

But a lot of the key players in this debate are frustrated and tired after all the work that has gone on over the past five years.

"After years of hard work, you reach an agreement and then it's opened up again. It doesn't give me much faith that agreements would be honoured in a Sea to Sky LRMP," said Zeidler.

The government has also concluded its review of two other land-use decisions made by the previous government. In the Central Coast the LRMP process has been streamlined and its goal is to achieve a land-use plan for the region by spring 2003. In the southern Rockies, a new consultative process will be introduced to enhance balanced sustainable economic development.