Feds want Wood Buffalo timber back

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Canada Parks Service is negotiating to buy the timber rights of a multinational pulp corporation to stop it from logging inside Wood Buffalo National Park.

It's the same pulp mill developer entangled in a court battle with the Little Red River Indian Band of northern Alberta, who fear the company, Daishowa, will pollute the Peace River with toxic chemicals from its proposed $500-million pulp mill at Peace River.

Daishowa Canada Ltd. gained control of the Wood Buffalo timber from Canfor Corporation, which it recently purchased. The logging arrangement has been passed on to High Level saw mills since 1956.

The parks service has been working on the costly plan to buy the timber rights since Canfor Corporation began logging there in 1982.

The timber agreement doesn't expire until 2002 but park warden Low Comin said his department wants to stop the logging as soon as possible to preserve the area. Canfor held the only commercial timber rights inside the park.

"We want to find out what it would cost to buy them out right now." Comins said from his office in Fort Smith, NWT

"We are currently pursuing an appraisal of the timber. We prefer there was no logging in the park at all."

The 1982 deal was one in a long line of transfers that have occurred since the federal government since the federal government signed the timber agreement 34 years ago.

Comin said Canada Parks Services will complete an economic appraisal by April 15 to present to Daishowa.

He said the $30-million price tag on the timber rights was too extravagant when the government approached Canfor nine years ago. But he said it's time all logging was halted in the national park.

Wood Buffalo National Park became a target for logging companies in 1956 when the federal government needed timber to develop Uranium mines in Saskatchewan.

"It was considered in the national interest," Comin said.

It's not in the national interest to continue logging there any more, he said.

Wood Buffalo National Park was established in 1922 and occupies 17,400 square miles of northern Alberta and the NWT

Canfor has been logging 180,000 cubic meters of timer a year since it began operations in High Level.

Canfor also has sawmills in Grand Prairie and Hines Creek.

Little Red River Band members living on the Garden River settlement located inside the park, are terrified that logging near their homes will destroy their heritage and take away the livelihood their forefathers have enjoyed for generations.

They are already trying desperately to preserve the quality of the water in the Peace River, which runs through their settlement.

In February, the band administration filed a lawsuit in federal court demanding the federal environment review board undertake studies on the Peace River before Daishowa is allowed to complete the controversial mill.

The mill, located 500 km downstream from the Little Red River community, is over half completed.