4 Weeks Left: Sign the Working Forest ONLINE Petition

[WCWC Vic]

Please forward far and wide:

ONLY 4 WEEKS LEFT:  BC Liberals plan to designate "Working Forest" at
the end of June

New Online Petition at www.workingforest.org  Please sign it!!!

Time is quickly running out to halt the BC government's plans to turn 45
million hectares of BC's unprotected public forests into a "Working
Forest". The proposed Working Forest Initiative is an Anti-Forest
Protection Act and a move towards streamlining the sell-off of public
lands. In addition, the government has already passed the sister
legislation of the  Working Forest, the so-called "Forestry
Revitalization Act", which allows companies to shut down local milling
facilities (eliminating BC jobs) while retaining their rights to cut
down our public forests.

So far, about 17 000 signatures have been collected on our hardcopy
petitions against the proposed Working Forest Initiative – we need tens
of thousands more by June 21. Now, people can also sign their names and
addresses online at www.workingforest.org as well as download a hardcopy
there to circulate through your community. Also, read on below to see
what else you can do.

The Creeping, Incremental Phase-in of the Working Forest Initiative

The government hopes to implement the first Working Forest “order in
council” (legally-binding Cabinet or executive decision) for the Working
Forest in late June. This first order in council will likely be an empty
“shell” with little substance, thus seeming to disprove the concerns of
its critics. However, subsequent orders in councils will be used to
"fill in the shell", that is, to incrementally strengthen the Working
Forest designation over time. The subsequent orders in council will
establish legally-binding Timber Targets (ie. guaranteed logging zones)
that exclude future protected areas from the most productive forests,
and then even later, will attach minimum numeric figures to the Timber
Targets (in percentages or hectares of land that must be covered by
Timber Targets in each region).

The Working Forest Initiative is an “Anti-Forest Protection Act”
designed to give “land base certainty” on public lands to private timber
corporations by undermining the main causes of “land base uncertainty”
for the companies – new protected areas and First Nations land
settlements that “take” public timber out of the hands of corporations.
It would also simplify the process for selling-off Crown lands to
private real estate developers by eliminating the Provincial Forest
designation, thus eliminating the role of the Ministry of Forests in
most cases when reviewing applications by private developers to purchase
Crown lands (thus leaving Minister of Resources George Abbott as the
sole decision-maker). 

TAKE ACTION: 
Besides signing the online petition, we encourage you to also:

- PLEASE help us collect signatures on our petitions by downloading
actual hardcopies of the petition from the website, on the top right
side, at www.workingforest.org  You can collect signatures in busy
public places, door to door, among family, from roommates, at school, at
work, etc.  If you have trouble downloading them, you can also pick them
up at our offices at 651 Johnson St. in Victoria 250-388-9292 or 341
Water St. in Vancouver 604-683-8220 or ask us to e-mail you a file
attachment. 

- Forward the online petition (ie. this e-mail) to as many friends as
possible

- Help us distribute our Working Forest newspapers throughout your
neighborhood and community - this is very important to create an
educated public. Let us know how many you want us to send you, or pick
them up at our office (see our above or below addresses).

- Return all completed or partially completed petitions to the office of
the Wilderness Committee by June 21 to: WCWC Victoria, 651 Johnson St.,
Victoria, BC V8W 1M7 (250-388-9292,
wc2vic at island.net)

- Write and phone your concerns to:

Premier Gordon Campbell 
Legislative Buildings, Victoria, BC, V8V 1X4
E-mail:  premier at gov.bc.ca
Telephone: (250) 387-1715   
Fax: (250) 387-0087

George Abbott, Minister of Sustainable Resource Management Legislative
Buildings, Victoria BC  V8V 1X4
E-mail:  george.abbott.mla at leg.bc.ca  
Phone:  (250) 356-9076   
Fax:  (250) 356-8273

And just as importantly, write and call your own elected provincial MLA.
You can find out who your MLA is at
http://www.legis.gov.bc.ca/mla/3-1-1.htm or by calling Enquiry BC at
387-6121 in Victoria, (604) 660-2421 in Vancouver, and 1-800-663-7867
elsewhere in BC. 

- Write a letter to the editor (keep them short, under 200 words,
otherwise they won't be printed) to your local newspaper - it'll reach
thousands more people

- Organize a community meeting on the issue, promote the petition and
letter-writing

- Organize any groups (environmental, social justice, church, union,
business association, etc.) to which you belong to do the same


Do Petitions or Letters Really DO Anything? Don't the BC Liberals Just
Ignore Public Opinion? Don't be Cynical - Take ACTION
 
Many people are cynical, believing that the intentions and agenda of the
BC Liberal government are impossible to derail. However, experience and
history shows that it is the SHEER FORCE OF NUMBERS that is the basis of
significant social and political change, whether for reforms or
revolution - there must be lots of people on board who know, care, and
are prepared to act. It is a tremendous risk for the BC Liberals, who
are now significantly losing to the NDP in the latest public opinion
polls, in their last year before an election to undertake vastly
unpopular moves. This includes the Working Forest Initiative - to the
extent that people know and care about it. Letters and signatures on
petitions are an indicator for government to assess how much of a risk
it is to undertake any of their plans. So your participation is
absolutely vital here. Only a broad, relentless, and determined campaign
involving yourself and thousands more will succeed in overturning the
government's plans. There are already a thousand volunteers currently
involved in BC. Please join us and take action.

Thank you for your help! Everyone counts at this late hour. Our public
lands need all the help they can get ASAP. This is the fight for all
time for our public forests.

-   Ken Wu, Western Canada Wilderness Committee
-----------

Western Canada Wilderness Committee
Victoria office and store
651 Johnson St.
Victoria, BC V8W 1M7
250-388-9292
wc2vic at island.net
www.wildernesscommitteevictoria.org
www.workingforest.org