Legislation

Critics of the government's closed-door deal say MacBlo
should have been compensated in cash, not land.

The BC government has agreed to hand over thousands of hectares of Crown land to forest giant MacMillan Bloedel, in a precedent-setting deal that will exempt the land from environmental protection.

Each agreement seems designed to give Alcan whatever it wants, and each agreement is worse than the previous one.

by Denis Wood

The lead item on the CBC National Radio News at 6 a.m. on Aug. 5, 1997 announced the out-of-court settlement of a court case between Alcan Smelters and Chemicals Ltd and the province of British Columbia.

The issue, already ensconced in American law, has not even begun to register on the Canadian policy agenda.

by Peter D. Carter, MD

Although the last throne speech promised action for Canada's children and action for Canada's environment, our government just can't seem to put the two together.

Stumpage, the "rent" for public forests, will fund BC's enhanced silviculture sham.

by Jim Cooperman

Forest Renewal BC (FRBC) evolved out of the last softwood lumber battle and now it has been scrapped in the midst of the current softwood dispute. To end the cycle of tariffs, the NDP government had raised stumpage significantly, thus adding a billion dollars or more each year to the provincial coffers. FRBC was hatched to "invest" these funds into "renewing the forests," thus making the additional costs more palatable to industry and unions.

The NDP government brought in Innovative Forest Practices Agreements (IFPA) in 1997, to grant forest licence holders the ability to earn allowable cut increases by work to improve forest productivity through what the Ministry of Forests calls "specialized silviculture, inventory reviews, and growth and yield activities."

Monsanto's highly-touted GE wheat joins the growing list of obituaries of Frankenfoods and crops.

by Ronnie Cummins, Organic Consumers Association
Excerpted from BioDemocracy News #40, August 2002

Contrary to the claims of a literal army of public relations flacks, indentured politicians, and scientists, the first wave of genetically engineered (GE) foods and crops have apparently suffered a fatal haemorrhage. Future historians will likely record Tuesday, July 30, 2002 as the beginning of the end, the day of irreversible decline for Monsanto and the Gene Giants.

On that day, facing mounting global opposition from farmers, consumers, and even major US food transnationals such as General Mills, Monsanto was forced to announce that they were backing off

The Preamble defined the multi-uses for the public forests. It's gone.

In November, the BC Liberals passed Bill 74, the Forest and Range Practices Act. The new and controversial self-regulation legislation, which becomes law in the Spring of 2003, will replace the 1994 Forest Practices Code Act, and makes significant changes.