Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada ö On February 12, 2001, the NDP government announced that it plans to pass a new law to secure BCâs "Working Forest" for the logging industry. The proposed Forest Land Reserve legislation would give timber companies increased land tenure rights, including greater compensation rights, over 43 million hectares, making it much more time consuming and expensive for future provincial governments to set aside public forest land for any purpose other than logging. This means that nearly half of the province would be under the control of the timber industry÷every stick of commercially valuable timber in BC excluding the approximately 5 percent of the provinceâs forest lands currently protected in Parks.

Western Canada Wilderness Committee (WCWC) ö Canadaâs largest membership-based wilderness preservation organization vows to go "all out" to mobilize public opposition to the proposed legislation. "This proposed law is so bad it should be considered toxic waste," said Joe Foy, WCWC campaign coordinator. "The NDP should be ashamed of themselves for attempting to sneak through this massive give-away of the publicâs forest land to corporate interests without any real public debate. Rather than hold open house public meetings the NDP government has simply posted a discussion paper on their web site inviting e-mail comments.

The BC timber industry is attempting to quietly steal the public forest· and the NDP is helping them do it!" said Foy. "And the only way to stop them is through a massive public outcry," asserted Paul George, WCWCâs founding Director.

A recent BC government media release states, "Following public comment, legislation will be finalized and introduced this spring".

The proposed legislation contains a no net loss provision which, simply stated, means that if future governments choose to preserve some forest for non-logging purposes, such as a park, or wildlife preserve, or drinking-water reserve ö then a like amount of forest must be given to the timber industry out of an existing protected area. "In other words," said Foy "This legislation is designed to halt expansion of environmental protection initiatives in BCâs publicly owned forest for all time".

The proposed legislation suggests using compensation to the timber companies as a way to provide them security. "From now on, if this legislation is passed, we are going to have to pay the companies big-time if we the people of BC choose to protect some of our own trees," said Foy.

The discussion paper states that "The designation of Forest Land Reserves does not limit or constrain First Nations from obtaining such designated areas as treaty settlement land," However, Foy states "We believe the NDP is dead wrong. This legislation will increase the amount of money the people of BC will have to pay the timber companies for giving back tenured forest lands to First Nations and consequently will slow down negotiations and make them more difficult and costly. Essentially itâs an end run around achieving just settlement with First Nations and fair treaty negotiations,"

"Today we are sounding the alarm. This is without a doubt the worst, most retrogressive, environmentally and socially destructive forest legislation that has been proposed in BC over the last two decades. WCWC calls on all British Columbians, who have the right to have their say in how their forests are managed ö First Nations, conservation groups, tourism operators, fishers and people concerned with drinking water protection and all other concerned citizens to come together to prevent this disaster from happening," said Foy.