Deb Guerette
Herald-Tribune Staff
Clear-cut logging on claimed Lubicon Lake Indian Nation territory is among crucial issues facing band and federal negotiators set to meet Tuesday, six months after the last formal talks.
With a new provincial timber harvest permit in hand, a Whitefish Lake First Nation owned company began logging Feb. 5 in a southeast portion of traditional territory the Lubicon have fought for decades to protect while its land rights remain unsettled.
The invasive resource development gives the remote North Peace Lubicon community pressing cause to scrutinize a clear lack of progress at the negotiating table, band advisor Fred Lennarson said.
"It is very worrisome when you are at the table year in, year out... with government sponsored and supported resource development... subverting the rights you are at the table to negotiate.
"You have to wonder if there is any sincerity about achieving a settlement," Lennarson said.
Alberta Environment has issued a 50,000 cubic metre timber harvest allocation to Whitefish Lake First Nation, Resource Development spokesman Mark Erdman said.
Timber harvest agreements usually fall under the domain of Resource Development, but, in this case Alberta Environment signed a memorandum of understanding with the band, Erdman confirmed Friday, but was unable to explain why.
Whitefish Lake First Nation natural resource manager Doug Anderson said in early January he planned to meet with the Lubicon to discuss harvest plans he's carrying out for the band-owned S9 Forest Management Ltd.
A Lubicon trapper whose trap line is within the area targeted for harvest received notice on Dec. 20 from Anderson, that the company intended to begin harvest and hauling operations in the area on Dec. 28.
The trapper, Reinie Jobin, objected by letter to the development. To date, Anderson has not met with Lubicon officials, Lennarson said. Anderson did not return phone calls last week.
He said in January the Whitefish band has been working with provincial and federal government departments over the past year to establish a "one of a kind" cooperative land management agreement.
Federal Lubicon negotiator Brad Morse said he is aware of Lubicon concerns about the timber harvest.
"Obviously any activity within land Lubicon assert to be traditional territory that goes on without approval is a source of concern to them and impacts the overall environment in which we negotiate," Morse said. The federal government, however, has no influence over provincial natural resource management, he said.
"It is provincial crown land. There is nothing on the face on it (within) the timber permit to evoke any federal jurisdiction," he said.
"A bit concerned" about the mired-state of negotiations, Morse said he met with Lubicon Chief Bernard Ominayak and most council members in Little Buffalo Feb. 20.
Negotiators will return to discussions about community construction on Tuesday, he said.
Technical committee meetings and some dialogue has been ongoing since the last formal negotiation session in Little Buffalo in September, he said.
Attempts to protect claimed Lubicon territory from clear-cut logging in the 1990s saw the Toronto-based Friends of the Lubicon level a boycott campaign against paper-product manufacturer Daishowa Ltd., until Peace River-based Daishowa-Marubeni International publicly commit to not harvest in Lubicon territory until its land rights were settled. Daishowa Ltd. claimed the boycott cost it $20 million in lost sales.
In the mid 1980's, after the provincial government enacted retroactive legislation to prevent the Lubicon from filing legal caveat to protect its traditional territory from booming oil and gas development, the Lubicon launched a protest campaign against the petroleum industry sponsored 1988 Calgary Olympics.
"Check points," also established at that time were manned by local, regional, national and international Lubicon supporters at road entrances into proposed reserve territory.
On the eve of the international Olympic event then Premier Don Getty established a personal dialogue with Lubicon Chief Bernard Ominayak which lead to the Grimshaw Accord, an agreement committing the province to transfer to Canada the 95 square mile reserve the Lubicon sought.
The province no longer intends to honour that agreement, Alberta Aboriginal Affairs officials confirmed in 2000.
Recent environmental assessments show over 1,000 oil and gas well sites now lay within a 20 kilometre radius of Lubicon Lake - where the band has long proposed to build a home community, and forest industry companies hold agreements with the province for lands that entirely blanket claimed Lubicon territory.
Resource revenue earned by industry in claimed Lubicon territory over the past 20 years is estimated at over $10 billion.
Federal Indian Agents formally first heard the Lubcion's request for a reserve in 1939.
For more info, please contact
e-mail: fol (at) tao (dot) ca
Friends of the Lubicon (Toronto)
Address as of Dec 12, 2000:
PO BOX 444 STN D,
ETOBICOKE ON M9A 4X4
tel: (416) 763-7500