Natives may get say in logging

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Natives in Clayoquot Sound may have a say in how forestry companies harvest the region's resources despite the absence of provincially recognized land claims.

The chiefs from the Clayoquot, Hesquiaht, Ahousaht, Ucluelet and Toquaht First nations, all members of the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council, met with provincial Premier Mike Harcourt to start negotiations to protect their traditional lands from loggers before and during treaty negotiations.

"We are hopeful this intense period of negotiations will result in an interim measures agreement so that there will be something left to negotiate by the time we get to the treaty table," said Clayoquot Chief Francis Frank.

But the bands will still proceed with their court battle to halt the logging if forest companies like MacMillan Bloedel start to build roads in the Clayoquot Valley, Frank said.

The people of the central regional bands of the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council represent almost half of the population in the sound. But their land base is less than one-half of one per cent of the region.

The B.C. Claims Task Force Report. released in June 1991, recommended that the province negotiate interim agreements prior to and during treaty negotiations when interests, like logging or other natural resources developments, threaten treaty negotiations.

The B.C. Treaty Commission was established earlier this year to also speed along the land claims process, but Native leaders have criticized the process for threatening to undermine their Aboriginal and treaty rights.

"We have been very reluctant to participate in it because it preserves the policies of the federal government, especially in terms of the land title question," said head of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs Saul Terry.

Indian Affairs Minister Pauline Browes and the federal government still believe in extinguishing treaty and Aboriginal rights in the land claims process, Terry said.

"That confirmed for us that we were correct in opposing a set-up like this kind of process that does not change fundamentally the policies of the federal government, he said.

The union and its member bands are reluctant to use the treaty commission to find agreements between Native bands and the provincial government as long as the commission advances Ottawa's extinguishment policies, Terry said.

Talks between the province and the Clayoquot bands are expected to carry on for several weeks.