Temagami Land Caution
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Land Caution
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Fair-weather friends head down south for the winter
(Wednesday, November 27, 1996)
Earthroots Coalition leaving Owain, pleased with focus on Temagami
(Wednesday, November 27, 1996)
"See the Big Picture"
(Wednesday, November 27, 1996)
Temagami urges intervener status in forestry challenge
(Wednesday, November 13, 1996)
Goulard Lumber waiting for freeze-up and processing pine
(Wednesday, November 6, 1996)
MNR says "significant" portions of Owain Lake forest harvested before
(Wednesday, October 30, 1996)
Pencil Lake bridge on Red Squirrel Road extension burned
(Wednesday, October 30, 1996)
Three bridges in Temagami forest area being dismantled
(Wednesday, October 30, 1996)
TLA's bid for environmental assessment of land use on hold
(Wednesday, October 16, 1996)
UN committee hears Temagami land use debate
(Wednesday, October 9, 1996)
Ontario Greens join Owain Lake logging protest
(Wednesday, October 9, 1996)
Temagami council passes its views to world commission
(Wednesday, October 9, 1996
Environmentalists seeking protection of wildlife species
(Wednesday, October 9, 1996)
Temagami fears shrinking land base could kill economic opportunity
(Wednesday, October 9, 1996)
Logging to continue in Owain Lake forest
(Wednesday, October 2, 1996)
Serré suggests Northern Ontario should become a separate province
(Wednesday, October 2, 1996)
Temagami MNR building closes - services now provided out of North Bay
(Wednesday, October 2, 1996)
The new province message
(Wednesday, October 2, 1996)
Clear message sent from solidarity rally
(Wednesday, October 2, 1996)
Political leaders and industry lead rally to tell opponents to go home
(Wednesday, October 2, 1996)
Latchford mayor expresses frustration with "old-growth" label
(Wednesday, October 2, 1996)
Unity rally draws nearly 2,000 from across Northeastern Ontario
(Wednesday, October 2, 1996)
Environmental organizations and individuals denounce logging
(Wednesday, October 2, 1996)
Local mayors and reeves urge premier to stay the course on Temagami
(Wednesday, October 2, 1996)
Owain Lake forest logging begins
(Wednesday, September 25, 1996)
Neighbors to join Temagami in solidarity rally
(Wednesday, September 25, 1996)
Temagami residents speak out
(Wednesday, September 25, 1996)
Legal stoppage of Owain Lake harvesting sought in court
(Wednesday, September 25, 1996)
Environmentalists fight staking with staking in Temagami area
(Wednesday, September 25, 1996)
Owain Lake stand focal point of forest dispute
(Wednesday, September 25, 1996)
Prospectors line up for staking race
(Wednesday, September 18, 1996)
Preserve it and they will come
(Wednesday, September 18, 1996)
Earthroots steps up logging protest
(Wednesday, September 18, 1996)
Environmental groups taking government to court
(Wednesday, September 18, 1996)
More spiking found in Owain Lake forest
(Wednesday, September 18, 1996)
Temagami advises province to hold off any governance body
(Wednesday, September 18, 1996)
MOEE to investigate Sherman Mine pollution charges
(Wednesday, September 18, 1996)
Staking ban lifts September 17
(Wednesday, September 11, 1996)
"This is not over," say protesters after blockade comes down
(Wednesday, September 11, 1996)
Spiked trees found in Owain Lake forest
(Wednesday, September 11, 1996)
Prospectors prepare for new staking
(Wednesday, September 11, 1996)
MAG urges no concessions to "fringe" groups
(Wednesday, September 11, 1996)
Loggers and environmentalists share the road
(Wednesday, September 11, 1996)
Temagami road blockade tumbles
(Wednesday, September 11, 1996)
Sunday meeting explains rules
(Wednesday, September 11, 1996)
Protesters block road to Owain Lake forest
(Wednesday, September 4, 1996)
Opening of Lake Temagami area to staking postponed
(Wednesday, September 4, 1996)
River Valley bridge explosion still under investigation
(Wednesday, September 4, 1996)
Goulard to begin road work despite protest
(Wednesday, September 4, 1996)
James Township welcomes mini land rush
(Wednesday, September 4, 1996)
TLA calls for EA on Temagami land use plan
(Wednesday, August 28, 1996)
Temagami forestry advisory committee off the ground
(Wednesday, August 28, 1996)
Earthroots forest defence camp preparing fight against cutting of forest
(Wednesday, August 28, 1996)
MNDM says skyline reserve will be protected
(Wednesday, August 28, 1996)
Natives debate impact of ruling
(Wednesday, July 3, 1996)
Temagami welcomes wrap-up of plan, open for business
(Wednesday, July 3, 1996)
Temagami Comprehensive Plan finally announced
(Wednesday, July 3, 1996)
Temagami lures prospectors
(Wednesday, July 3, 1996)
Jury still out on peace in Temagami
(Wednesday, July 3, 1996)
Environmentalists protesting logging in the Owain Lake area south of Temagami fulfilled location expectations early this week.
A group called Earthroots and dozens of supporters had been camping near a logging road into the area since early September. In the past 11 weeks, more than 50 of them were arrested after they blocked the road or shackled themselves to logging equipment.
On Tuesday, they announced they're packing up camp and heading south for the winter. One of their leaders insists Earthroots will take its fight against logging of old growth timber out of the woods and into the boardrooms and the marketplace.
But the departure shows their professed concern for the forests of Northern Ontario lasted only about as long as the pleasant weather
No one expected environmentalists to stay the winter. It's too bad they're leaving. A few months of frigid weather, with temperatures dipping to minus 30 and 40 degrees Celsius, would have tempered the environmental idealism of southerners duped into supporting a dubious cause led by paid, professional protesters.
The road blockade and civil disobedience on the Rabbit Lake access road were misguided protests. The Owain Forest has already been selectively logged, as often as three times by some accounts.
Years from now, loggers will no doubt return to cut more wood. Just when environmentalists come back depends on the weather.
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by Darlene Wroe
Speaker Reporter
TEMAGAMI/STURGEON FALLS - Environmentalists supporting the Earthroots Coalition are pulling out of the Owain Lake forest area.
Earthroots Coalition Executive Director Dan McDermott of Toronto says contrary to what opponents said, all but one of the people at the site were paid, and the Earthroots Coalition could not ask volunteers to endure winter weather outdoors night and day.
As well, the 18-kilometer stretch of forest road from the highway would have, from time to time if they had remained, created a deterrant to getting people and supplies to the camp site if the road had become blocked, he added. "Contrary to allegations, we have been running on a shoestring budget," he says.
ATTENTION
The protest effort, started in early September, has drawn international attention to Temagami and the way in which Ontario manages its forests, Mr. McDermott said of the success of the effort.
Goulard Lumber owner Marc Goulard of Sturgeon Falls, harvesting white and red pine at the site using the shelterwood cutting system, says the protest has also cost the company in time and money. The company had initially set the objective of having the job completed by the end of December, but now anticipates it will be finished by the end of January.
Mr. McDermott suggests that if the company goes back to the site after this winter is past, environmentalists of the Earthroots Coalition may return to the site to continue their efforts.
Meanwhile, "A number of aspects of the campaign have not been as aggressively pursued as they otherwise might have been."
He suggests the Earthroots Coalition may turn its sites to "the politicial landscape" at Queen's Park to make its point to more MPPs there.
Supporters of the Earthroots Coalition, arrested during the two months when Goulard Lumber was harvesting and preparing the road at the Owain Lake site, are coming up to court. Some initial appearances have already been made. But Mr. McDermott says from past experiences he does not like to resort to the court as a forum for making the case for the environment. "Court has never been my favorite place to make my overall points."
He is pleased with the support through a resolution of the International Union for the Conservation of Natural Resources, representing 75 countries, calling for the protection of old-growth forests in the Temagami area, even though that is non-binding to Canada, but "it was fairly embarrassing to have the cost country subject to this kind of resolution," says Mr. McDermott. He is also pleased with the support of the World Wildlife Fund.
Mr. Goulard feels that the environmental group was really seeking attention. "The only thing they've done is they made a name for themselves. That wasn't old-growth forest. That was proven to them." Mr. Goulard says the protesters continued at the site to send a message to people living in the Toronto area. "These people don't have time to come up here" to look for themselves. Of the overall exercise, Mr. Goulard says, the Earthroots Coalition "didn't protect anything." It was "a scam," he believes.
USERS
Mr. McDermott says the Earthroots Coalition "want to investigate who the end users of the old-growth pine are." To date, Earthroots Coalition has "the barest information" on that.
Mr. Goulard feels the process has victimized Goulard Lumber, costing the company time and money. It is the only mill in the area which uses the red and white pine tree, he says, and is "not a big producer."
There is a future for pine as a wood product, he maintains. It is popular because of its appearance and the fact that it is easy to work with, he says.
Like another other tree, he says, it needs to be managed with thinning, etc.
He feels that the presence of environmental protesters at the site was not creating too much tension with the loggers, but says "I feel the government should have done something about that" when it started in September. Otherwise, the protest at Owain Lake forest set precedents for other logging sites, he fears.
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The following was written by Tribune-West Nipissing This Week publisher Len Barton and first appeared in that publication October 29, 1996.
A favorite phrase in the 90s has been "see the big picture" and it becomes most appropriate when attempting to understand the conflict over the cutting of the forest at Owain Lake.
To see the big picture in this issue we must look at nature and its scheme of things. Nature's law is that all living things will eventually mature and then die. Man's place in the picture has been to harvest many plants, such as corn, apples, etc. when they become mature. We have, for the most part, done the same with trees, particularly in the last number of years with great emphasis paid to maintaining a sustainable forest.
When the Owain lake conflict is viewed using the big picture it becomes obvious that the attempt to protect these mature trees is as asinine as attempting to protect mature corn or apples. Trees, corn, apples all mature and rightly should be harvested for the good of mankind.
Earthroots spokesman Dan McDermott has stated that his organization is not going to go away and a chance interview with this individual in North Bay has led us to believe that Earthroots both can and will continue with protests. Mr. McDermott showed remarkable skill in justifying the organization's mandate and defending their actions. For instance when questioned on the matter of civil disobedience, he quickly reminded us that Bob Rae was arrested for that offense on Red Squirrel Road and one year later became premier of this province. It is obvious that Earthroots organizers will continue to gather support for their cause and will maintain their protests, complete with civil disobedience.
Of two things we are certain, members of the Earthroots group are defying the laws of nature and also the laws of our government. Of nature's laws we can do nothing but obedience to our laws can and must be enforced.
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by Diane Johnston
Speaker Reporter
TEMAGAMI - The Township of Temagami is asking the region to consider stepping into a legal battle to defend logging plans in Northern Ontario.
Reeve Wayne Adair said last week that he will ask the Municipal Advisory Group (MAG) - an eight-municipality group that monitors planning and resource issues in the Temagami area - to consider seeking intervener status in an upcoming court case.
The action, launched in September by the Algonquin Wildlands League and the Friends of Temagami, challenges logging activities in Elk Lake, Temagami, Algonquin Park and the Algoma Highlands.
The groups charge that the government approved the plans in contravention of its own Crown Forest Sustainability Act.
They also assert that conditions under a 1994 class environmental assessment of Crown land timber management plans, including the development of guidelines for protection of old-growth pine wildlife habitat, have not been met.
"The logging industry has applied for and received intervener status to attend the proceedings. It could be awfully important to us here. Certainly (it) goes along with what we've been doing with the Owain Lake area," Reeve Adair said November 7.
The township's municipal council has offered vocal opposition to the continuing Earthroots protest of logging in the area south of Temagami.
But legal action could be too costly for the township to attempt alone.
Reeve Adair said MAG's bill for a lawyer to sit in on three court appearances that eventually led to the lifting of the land caution late last year was about $7,000.
The forestry challenge "may be only one court appearance, but it could be two or three. And if it does, it could be very expensive," he said.
Councillor Joan Broughton noted that Temagami is benefiting little from the logging now under way in the disputed Owain Lake area.
The timber is headed south to a Sturgeon Falls company. But Sturgeon Falls is not a member of MAG, which includes the townships of Temagami, James, Coleman, and Matachewan, and the towns of Latchford, New Liskeard, Haileybury and Cobalt.
If MAG is willing to spearhead a legal push, the Town of Sturgeon Falls could be approached to participate, Reeve Adair said.
REGION
Councillor Kirk Smith said the issue is crucial to the future of forestry in Northeastern Ontario.
If the groups' challenge is successful, he said, "we're looking at the possibility of thousands of jobs being shut down."
He suggested that the region - stretching from Temiskaming to Sault Ste. Marie, Elliot Lake, Espanola, and the communities around Algonquin Park - form a broad-based, long-term coalition to defend the forestry industry.
He pointed to the example of the Forestry Alliance of British Columbia, a coalition of industry, communities and individuals.
"They've been able to put together a very effective lobby group and public education," he said.
Only a regional effort can pull together the financial resources to match the money available to environmental groups, said Temagami chief administrative officer John Hodgson.
"If the North's going to try to survive this attack, and that's what it isI think it has to be done through an alliance, because one municipality or two or ten won't be able to do it," Mr. Hodgson said.
Reeve Adair said he would also present the alliance concept to MAG.
George Lefebvre, mayor of Latchford and co-chair of MAG, said there had been some discussion of intervener status.
But he said he would wait to comment on the proposal until Temagami had made a presentation to the group.
MAG meets as issues arise, and is supported by its participating municipalities and donations from organizations and individuals for specific purposes.
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By Darlene Wroe
Speaker Reporter
STURGEON FALLS - Goulard Lumber of Sturgeon Falls is waiting for freeze-up in the Owain Lake forest area southeast of Temagami before it continues logging of red and white pine there.
Meanwhile it is doing a little harvesting in another area, says Goulard Lumber owner Marc Goulard.
The Goulard Lumber mill has about a three to four week supply of pine to process before more wood supply is required, says Mr. Goulard.
Goulard Lumber is waiting for freeze-up to occur in the Owain Lake area to eliminate the expense of hauling gravel back to the area, Mr. Goulard explained.
A bridge has been constructed over Owain River and the company plans to enter that area to harvest the stand there. Mr. Goulard says to date about one-third of the allocated area has been harvested. The logging at the site is expected to be completed sometime in January.
The white pine at that site is suffering some type of disease which damages the top portion of the tree. "A lot of those trees are dying," he says. However there are some good ones, he says. Mr. Goulard says the bottom portion of the tree still provides good wood for processing. "It seems like it is not a very good site for white pine," he says. However, the red pine is healthy, he notes.
PROTESTERS
Earthroots members and supporters have been at the site since early September when harvesting began there. They are protesting the harvesting of the Owain Lake forest which they say is the third largest red and white pine forest in North America.
Among their tactics, they have blocked the road and attached themselves to equipment.
There has been concern expressed that some may get hurt. Mr. Goulard says, "They were warned and they were aware of it. The police were there and they told them not to get too close," but he also fears that someone may get injured or killed running close to moving heavy equipment and falling trees. "When they are in the bush they are endangering themselves."
Protesters have placed spikes in some of the trees. A couple of those spikes were encountered at the mill on the first day of processing. But Mr. Goulard says, in general, "You just have to watch certain trees," for the spikes. "The saws will cut these. It does damage to the saws, but we've got spare ones." Encountering a spike in the mill does not really create a danger for the people working there, he says.
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TEMAGAMI (Staff) - The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) says "significant" portions of the Owain Lake forest have been harvested before.
"It is likely that the area was harvested before the turn of the century. In addition, aerial photographs taken in 1946 show conclusively that approximately half of the block was harvested sometime between the late 1930s and the early 1940s," the MNR says.
The Owain Lake forest is located about 10 kilometres west of the southern end of Lake Temiskaming, approximately 45 kilometres southeast of the town of Temagami.
"This 321 hectare harvest area is part of a larger, mature forest containing stands of red, white and jack pine. The Owain Lake Block is being partially logged."
The MNR states "the Comprehensive Planning Council (CPC), a citizens' committee, considered Owain Lake when it reviewed sites to be protected as old growth. The government accepted the CPC's recommendations that the Owain Lake Block did not qualify as a representative old-growth site that should be protected from harvest," according to the MNR.
"Following extensive public consultation, the CPC recommended a land-use strategy for Temagami that included recommendations on protecting old-growth red and white pine areas. The government accepted the CPC's recommendations on protecting old growth," the MNR says.
SHELTERWOOD HARVEST
"In planning for harvesting in the Owain Lake Block, MNR has applied its Conservation Strategy For Old-Growth Red and White Pine Forest Ecosystems. This means that many old trees in the Owain Lake Block will not be logged in 1996 and after any future shelterwood harvests, snags, dying and rotting trees will be left standing, and tree tops and limbs will be left on the forest floor. In addition, the plan leaves 93 hectares in no-cut reserves where no logging will take place.
"The plan permits partial logging in 228 hectares of the block. Species to be harvested include jack pine, spruce, poplar and white birch, as well as red and white pine. The 'shelterwood system' used in the Owain Lake Block is a widely recognized harvesting method that encourages natural regeneration....
"MNR has protected nearly 11,000 hectares of old-growth red and white pine in the Temagami area. This includes all 12 old-growth red and white pine sites that the CPC recommended for protection," it states.
"Protected areas in Ontario where old-growth red and white pine is the dominant species (40 per cent or more), cover 66,000 hectares - 46,000 hectares in provincial parks and conservation areas, and 20,000 hectares in no-cut reserves in forest management units. As the dominant species on any given stand, old red and white pine cover more than 124,000 hectares in Ontario.
"Forests containing a component of red and white pine cover almost four million hectares in Ontario, in an area that covers much of Southern Ontario, north to Lake Temiskaming and west to an area just south of Wawa. The red and white pine range also covers an area around Thunder Bay, Dryden, Fort Frances and Kenora. Both species are common in the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence forest region," the MNR concludes.
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By Darlene Wroe
Speaker Reporter
TEMAGAMI - A small bridge located west of Pencil Lake on the Red Squirrel Road extension has received some minor fire damage.
The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) staff discovered the fact that the bridge had been burned when they were attempting to find an access route for six hunters stranded by the Lady Evelyn bridge over the weekend of October 18 to 21.
Temagami Area Supervisor Dan Goodwin says the bridge is "not totally destroyed.... It's not in a really dangerous state." There are steel I-beams under the bridge, he notes.
But the public should not be using the road which is closed, he notes, so "there is not a concern in that people are making use of that road."
The road was built for logging purposes but never used, he says.
If the road were ever used for logging purposes in the future, the logging companies would have to upgrade the bridge, he says.
The MNR staff discovered the bridge was burned because they were responding to a situation in which hunters were trapped because the Lady Evelyn bridge had been seriously burned October 18.
In late summer a bridge near River Valley on a forest access road was also discovered to be burned.
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TEMAGAMI (Staff) - The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) is advising the public that the Lady Evelyn River bridge is no longer safe for public travel.
Stringers from the fire-damaged Lady Evelyn bridge are being removed this week by MNR staff from the Temagami Area.
The bridge was destroyed by fire Friday, October 18.
A decision on replacement of the bridge has not yet been made.
Goulard Lumber of Sturgeon Falls will also be removing beams and dismantling two bridges in Delhi Township crossing the Wakimika and Obabika rivers on a gated forest access road leading to the Obabika Waterway Provincial Park. That work will be taking place over the next few weeks, according to MNR Temagami Area Supervisor Dan Goodwin.
The 60-foot long bridges were originally installed by Goulard Lumber in the late 1980s for harvesting in Delhi Township but cutting at the sites is not being allowed by the MNR as a result of a decision in the Comprehensive Land Use planning process.
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by Diane Johnston
Speaker Reporter
TEMAGAMI - A proposal to seek an environmental assessment of a comprehensive land use plan in the Temagami area is on hold.
Tim Gooderham, executive secretary of the Temagami Lakes Association (TLA), said the cottagers' organization has decided to take no further action at this time on a bid for an environmental assessment.
"At this point, it is definitely on hold, because the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines agreed with our contention that they were breaking their own regulations in allowing staking in the skyline reserve," he said.
The comprehensive plan adopted by the government permitted claim staking in the environmentally sensitive and scenic shoreline area, but under special conditions.
However, those conditions had not yet been written into formal regulations as the September 17 opening of the land neared.
Late in August, the TLA said it was considering legal action to prevent the lifting of the staking ban pending an environmental assessment of the land use plan for the entire 6,000-square-kilometre area.
But Northern Development and Mines Minister Chris Hodgson withdrew the skyline reserve from staking only days after the TLA sounded alarm bells.
DRAFT REGULATIONS
Draft regulations are now in the hands of senior management of the ministries of Natural Resources and Northern Development and Mines.
Ron Gashinski, senior manager for mining lands with the mining ministry, described the measures as now drafted "a conceptual framework" outlining the ministries' intentions.
They will be reviewed by the Minister's Mining Act Advisory Committee on Wednesday, October 16.
The committee represents a range of stakeholders in mining issues, ranging from prospectors, corporations and organized labor to environmental groups and First Nations.
After the committee's review, the regulations may be redrafted, and then submitted to legal staff for formal wording, Mr. Gashinski said.
At that point, a second process begins to amend legislation to include the regulations.
He could not predict when the regulations would be in place.
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by Diane Johnston
Speaker Reporter
TEMAGAMI - When a United Nations commission on sustainable forests camped in the Temagami area last week, they received an earful about land use controversy in the area.
"We're here to listen, to learn, to get impressions," commission co-chair Emil Salim, former Indonesian minister of population and environment, told about 50 people at an informal gathering at Camp Wanapetei October 4.
And hear they did from a host of members from the Teme-Augama Anishnabai (TAA), Northwatch, the Algonquin Wildlands League, the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR), and the Comprehensive Planning Council (CPC).
Earlier in the day, members of the World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development stopped in Temagami to hear municipal officials' concerns.
The impromptu meeting was held because township council refused to attend the camp meeting, saying the forum had been "stacked" with activists from special interest groups.
The trip to Temagami was not a formal part of the commission's work. It was instead a field trip organized to permit the commission to experience camping after members wrapped up three days of public hearings in Winnipeg.
One of the issues under study is the resolution of conflict over land use, said Karl Hansen, forests project officer with the Winnipeg-based International Institute for Sustainable Development. The institute is coordinating the North American leg of the commission's work.
Temagami seemed a natural choice for a field trip, because no area in Canada may be better known for conflict over land use, he said.
CPC
The six-year comprehensive planning process that led to a land use plan for the Temagami area was designed to resolve conflict.
But former TAA chief Gary Potts told the commission the process did not work for the indigenous people of the Temagami area.
"To us, it was a charade for implementing a vested interest (by) the Ontario government in our land," he said.
The TAA maintains that 10,000 square kilometres of Crown land of which the comprehensive planning area is only a part have never been surrendered by treaty.
"We are still in many ways under what we consider colonial rule," he said, and slammed a "policy of peace-time genocide" against the area's indigenous people.
It had originally taken part in the Comprehensive Planning Council (CPC), but withdrew in 1995.
Mr. Potts said it dropped out after then Natural Resources Minister Howard Hampton transferred a portion of the area to the Elk Lake Community Forest. He said committee hearings were also delayed, for fear of criticism during municipal elections.
"We realized at that time there was no good faith on the part of the government in Toronto," he said.
He said the root of the problem in Temagami is a belief that wilderness and the land must be conquered. Human interest groups alone are not the only interests that should be represented at the discussions.
"The land is not speaking. The non-human life of the land is not speaking," he said
"I really encourage you to consider principles of sustainable life and know what that means, and then sustainable development will be evident to everyone once you understand the intricacies of the life of the forest."
"STRUGGLE"
Brennain Lloyd of the environmental coalition Northwatch termed the debates of the past two decades as a "struggle" rather than conflict.
She found it disheartening that efforts to reach consensus - whether on land claim resolution, land use planning or forest management - had had little fruit.
"Every time we struggle it seems to be, at the end of the day, for naught," she said.
Tim Gray of the Algonquin Wildlands League blamed the government for failing to implement decisions reached after many years by a diverse group of interests.
Despite tradeoffs and government backroom deals, he said, the CPC produced a document "that helped to balance things."
But he said the Ontario government gave it little consideration, permitting development of some sort on 40 per cent of the land that the CPC had recommended for protection.
The issue is not conflict, he said. It is instead "getting screwed in the end by people that don't care."
Larry Wiwchar, a Coleman Township resident and member of the CPC, was also dissatisfied with the eventual decision by the government.
"It is no longer a comprehensive plan," he said. "Now it's a fractured plan, and it has problems."
He urged the commission to give serious consideration to the need for research on forest ecology.
"The recommendations that you make are a major catalyst in the scientific community for research," he said.
LOGGING
The CPC's recommendations on protection of old-growth red and white pine forest have been followed, said MNR North Bay district manager Sheila MacFeeters.
About 52 per cent of the old-growth pine in the area has been protected.
But one environmental activist said that commitment is not enough.
Old-growth pine is "an endangered ecosystem" that can now be found over less than one per cent of its original range, said Dan McDermott of Earthroots, which is protesting logging of the Owain Lake forest.
"Owain Lake forest is very key to this debate, because it is being cut right now as we sit here," he said.
Commission members camped overnight in the old-growth dominated Lake Obabika area, accompanied by an MNR forester, TAA representative and others.
Before they left, they told the group that Temagami's problems are not unique.
But it's crucial that answers be found, because of the role that forests play in global climate control and biodiversity, said commissioner George Woodwell, a former president of the Ecological Society of America.
Charles Caccia, a former Liberal MP and the only Canadian on the commission, said the pressures on the world's forests will continue to increase.
"And the resource is not growing," he said.
An answer may lie in ensuring that the forest's wealth is returned to the local community, rather than international business interests, he said.
The need for public consultation has also emerged as a leading recommendation in public hearings, said Mr. Hansen of the Winnipeg-based institute.
He said the commission's report, due in one year's time, will probably contain a few key recommendations to be presented to the world's governments.
The commission's next stop is Costa Rica, and then moves on to Cameroon and probably Russia.
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OWAIN LAKE (Staff) - Five Ottawa men were arrested on the weekend after the Green Party of Ontario blocked a logging road leading into the Owain Lake forest.
The five, ranging in age from 29 to 55, were charged Saturday, October 5 with mischief and intimidation after two West Nipissing Forestry Management workers complained they had been refused access past the blockade to collect pine cones for tree planting.
Among the protesters arrested was Frank de Jong, leader of the provincial environmental party.
The Green Party had announced its plans one day earlier.
"Logging in the Owain Lake stand is wrong economically, biologically and spiritually," Mr. de Jong said in a news release October 4.
"Degrading this virgin ecosystem means many long-term jobs will be lost for the sake of a few months of work now."
Logging in a 338-hectare block of the forest - focus of an Earthroots protest now into its sixth week - began September 22. Cutting is expected to continue for about three months.
The number of protesters arrested as of October 8 stands at 47 adults and three young offenders.
The latest came at about 1:30 p.m. October 8. A Goulard Lumber employee complained that an access road to the company's work site was being blocked by a woman atop a tripod.
Constable Emil Lamothe said police, lifted by the bucket of a dump truck, removed the woman after she refused to come down voluntarily.
A 20-year-old Toronto woman has been charged with mischief and intimidation.
Last week, a protester spent a chilly night on a tripod type device secured to a log skidder. A 21-year-old woman of no fixed address was charged October 3 with mischief and intimidation after the skidder operator complained he needed to use the machine.
Help to pay for protesters' legal costs has come from the Green Party of Ontario.
Early in September, it announced it would help pay the fines and legal fees of the Owain Lake logging protesters. It noted that, in 1992, the Green Party of Canada raised $55,000 to offset the legal fees of logging protesters at Clayoquot Sound in British Columbia.
Early in September, the provincial party also issued its own position on the Temagami forest.
It called for the preservation of all the area's old-growth red and white pine, and a ban on road construction and mining in the Temagami area.
It contends that value-added production in lumbering areas would create far more employment than shipping out raw lumber and pulp.
Specifically, it urged the Ontario government to help Temagami businesses develop wood product industries to both create jobs and reduce the volume of cutting.
It also called for government help to assist Temagami area governments to charge daily fees for eco-tourism activities.
"The development of eco-tourism and increased wood products manufacturing will easily offset the jobs lost by preserving those last few old growth trees," Mr. de Jong said.
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by Diane Johnston
Speaker Reporter
TEMAGAMI - At one point, it appeared that Temagami Township would not meet with an international commission looking at forestry and sustainable development.
But the commission made a one-hour stop in Temagami Friday October 4, where members spent an hour discussing forestry issues with Councillor Kirk Smith and chief administrative officer John Hodgson before moving on to a larger meeting at Camp Wanapetei.
Old-growth forest, the comprehensive planning process, and confrontation were leading topics of discussion, Mr. Hodgson said earlier this week.
He said he believed commissioners left with an understanding of the "desperate times" facing Temagami.
When commission members suggested compromise as a means to avoid conflict, he pointed to the comprehensive planning process.
He blamed special interest groups as unwilling to accept the compromises worked out in the plan.
He said he told the commissioners, "We feel we're under siege."
The environmental group Earthroots has set up a forest defence camp on Rabbit Lake Road to protest logging in the Owain Lake area. To date, more than 40 protesters have been arrested.
A bid for a legal injunction to stop the Owain forest logging failed last week. But an application launched by the Friends of Temagami and the Wildlands League for a judicial review of provincial approval of logging in the Temagami and Elk Lake areas, as well as others in Ontario, is going ahead.
Mr. Hodgson termed the actions an "eco-jihad" that, if successful, "will wipe out our community. I believe that firmly."
Last week's meeting almost didn't happen.
Temagami council originally turned down an invitation to meet the commission after learning that a number of environmental group members would be attending.
In a letter to the meeting's planner, Reeve Wayne Adair said the idea of debating sustainability is "very current and important."
But he said the list of stakeholders invited to the meeting was stacked "with activists from special interest groups who have political and financial agendas that only use the 'forest' as a tool to advance their cause."
"To offer them a world-wide platform at the expense of the people who want to live and work in the area is not just," he said.
FRIENDS OF TEMAGAMI
He said the municipality would not sit down with the Friends of Temagami as long as it is associated with Earthroots.
Friends of Temagami, for its part, has said it is not affiliated with Earthroots.
"There is no association between Friends of Temagami and Earthroots. We're entirely separate organizations," said Francis Boyes, president of the Temagami organization, in an interview in mid-September.
He said both groups as well as other environmental organizations endorsed an alternative view of Temagami land use, a plan they presented to the CPC.
But he said Friends of Temagami does not endorse the Earthroots blockade, nor does it advocate civil disobedience.
At the same time, he said, the organization respects the rights of individuals to take action as individuals.
Coordination of the world commission's tour of North America was up to the Winnipeg-based International Institute for Sustainable Development.
Karl Hansen, the institute's forests project officer, said an initial list of invitees had been drafted after consulting with Camp Wanapetei owners.
When it realized that Temagami council was objecting to the invitation list, he said it then contacted Ministry of Natural Resources forestry policy advisor Jim Miller for other suggestions.
But time was running short, he said, and the township "kindly agreed" to meet with commissioners on their way to the Camp Wanapetei meeting.
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By Darlene Wroe
Speaker Reporter
TORONTO - Although the Wildlands League and Friends of Temagami have lost their bid to have cutting at the Owain Lake forest, they are still maintaining their objective to have a review conducted of the forests that have been allocated for cutting.
Through the Sierra Legal Defense Fund they are applying for a judicial review of six forest management plans in Northeastern Ontario.
But they are not just interested in the preservation of red and white pine forests.
"The judicial review isn't about cutting pine," says Tim Gray of the Wildlands League.
"We are seeking a court order for the government to comply with the environmental assessment act.
"That would ensure protection of old-growth forest and protection of wildlife species," explains Mr. Gray.
"We're concerned about the overall sustainability of logging in Ontario," he says.
"It is an unrealistic expectation that a court order for the government to comply with the environmental assessment act would make it nearly impossible to carry out logging in Northeastern Ontario. We aren't going to stop logging in all of Northeastern Ontario. There is no way logging in any considerable part of Northeastern Ontario is going to be shut down. We are not anti-logging," he adds.
"TWO MAJOR THINGS"
"There are two major things we are trying to accomplish.
"There should be areas representative of the natural region. Pieces of the forest should be left. This means 12 per cent of the forest, all Crown land, should be protected. The rest of the land harvested should be economically sustainable," Mr. Gray says.
"We want to maintain the wildlife species and the wood supply.
"This would allow tourism, remote tourism and sustainability," he believes.
"The industry is cutting more and more trees.
"Over the past six years there has been a 25 per cent decrease in the number of people employed in mills and the harvest is up 20 per cent. We need to be thinking about long-term solutions. We don't think that is the solution for communities around the North," Mr. Gray contends.
"We are pretty dependent on the resource industry," he admits, adding the environmental groups do not want to end the industry.
"Our goal is the establishment of a network of protected areas in all natural regions."
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By Darlene Wroe
Speaker Reporter
TEMAGAMI - The Township of Temagami is supportive of the existing allocations for forestry in the Temagami area because it fears a shrinking land base for forest allocations could mean the end to a hoped-for economic opportunity in the township.
The township administrators hope William Milne and Sons harvest allocations will be made available for economic development in the area, creating the opportunity for a value-added wood industry which would employ about 20 people year-round.
With the closure of William Milne and Sons and Sherman Mine, since 1989 the Township of Temagami has lost 35 per cent of its assessment, which is required for the operation of the township.
Tourism does not contribute much to property taxes in the Township of Temagami, says Temagami clerk-treasurer John Hodgson.
While it does bring people into town, and those people use the stores, "when it comes to the assessment base or property base it is less than 10 per cent".
It employs about 20 per cent of the Temagami Township residents full-time, not counting the business owners, he adds.
Tourism "is the main contributor to bringing people into the town, which allows businesses to be more prosperous", but as far as property taxes, tourism is not a large contributor.
FOREST INDUSTRY
The forest industry only employs about 10 per cent of the population, down from 1989 when William Milne and Sons sawmill closed. Goulard Lumber, based in Sturgeon Falls and now harvesting in the Owain Lake area, employs Temagami Township residents for silviculture and cutting.
Mr. Hodgson explains that the forest industry did employ 30 per cent of the township's population prior to 1989 when William Milne and Sons was closed down.
But he charges that environmentalists were responsible for the closure of William Milne and Sons, putting the government in the position to shut the mill down. "Their efforts went a long way toward getting that mill shut down."
Therefore he finds it unfair for environmentalists to question why Temagami Township is interested in the forest industry when a sawmill does not exist in the township, because, Mr. Hodgson maintains, environmentalists bear some responsibility for the fact wood is no longer milled in the township.
But Temagami Township believes a value-added wood industry is still possible for the township in the future.
"What we're interested in is to convince the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) to allow an allocation for local economic development."
ALLOCATIONS WOULD BE SAVED
When William Milne and Sons was closed, the government of that day told the township the Milne allocations would be saved for the day when another operation was started, says Mr. Hodgson.
But since that time, the township believes its potential allocations are being eaten up by such developments as the area set aside through the Wendaban Stewardship conclusion and the addition of protected areas around the provincial park land.
The MNR has, until now, been working from year to year on a contingency management plan for the Temagami management unit, so the township does not know where that promised allocation would be.
But the township hopes it could still be.
"We want a local allocation that would entice a business that would operate locally," says Mr. Hodgson. Whether that would be through the Temagami First Nations or the Township of Temagami is not a concern. The township simply wants a local value-added forest industry to create economic activity in the area.
"That's why we're so vocal," says Mr. Hodgson.
The township hopes the MNR will be able to squeeze something out of the remaining land base, he says.
He suggests the proposed business could be a year-round operation with the same crew cutting logs as would carry out the production in the other half of the year.
The tourism industry does not present such economic opportunities, he says.
If, for example, the Owain Lake forest area were protected, "we don't see it creating another new lodge or hotel. All of the lodges could do with more capacity."
Temagami Township badly needs more economic activity to take place within the municipality. "The facts show us we are being killed by loss of assessment."
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By Darlene Wroe
Speaker Reporter
TORONTO - Ontario Court Judge Ed Saunders has denied a motion of stay against logging continuing in the Owain Lake forest area.
Sierra Legal Defense Fund Director Stewart Elgie, speaking for the law firm which represented the Wildlands League and Friends of Temagami in Toronto, told The Speaker Tuesday,October 2 that the judge felt it would too harmful to stop logging in the Owain Lake area.
However the Sierra Legal Defense Fund feels optimistic about the outcome of their main case which is to have a judicial review of six forest management plans. The Sierra Legal Defense Fund, on behalf of the Wildlands League and Friends of Temagami, is maintaining that the forest management plans do not contain needed guidelines to ensure sustainable logging takes place.
Mr. Elgie told The Speaker that the judge stated the Sierra Legal Defense Fund's "overall legal challenge is a serious issue....
"The judge said we had raised a serious issue. This should be a serious wake-up call for the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR)."
A date for the judicial review has not yet been set, but it is expected to be in a couple of months.
Mr. Elgie views this statement has providing the environmentalists' case "actually a step forward."
CAN'T BRING STAND BACK
But he expressed disappointment for the Owain Lake forest where logging is now taking place. "If we succeed at the legal challenge we cannot bring that stand back."
The judicial review will challenge forest management plans in Algoma, Mississagi, Algonquin Park, the Upper Spanish Forest, the Elk Lake forest, and the Temagami forest.
Mr. Elgie believes that "if the law requires sustainability" that would reflect on the logging opportunities of "some of the last few remaining old-growth white pine" stands in North America.
Environmentalists state one-third of the white pine stands left in North America exist in the Temagami forest. "Cutting even half of those stands isn't sustainable," he challenges.
Wildlife species such as the pileated woodpecker, the pine marten and eagles depend on such forest, Mr. Elgie says.
He argues that enough old forest should be maintained so that those species of wildlife can survive.
He also argues that forests should be cut only at a rate that will allow communities opportunities for logging in the future. Mr. Elgie says highly mechanized methods of logging do not allow for sustainability of forests for the future of the communities.
MNR Communications Officer Rob Savage noted the judge will not be releasing his written decision until Wednesday, October 2.
The MNR was represented at hearing for the motion of stay for the Owain Lake forest harvesting Tuesday, September 24 and Tuesday, October 1 by Leah Price of the Crown law office.
One of her arguments, on behalf of the MNR, was that the ministry disagreed with the notion that continued harvesting in the Owain Lake forest would cause harm to the Owain Lake area. The reason for that position is the belief of the MNR that the plan for the Owain Lake area does provide for sustainability.
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By Darlene Wroe
Speaker Reporter
TEMAGAMI - Timiskaming-French River MP Ben Serré has suggested that perhaps Northern Ontario should become a separate province.
Speaking to a crowd of more than 1,500 people who turned out to support resource extraction activities in the Temagami area and the remainder of the region, Mr. Serré asked the crowd if they believed Northern Ontario should be a separate province.
Not all responded, but those who did so voiced strong agreement with the concept.
"We will make the people down south listen," said Mr. Serré.
Mr. Serré had organized the unity rally in response to environmentalists' efforts to stop logging in the Owain Lake area, and a request for a judicial review of six forest management plans in Northeastern Ontario.
The unity rally drew people from throughout Northeastern Ontario to the Temagami arena Saturday, September 28.
It was thought to be the largest of its kind in Northern Ontario history.
"We've probably made history today together," said Mr. Serré.
Timiskaming Progressive Conservative Party Provincial Association president Jeff Laferriere later expressed his feelings to The Speaker that the people in the North "really have to get proactive in running Northern Ontario."
DISAPPOINTING
But he found Mr. Serré's suggestion of a separate Northern Ontario "disappointing". He agreed that "past governments have dictated to Northern Ontario."
Later Mr. Serré told the media that his comment was a "trial balloon" to see what the reaction of the people would be. "I don't know how far it would go," he said.
If southern Ontario listens to the fact that people in Northern Ontario do not feel they are being listened to, "I would have achieved my goal."
He anticipates hundreds of phone calls.
"I'm going to see what happens in the next couple of weeks."
As for the possibility of turning Northern Ontario into a separate province, Mr. Serré believes it has the resources it needs.
Mr. Serré told the media that over the past 15 to 20 years he has become frustrated as the result of Northern Ontario "being often manipulated."
Mr. Serré says he wants those in southern Ontario to "understand and realize we have a different way of life here."
James Township (Elk Lake) Reeve Terry Fiset commented that Mr. Serré's concept has "got its merits and detractors.
"On the plus side, we know what Northern Ontario is about. We rely on all our resources and we understand them better."
RULES MADE IN SOUTH
But in spite of that "all the rules are made in the south," he said.
While Mr. Serré's suggestion "sort of surprised" him, "it's really not off the wall....
"It's an eye-opener for the North. We know we are different."
Timiskaming MPP David Ramsay was not present for the rally, although he was represented by his constituency assistant Anne Denise Mejaki.
Mr. Ramsay, who was visiting family members in New Brunswick, told The Speaker in a telephone interview that he is not in favor of the concept of Northern Ontario separating from the rest of the province.
In fact, he said, "the Harris government has been a good listener, and has responded to the Comprehensive Planning Council positively. He even responded to suggestions the municipal leaders and myself had (to improve the recommendations)." Mr. Ramsay has also noted and thanked the premier for enforcement of the decisions which the government has recently had to carry out.
Mr. Ramsay says he was "certainly taken by surprise" by Mr. Serré's suggestion.
"I don't believe we have a problem.... It may have just come out of the heat of the moment."
Mr. Ramsay acknowledges that he does have some concerns with how the provincial government treats Northern Ontario, such as the decision to eliminate five provincial ridings from the North. But even when facing that kind of situation "I would not jump to the conclusion that we would have to separate.
"We're trying to keep our country together....
WONDERFUL PROVINCE
"I think we've got a wonderful province in Ontario," says Mr. Ramsay, who has also lived in southern Ontario.
"I'm not sure what the problem is. I think this is a tremendous leap to go to that."
Mr. Ramsay says his job is to "try to iron out problems" which may result from lack of understanding of Northern issues by those MPPs representing the rest of Ontario. "I never felt our problem was insurmountable enough that we couldn't solve them as a province."
Mr. Ramsay repeated that now is the time to keep the country together.
"It's certainly not the time to start another separation."
He suggested that if Northern Ontario separated from the rest of the province, Quebec's separation may threaten Northern Ontario.
He could not speculate on the exact scenario for the rest of the country if Quebec separates from Canada, but simply stated that the question is open as to what would happen.
Mr. Serré's concept, Mr. Ramsay believes, was "an idea let loose on the fly. I want to give it lots of thought, but I've been thinking about it since I heard it and I don't support it."
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By Darlene Wroe
Speaker Reporter
NORTH BAY - The Temagami Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) building will no longer be the site of public services. It closed its doors all but completely Friday, September 27. Some staff members will continue to work out of the building using up some of their surplus time, but public services are now provided out of the North Bay MNR office building on Trout Lake Road, effective Monday, September 30.
People requiring MNR services now must contact the North Bay office, but staff will be looking to ways to include Temagami residents and Tri-Town area residents in planning.
"We still have 14 people on the area team who are dedicated to looking after that area," said Temagami area supervisor Dan Goodwin. Two other people in North Bay include a conservation officer and an administration person.
Two conservation officers are also based in the MNR building on Whitewood Avenue in New Liskeard.
"We will do whatever we can wherever possible to bring services to the people, but it will be mostly by mail," says Mr. Goodwin.
The office's address is: 3301 Trout Lake Road, North Bay, Ontario P1A 4L7.
The MNR staff can also be reached by phoning 705-475-5550 or by fax at 705-475-5500.
49 EMPLOYEES
When the announcement was made in May that the MNR office staff in Temagami would be laid off or relocated, there were 49 employees. Some of those staff people have found other positions in the province while others are still seeking positions, said Mr. Goodwin.
Some of the staff people reside in the Tri-Towns and some reside in Temagami. Mr. Goodwin anticipated that some will be considering new accommodation in North Bay, while others may be contemplating whether they can maintain their homes in Temagami and commute.
Some staff people will continue to work in the Temagami MNR building until about Christmas time, Mr. Goodwin added.
The building belongs to Ontario Realty Corporation.
The MNR has had a presence in Temagami for the past 96 years, and began with its first ranger station on Bear Island around the turn of the century. Fire fighting and fire prevention was the main focus at that time.
In 1905 the MNR's headquarters were relocated to Forestry Island across from the mainland of downtown Temagami. In 1934 the building was relocated to the mainland in the offices now occupied by the Ontario Provincial Police. Then in 1966 the offices were moved to the current facilities.
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Saturday's rally in Temagami was dubbed a "solidarity rally."
It was, in the words of chief organizer Timiskaming-French River MP Benoit Serré, to "send a strong message to Earthroots and the like that we condemn their acts of civil disobedience and violence, that we don't need and don't want outsiders (to) come here and disrupt our lives."
By all accounts the rally was a success. Anywhere from 1,500 to 2,000 people were there. It was considered one of the largest indoor rallies in Northern Ontario history.
But look what got the attention.
The main story seemed to be not that Northerners got to together to tell protesting environmentalists to go home.
No! The aftermath was Mr. Serré's suggestion that Northern Ontario become a separate province. Regionally and nationally that's what the media talked about. (Look at our cartoon on this page.)
Although it surprised virtually everyone there that it was brought up (it reportedly got the largest cheer at the meeting), Mr. Serré said his suggestion wasn't some sort of off the cuff comment. He had thought about mentioning it beforehand.
He called his comments something like sending up a "trial balloon". Let's see how it flies to a large audience.
A cynic may suggest, "was that the real motive of organizing such a large rally? Not so much to send a message to protesting environmentalists but about 'test casing' a political movement?"
The Earthroots people, the people who were supposed to be given the message, may only get the message, "So these guys in the North are talking about forming their own province."
In any event, even if Northern Ontario was a separate province, wouldn't environmentalists still have come to protest logging in the forest?
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The spirit of the North was on display in Temagami on Saturday. Demonstrators gathered from such widespread points as Sturgeon Falls and Kirkland Lake, but the presence of some 2,000 people in the local arena was only a small reflection of the strong views that are held among those who live in the region.
That point was obvious as a list of speakers representing almost every segment of society mounted the podium to voice their support for resource development in the Temagami area. The organizations on hand included those which represent loggers, trappers, anglers and hunters, the tourist business, mining and municipal government.
The rally, organized by federal MP Benoit Serré, probably received its greatest impetus from a purported public opinion poll released earlier by the organization which is attempting to halt logging operations southeast of Temagami. According to Earthroots, 67 per cent of Northern Ontario residents are against the cutting of "old growth" forest in the region, even at the cost of local jobs.
None of that 67 per cent was on hand Saturday, and they certainly haven't shown up in the discussions I've had with Northerners from Hearst to Mattawa. Yes, I realize there are some tree huggers in our midst, but they are in a very tiny minority and hardly represent an accurate reading of the views on resource development commonly held here.
That could not be said about the folks who filled the Temagami arena on Saturday. They came from all walks of life, covered the entire age spectrum, and used every means of conveyance from strollers to wheel chairs. They included area business leaders, unemployed miners, sign-bearing school children and grey-headed grandparents. All were drawn to that site by the certain knowledge that something must be done to reverse the downward economic trend that has paralyzed parts of our homeland in recent years.
The solidarity displayed at the rally should give pause to those who assume Northerners are incapable of deciding their own destiny. The only other time I have witnessed such a gathering was in 1991, when thousands of Kapuskasing residents blocked the Trans-Canada Highway for several hours to protest a provincial government decision that threatened to close the main local industry. Premier Bob Rae changed his position and the Kap company is now among Canada's most profitable newsprint mills, but no longer controlled by absentee owners.
The Temagami demonstration, like the one in Kapuskasing, was organized without the participation of the provincial political representative, even though the matters under discussion all relate to Queen's Park. Timiskaming MPP David Ramsay has been largely invisible throughout the recent Earthroots hassle and it was no surprise that he did not show up at Saturday's assembly.
The one other disappointment in the solidarity display was the lack of any official municipal presence from either New Liskeard or Haileybury. Although New Liskeard council members Mac Hamilton and Ken Edgar were in the crowd, and Councillor George Culhane was on hand from the District Town, neither municipality had a representative among the roster of speakers. Those voices would have added weight to the thoughts expressed by such municipal leaders as Temagami's Wayne Adair, Latchford's George Lefebvre, Cobalt's George Othmer and the ebullient Terry Fiset of Elk Lake.
Still, the turnout by Tri-Town residents left no doubt about their support for the responsible development of our region's natural resources. Mr. Serré grabbed a lot of media attention with his suggestion that Northerners may want to create a separate province, but the real message from this event is that the people of the area are not willing to make further economic sacrifices to satisfy the whims of big-city environmentalists.
Conservation will, however, continue to be practiced in this most beautiful part of Ontario for the most compelling of reasons - we live here!
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By Darlene Wroe
Speaker Reporter
TEMAGAMI - Temiskaming political and resource industry leaders were more than pleased with the turnout for a unity rally to show support in the region for a fight against environmental organizations attempting to stop forestry in Northeastern Ontario until tighter environmental guidelines are ensured.
Between 1,500 and 2,000 people from throughout Northeastern Ontario turned out for the rally at the Temagami arena Saturday, September 28, exceeding Timiskaming MP Ben Serré's hopes for 1,000 people when he organized it.
"We know how to get together when things are really important," said Northerners Incorporated spokesperson Judy Skidmore, the first of several speakers at the rally organized by Timiskaming MP Ben Serré.
She recalled to the gathering the challenge of environmentalists on the extension of the Red Squirrel Road in 1989, which environmentalists believed was coming too close to what they referred to as the heart of the Temagami forest - old-growth stands.
At that time national and international media did not properly represent Northerners, she told the gathering.
"In 1989 I remember how we used to see ourselves in the headlines of national and international papers. There were stories that weren't real for us - they didn't match our lives at all."
STRONG MESSAGE
The strong turnout encouraged Temagami Reeve Wayne Adair.
"We're going to be sending a strong message to people in Toronto," he stated as national media trained cameras on him. "Northern Ontario is sticking together and we're strong."
Referring to the application by environmental groups for a judicial review of six Northeastern Ontario forest management plans, (which environmentalists' lawyers are challenging, stating they do not include legally required Forest Management Planning Manuals; do not ensure the plans, work schedules and timber harvesting activities provided for sustainability of the Crown forest; and, as a particular issue to the Algonquin Park area, the Minister of Natural Resources has not established a local citizens' committee), Reeve Adair said, "Earthroots and their friends, the coalition, have bitten off more than they can chew. They are picking on most of Northern Ontario and they're not going to win."
He commented that the Owain Lake area, currently being harvested by Goulard Lumber as environmentalists attempt to physically block the logging activities, is not an old-growth forest. People versed in the history of Temiskaming say the area has been harvested in the past. J.R. Booth lumber company is said to have harvested the area before the turn of the century, and other logging since that time is also said to have taken place there.
Expressing his frustration with the focus of national and international media on forestry in Northeastern Ontario, Reeve Adair said "I challenge people to come up here to see what is going on."
Latchford Mayor George Lefebvre has co-chaired the Municipal Advisory Group, established by the Temiskaming Municipal Association to focus on the outcome of the land caution on much of the district as well as the development of the recommendations of the Comprehensive Planning Council (CPC) to the Minister of Natural Resources for land-use planning in the same general area encompassing much of the district.
NO GRASP OF LIFE
He reinforced the concept to the gathering that people outside the area are not in tune with the outlooks of people living in Northern Ontario. "They have no grasp about what life in the North is really about."
Resource extraction has been taking place in the area for more than a century, he said, adding that it is still beautiful in spite of that, and suggesting that resource extraction should therefore be able to continue while that natural beauty is maintained.
It has been the pressures of organizations and individuals from outside the area that have caused the area problems, he said. "Non-resident interest groups pressures have resulted in an ever-decreasing land base (for resource extraction)."
He suggested that is the reason for "an outward exodus of the young" which has resulted in an aging population base.
He called on the gathering to "stand up to those who would prevent us from accessing the resources of Northern Ontario."
He added that the Government of Ontario must not be swayed by well funded organizations and the rich "who look on us as their playground."
Former CPC vice-chair Gary O'Connor also spoke. "West Nipissing is here today with Temagami to send a very clear message.... These are indeed our resources."
While he expressed the belief that people in southern Ontario should note that, he also stated his opinion that authors Margaret Atwood and Pierre Berton should also be listening to the message of the unity rally.
GO HOME
Referring to the CPC report and decision by the Minister of Natural Resources, Mr. O'Connor said "There is only a small group out there that's not supporting it and I think it's time they go home."
Organizers clearly wanted to make this a rallying cry as individuals at the back of the stage held up signs with the words "GO HOME" printed in capital letters whenever one of the speakers said the words, which was usually at least once in each instance.
Eventually the gathering responded by chanting the words.
Former William Milne and Sons lumber mill owner Fred McNutt also spoke to the gathering, expressing his point of view that Temagami was built by miners and the forest industry which "contributed to a rich way of life. You know life in Temagami was dynamic. I hope it will be again."
Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters (OFAH) spokesperson Bob Allen of Kirkland Lake assured the gathering and municipal and industry representatives that they have the support of OFAH's 73,000 members.
Federation of Northern Ontario Municipalities (FONOM) president Jay Aspin, also a North Bay councillor, brought the support of North Bay council and the board of FONOM.
Referring to the CPC recommendations and resulting land-use plan for the Temagami region, Mr. Aspin said, "I don't know of an issue in Canada which has been studied more than this issue."
OWN DESTINY
He added "I believe we have the right to determine our own destiny." He said Northerners should "fight southern Ontario control and interference in our lives. Enough is enough."
Temagami, he said, has lost its mine (Sherman Mine), a forest company (William Milne and Sons) and forty per cent of its population. "How much more can a community take?"
Cobalt Mayor George Othmer, who stated he had worked at Sherman Mine for 17 years, said Temagami's cause is "a cause for all of the District of Timiskaming. We all profited from Temagami through jobs." He called on environmentalists to "go home and let us live our lives." He added that the forest industry is "very aware of the proper methods to sustainable forestry."
He suggested that people living outside the area should "come visit us but don't attempt to force your will on the North. This isn't a park for those who have destroyed their own space."
James Township (Elk Lake) Reeve Terry Fiset, whose business is in the lumber industry, noted additional forest areas that were set aside for preservation under the CPC decision by the Minister of Natural Resources. "We've done our share and our commitment for this region."
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By Darlene Wroe
Speaker Reporter
LATCHFORD - The proper management of forests, leaving smaller trees free to grow to maturity and ultimately to an old-growth stage, can result in penalties to the forest industry in the future, points out Latchford Mayor George Lefebvre.
Horse-drawn logging in the nineteenth century resulted in trees smaller than 13 inches in diameter at the chest to be left to grow, he explained. Today those trees could be 30 inches in diameter or larger and if found in a high enough percentage in an area, would result in that forest section being labelled old-growth and taken out of the land base for harvesting.
"I really think when you look at the application of old-growth, there is a penalty for proper management of old-growth," he says.
The Owain Lake area, now the site of protests by Earthroots and its supporters, was logged in the nineteenth century, says Mayor Lefebvre, who has extensively researched Latchford and area's history.
"It was quite apparent all the area was timbered in the nineteenth century."
The Owain Lake area may contain pockets of old growth on high hills or low valleys because horses could not access those areas, he points out.
WRONG
The focus by environmentalists on the Owain Lake area as an old-growth forest is wrong, he believes.
Mayor Lefebvre formerly sat on the Comprehensive Planning Council (CPC) which analyzed acceptable uses of the land throughout the Temagami region (much of the District of Temiskaming and extending well into the Nipissing District).
Environmentalists were represented on that council.
"The Owain Lake forest was never an area of concern."
"Once it was slated for logging it becomes a critical old-growth area."
He charges that environmental groups have misled the media about the forest and have used "a questionable manner" in presenting the matter.
"The bottom line is that the Comprehensive Plan is not that much modified.
"Everybody has to give.
"All of the rest (outside the environmental groups) are interested in multi-use."
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By Darlene Wroe
Speaker Reporter
TEMAGAMI - The unity rally designed to draw people together from across Northeastern Ontario in opposition to perceived excessive influence from outside organizations and individuals regarding the activities of resource industries drew between 1,500 and 2,000 people to the Temagami arena Saturday, September 28.
A cross-section of people came to the rally from Timmins, Kapuskasing, Kirkland Lake, Englehart, the Tri-Towns, Elk Lake, Latchford, Temagami, West Nipissing and North Bay.
There were many who consider themselves environmentalists who were among the gathering.
Elk Lake author Dorothy Farmiloe stated that she is an environmentalist but "the protest (to prevent logging at Owain Lake) has gone too far. There is room in there (the Temagami forest) for multi-use. I certainly don't want to see every tree cut down in there, but I feel they're not paying enough attention to multiple use."
While she admitted that she does not know enough about the trees in the Owain Lake forest, she is sure they do not comprise an old-growth forest. She believes J.R. Booth lumber company harvested in that area before the turn of the century, and other logging has taken place there since that time.
NEED FORESTRY
New Liskeard resident Judy Parker believes the area needs forestry. "We can't just have tourism. We know if we don't have jobs we won't have people here. I really feel we have to have diversity. It's not a black and white issue."
She believes forestry can be accomplished without excessive damage to the forest. "They've got new ways of forestry. They've got better methods now and they're using them."
New Liskeard resident and Tri-Town Sno-Traveller member Gord Campbell says he does not agree with the way the issue is going (with environmental groups opposing harvesting in an approved area and seeking a judicial review of six forestry management plans in Northeastern Ontario). "I'm surprised people are wacky enough to chain themselves to power equipment and don't have to go to hospital (for mental instability)." He expressed frustration with policing of the issue which has not immediately cleared protesters from the site of the harvesting operation at the Owain Lake area. "They are going to wait until somebody gets killed."
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TORONTO (Staff) - Earthroots' campaign against logging in the Owain Lake area has been backed up by other environmental organizations and individuals in a news conference Wednesday, September 25 at Queen's Park in Toronto.
Greenpeace, Wildlands League, Sierra Club, the Rainforest Action Network and Federation of Ontario Naturalists, along with author June Callwood, lawyer Clayton Ruby, Svend Robinson, author Jane Urquhart and author M.T. Kelly have thrown their support behind Earthroot's campaign to stop logging in the area through blockades and individuals locking themselves to equipment.
Greenpeace believes logging and mining in the Temagami region should be stopped immediately.
"Temagami represents one-third of all the old-growth red and white pine left in North America," Greenpeace states. "Less than one per cent of Ontario's original pine forest remains intact."
Greenpeace continues that "The short-term economic benefits of logging the remaining old-growth, especially for Temagami's immediate vicinity, will also be small. The decision to log these old-growth pines will not create new jobs for the area."
Mr. Kelly, author of A Dream Like Mine and Out of the Whirlwind stated "It is intolerable that not only the economic benefits, but the great song, that can be glimpsed in places like Temagami is being destroyed. Temagami should give governments a sense of human limits; if it does not, citizens not only of the province but of the world, will pay an unnecessary, and tragic price."
Ms. Urquhart, author of Away and The Whirlpool states "Knowing what we all know about the fragility of our planet and about our own dwindling wilderness, to cut down old-growth trees is nothing less than an act of terrorism."
The Rainforest Action Network (RAN) states "Massacring this global heritage will make Ontario a pariah in the international community.
Mr. Robinson states "It is both evil and mad to log the magnificent old-growth Temagami pine forests.... Temagami's old-growth pine forests are not just fibre to add to global corporate profits but rare, splendid ecosystems."
The Sierra Club of Canada states "Logging this area is an environmental disaster of global proportions. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has already expressed concern for the future of Temagami in a 1988 resolution. When the IUCN meets next month in Montreal, the eyes of the world will once more be on Canadian forest practices and emergency action will be requested to protect Temagami. Logging Temagami also violates Canada's commitments under the United Nations Convention for Protection of Biodiversity (Article 8) which requires an environmental assessment when a project is likely to affect biodiversity. As the Convention parties issued a statement on biodiversity and forests in November, 1995, specifically urging protection of temperate old-growth forests, the logging of the last stands of old-growth in this province constitutes an issue of concern at an international level."
World Wildlife Fund states "Actions by the Ontario government are renewing rather than resolving land-use conflicts in Temagami.... World Wildlife Fund sees the government's new plan for Temagami as an unhelpful throwback to old-style resource exploration.
"A poll conducted by Environics for World Wildlife Fund earlier this year showed that fully 81 per cent of Ontarians surveyed favor protection of wilderness, even if it means less logging, mining and urban development."
Wildlands League states "Mining, logging and other development in internationally recognized wilderness areas in Temagami are not acceptable to the vast majority of reasonable Canadians and efforts will be made by our organization to dissuade the government from this course.... We are very anxious to hear the opinion of the members of United Nations-sponsored World Commission on Forests when they visit Temagami next weekend (October 5)."
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By Darlene Wroe
Speaker Reporter
EARLTON - Seven area mayors and reeves have written to the Premier of Ontario to urge him to stay the course established for the Temagami district.
Temagami Reeve Wayne Adair, Cobalt Mayor George Othmer, James Township Reeve Terry Fiset, New Liskeard Mayor Charlie Caldwell, Kirkland Lake Mayor Joe Mavrinac, Haileybury Mayor Tom Despres, Latchford Mayor George Lefebvre signed the document.
"Do not allow interest groups to dictate" what should or should not be allowed in the Temagami district, the mayors and reeves urged in the letter.
The township told the premier that "many residents feel too much land has been given protective status" at the expense of resource industries.
"We implore you not to capitulate."
If Premier Mike Harris does not maintain the course now decided upon, Temagami fears, the Highway 11 corridor will be vacated by those who try to make a living in the area.
The seven mayors and reeves also condemned the spiking of trees in the Owain Lake area as "cowardly."
The letter was read out at the Thursday, September 26 meeting of the Temiskaming Municipal Association at the Armstrong Township council chamber.
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OWAIN LAKE (Staff) - The 40th logging protester was arrested Tuesday, September 24 as a Rabbit Lake Road protest began its fourth week.
Meanwhile, about 1,000 trees have been cut in the Owain Lake forest after two days of logging.
Shortly before 7 a.m. September 24, police found a man attached to the front blade of a log skidder. He was removed, and the 25-year-old Toronto man has been charged with mischief.
One day earlier, an 18-year-old London woman was charged after police found her locked to a tire chain on a skidder. Police apprehended a 24-year-old Toronto man before he had a chance to take a similar action, said Sergeant Mike Jordan.
Both were charged with mischief.
An estimated 30 protesters were also reported to have flanked a skidder as it tried to make its way through the busy. After a complaint from the operator and a warning from the police, they gave it a wider berth.
Earlier that same day, Sergeant Jordan said police came across a woman who had used a bicycle lock to secure herself to a piece of machinery. When they informed her that the equipment was not scheduled to be in use that day, he said she unlocked herself and left.
Goulard Lumber began cutting Sunday, September 22, and felled about 250 trees on its first day.
Company president Marc Goulard said workers are watching for signs that trees may have been spiked. The first spikes were discovered well concealed in pine trees September 6.
But he said others are easy to spot. He guessed they'd been inserted in the spring, because a trail of hardened sap is visible on the bark.
"Follow the sap and you go right to the nail," he said.
Woodland manager Claude Goulard said loggers are carefully identifying any spiked trees they come across.
A detection system may be needed in the mill, but in the bush, they cut above it "which is sad, because we probably lose a foot and a half of two feet of useful wood."
Late last week, Rabbit Lake Road was closed to traffic after a bomb threat.
A reporter who received a taped message warning of a bomb on a bridge September 20 notified the Ontario Provincial Police.
Police scoured the bridges for explosives, but found nothing and concluded the threat was a hoax.
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by Diane Johnston
Speaker Reporter
TEMAGAMI - A regional drive to send a group of logging protesters home is gaining steam.
This Saturday (September 28) at 11 a.m. the Temagami arena will be the site of a regional demonstration dubbed "a solidarity rally."
Timiskaming-French River Liberal MP Ben Serré, who announced plans for the rally at a press conference at Temagami Shores last week, hoped the rally would be the biggest show of unity ever witnessed in Northern Ontario.
"This is not an issue that affects Temagami alone. It is an issue that affects all of us," he said September 20.
Mr. Serré said one of the reasons for the peaceful demonstration is to correct the misconception that the Owain Lake dispute is between loggers and environmentalists.
"That is not the case. This issue is a battle between local residents who want to develop their land and resources in an environmentally sound and sustainable manner, and some urban yuppies who would like to keep the area undeveloped and keep it as a playground for the rich."
But the primary goal of the rally, he said, is to "send a strong message to Earthroots and the like that we condemn their acts of civil disobedience and violence, that we don't need and don't want outsiders (to) come here and disrupt our lives.
"We want to tell them to please go home."
WARNINGS
At the news conference, he was flanked by representatives of Temagami, Sturgeon Falls, the Teme-Augama Anishnabai, the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters, Goulard Lumber, and the Northern Prospectors Association.
Temagami may now be the centre of protesters' attention, but it won't stay that way, warned township reeve Wayne Adair.
"We won't be fooled into believing they will stop here," he said.
"We all want protection for the environment. However there can be a balance between sustainable development and environmental issues."
"What's happening today in Temagami will happen somewhere else before too long," said Mike Leahy, president of the prospectors association.
"It'll be Shining Tree or Gowganda or Timmins or some other municipality in the area," he said.
If the area does not stick together now, "then we'll all be on our own for the next battle."
CPC
The process that led to a land use plan for the Temagami area was "a long, grueling exercise," said Sturgeon Falls Mayor Gary O'Connor, who was also a member of the Comprehensive Planning Council (CPC).
The public, including Earthroots, had the opportunity for input, he said. But rather than "fully participating in a democratic fashion," he said the group opted for civil disobedience.
In this case, he said, they can't see the forest for the trees.
If they were to look at the entire CPC area, he said they would see that thousands of acres of old-growth have been set aside in parks and reserves.
Mr. Leahy said the CPC plan left many dissatisfied.
But at the same time, he said local residents are prepared as "law abiding citizens" to accept the results.
He said the next three to five years will see tens of millions of dollars spent to develop claims staked in the newly reopened Temagami area in the past three days.
The prospect of new mines may spark calls that "the sky is falling," he said.
But he pointed to Kirkland Lake and Temagami Island, which once housed a copper mine.
"The sky will not fall over Temagami because we stake claims."
TAA
Doug McKenzie, chief of the Teme-Augama Anishnabai, also condemned any acts of what he called "terrorism" associated with the protests.
"I can't say I'm totally against civil disobedience, but I am against violence," he told the gathering.
He was at the press conference, he said, in part to make clear that any Natives involved with the protest are acting as individuals, not as representatives of the Teme-Augama Anishnabai nor the Temagami First Nation.
But he added a cautionary note.
He reminded the group of a CPC recommendation calling for a governance body in the area that includes representation from the Teme-Augama Anishnabai.
That body has yet to be established, and the issue of an overall settlement with Temagami area Native peoples remains unresolved.
Chief McKenzie said the issue of justice for the Teme-Augama Anishnabai is getting lost in the environmental concerns.
He took the opportunity to point out to the MP that, while the Canadian constitution accords jurisdiction over land to the province, dealing with Native peoples is ultimately a federal responsibility.
"One thing that's for sure is that the 'Temagami problem' will never be over until there is a settlement with the Teme-Augama Anishnabai," Chief McKenzie said.
MUNICIPAL SUPPORT
Earlier in the week, seven municipal leaders from across the district urged Premier Mike Harris to resist pressure to bow to logging protesters.
"Do not allow special interest groups to once again dictate land use in our area," stated the seven in a letter signed by the heads of councils in Temagami, Cobalt, Haileybury, James, Latchford, New Liskeard, and Kirkland Lake.
A comprehensive plan was adopted after "a long and arduous planning and public input process," they said.
"Your government has made the decision to proceed on a sustainable basis that respects all of the traditional uses in the area," it continued.
They appealed to the government not to give in to "the legal challenges and staged media events" of professional protesters.
"These groups have limitless financial resources they use to influence public opinion. The municipalities of this area cannot match those resources and we hope that common sense will prevail.
"If it does not, Temiskaming and the Highway 11 corridor will suffer greatly."
They commended the Ontario Provincial Police for "the quick and effective" manner of dealing with illegal activities in Temagami.
They referred to the discovery of spikes in more than 50 trees in the Owain Lake area, calling it "unforgivable and a cowardly terrorist method intended to do harm."
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by Diane Johnston
Speaker Reporter
TEMAGAMI - Temagami is fighting back.
On September 19, more than 200 township residents and supporters rallied for an hour-long demonstration to protest, in effect, the protesters.
They carried handwritten placards, saying "Earthroots go home. Save your farmlands," "Real Friends want the community to survive," and "Thank you Mike Harris and Mr. Hodgson for helping."
There was some humor. One sign read, "Once you hug a logger, you won't hug a tree."
Among the crowd were Robin and Carole Imbeau and their two-year-old daughter.
Mr. Imbeau is currently employed seasonally by Temagami Transport, and said the family was at the rally because they want full-time employment.
Mrs. Imbeau said she had some sympathy for the protesters, but could not support their call for a ban on all old-growth logging.
"I don't think they need to guarantee all of it. It's there for everyone," she said.
A CRY
The local rally was billed as "a cry for help," and was organized primarily by the women of the community, said coordinator Evelyn Davies.
She said it was born out of a desire to rid the community of the despair, frustration and helplessness residents are feeling.
They want their children to have a future here, she said.
"Our mill was shut down because of this very thing that's happening today. We can't afford to lose anything else," said former reeve and Temagami Transport owner Ivan Beauchamp.
Temagami residents see old-growth trees as trees that are beginning to die, he said. They need to be harvested now to be turned into something productive, he said.
Mr. Beauchamp said the community should be proud of the way it has maintained Temagami over the years.
"It's still as beautiful as it was 120 years ago."
ROOM
There is room in Temagami for forestry, mining, canoeing and outfitting, he said, and pointed to a comprehensive planning process that resulted in a plan recognizing multiple use.
He challenged Earthroots to show its support for environmental protection by donating money to the Temagami fish hatchery for restocking and shoal cleaning, or for tree planting.
Temagami's own White Bear Forest, an 1,800-acre stand of old-growth white pine, would welcome money for something as simply as tail markers, said Temagami community development officer John Grass.
Marc Goulard, president of the company that is logging in the Owain Lake area, was grateful for the township's support.
He said the Sturgeon Falls company feels caught in the middle of the dispute.
The company had traditionally logged on the west side of Highway 11. But when it lost some of its area to new park creation in 1989, it was forced into the Temagami area.
He said it had hoped that its operation in Owain Lake would offend no one because it is distant from outfitters and communities.
But that has not been the case, he said.
In earlier years, he said the company's equipment has been damaged and logging bridges destroyed.
Now, workers must contend with spikes in trees. "Whoever did this is considered a criminal," he said.
He said the mill needs the Owain Lake area to keep operating on a year-round basis. It is currently running under capacity, and is purchasing wood from other sellers.
"I see we've got a lot of support, and I hope it continues like this," he told the rally.
Mr. Beauchamp saw a sign of hope in the opening of more than 100 townships earlier that week to claim staking for the first time in more than two decades.
It offers local men who have been forced to seek work elsewhere the opportunity to return home, he said.
The rally's last word went to Bradley Corbett.
Since William Milne and Sons sawmill closed, his father has been without full-time work. He is now driving seasonally for Temagami Transport on hauls that take him from North Bay to Matheson.
"I want my dad working at home," he said.
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By Darlene Wroe
Speaker Reporter
TORONTO - A hearing on whether a stoppage would be placed on harvesting of trees in the Owain Lake area continued into the evening Tuesday, September 24, and was expected to possibly continue on into Wednesday, September 25.
Friends of Temagami and the Algonquin Wildlands League brought an interim motion to court, Tuesday, September 24, requesting that logging be stopped in the Owain Lake area pending an application being heard by the court for a judicial review of six forest management plans in Northeastern Ontario.
Sierra Legal Defence Fund staff lawyer Jerry DeMarco, representing the environmental groups, anticipates it will be a few weeks before the application for judicial review is heard.
He stressed the interim motion against logging pertains only to the Owain Lake area. "We don't want to stop everybody (logging companies across Northeastern Ontario) from doing their work," he commented.
Goulard Lumber, which is harvesting in the Owain Lake area, did not have a representative at the court hearing in Toronto.
Marc Goulard explained that he had legal advise that it would not be necessary.
E.B. Eddy Forest Resources Manager Martin Litchfield did attend the hearing of the application for an injunction.
E.B. Eddy, which owns Grant Lumber, is a member of a consortium of logging companies that applied for intervenor status at that time for the upcoming hearing for the judicial review which Mr. Litchfield anticipates in four to six weeks.
The consortium of logging companies include Grant Lumber, Grant Forest Products, St. Mary's Paper, E.B. Eddy, Midway, Birchland, Goulard Lumber and the Algonquin Forest Authority.
They are represented by Eleanor Cronk of Fasken, Campbell, Godfrey law firm of Toronto.
Mr. Litchfield commented that a judicial review of the six forest management plans in Northeastern Ontario has "a very serious implication".
The Ministry of Natural Resources is gathering data on the forest industry in Northeastern Ontario, employee numbers, etc.
The lumber industry also plans to prepare a detailed analysis of the potential impact that the legal action might have on operations in Northeastern Ontario.
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TEMAGAMI (Staff) - In an effort to save two sites in the Temagami area, environmental groups have staked their own mining claims.
They plan on investing funds at the sites for environmental research and will argue it is necessary in preparation for mining development, with the goal of maintaining the sites in their wild state for all time.
The Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, branch organization Wildlands League and Northwatch paid $25 for the right to stake a claim Tuesday, September 17 and used wooden posts and flagging tape to claims pieces of forest which Wildlands League spokesperson Tim Gray states are "critical old-growth pine forest and sensitive headwater stream areas in Temagami."
Hundreds of prospectors staked claims in the staking rush.
"We have claimed these areas to prevent their loss and to establish that ecological inventories should be a required component of mineral exploration activities," said Northwatch spokesperson Brennain Lloyd.
The Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society and Northwatch are calling for: the enactment of strong amendments to mining laws regarding controls on exploration and development activities; to have mining on an equal footing with other land uses, such as forestry, oil and gas, across Canada; and the consistent withdrawal of lands under consideration for parts and protected areas from industrial development, including mining.
BAY LAKE
In Temagami, the sites include a Bay Lake stand which is said to include old-growth forest of red, white and jack pine covering the cliffs of the east shore. Old-growth yellow birch and eastern white cedar also grow in the valleys. The forests provide habitat to the pine marten, the pileated woodpecker and the great horned owl.
MAKOBE LAKE HEADWATERS
The Makobe Lake headwaters includes small creeks and wetlands which give rise to waters that flow into Makobe Lake. The lake is just inside the northern boundary of Lady Evelyn-Smoothwater Wilderness Park. The Comprehensive Planning Council recommended protected area status for the headwater areas around the Lady-Evelyn Smoothwater Wilderness Park, but the recommendation was disregarded and several headwater areas were opened to mining and logging, commented the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society.
The groups want to point out what they say is the vulnerability of wildlife and wilderness areas to unrestricted staking and exploration of mineral claims
"Mineral exploration and mining often seriously disturbs sensitive ecosystems, contaminates aquatic systems and degrades wildlife habitat," comments the Canadian Parks and Wildlife Society National President Juri Peepre.
They want to raise awareness on the environmental impacts of mineral exploration.
The groups believe the mining legislation is in need of updating.
They are also concerned that mineral exploration and claims effectively veto other land uses, including wilderness protection.
They believe that the potential environmental impacts must take precedence over the merits of mining activities in places like headwater areas near parks.
They also believe that allowing staking and mineral exploration in wilderness areas being considered for protection impedes their establishment.
"The Ontario government rejected the protection of key wild areas recommended by the local planning committee in Temagami and have allowed mining staking in these areas," commented Mr. Gray. "The public will not accept this."
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by Diane Johnston
Speaker Reporter
OWAIN LAKE - Logging protesters call the Owain Lake forest a pristine stand of old-growth red and white pine.
A local residents' association considers it a "recently renewed forest" that was probably logged as early as the mid-1800s.
The Ministry of Natural Resources is not certain, but knows that there was logging in the area and considers it likely that parcels of the Owain Lake stand were logged before the turn of the century.
Early this week, Goulard Lumber in Sturgeon Falls began cutting in the Owain Lake area.
Environmental activists with Earthroots consider the block part of a 1,400-hectare Owain Lake forest ecosystem. A study commissioned by the group calls the Owain Lake forest the third largest known old-growth white pine dominated stand in North America.
"It is a large stand over 120 years old in Temagami," said Ministry of Natural Resources forester Ted Volpé. But he said he was not at all convinced of its leading status in the continent, or even Ontario.
At the heart of the latest dispute is Block 9C. The Sturgeon Falls company began cutting in the 321-hectare area in Hebert Township dominated by red and white pine on the weekend.
About 30 per cent of the total area, or 93 hectares, has been designated a "no-cut" reserve to protect habitat for wildlife and fish, Mr. Volpé said.
Most of the remaining 230 hectares are eligible for cutting.
HISTORY
Support for harvest in the Owain Lake stand has come from an association of cottagers and year-round residents east of Temagami.
"We are very concerned with any virgin old growth forests in our area. This block, however, appears to be a recently renewed forest," according to a report by the Cassels and Adjoining Lakes Association (CALA).
The report was prepared by CALA's logging committee, chaired by retired Gillies Lumber employee Sloan Watters.
It concluded that the area's original big pine were probably harvested by the McConnell family of Hull and others in the mid-1800s.
"Most of the Owain Lake pine stands must have seeded in around 1866 after a forest fire, because they all seem to be of an even age," the report said.
Around 1900, the Hawkesbury Lumber Company is reported to have cut saw logs in the surrounding area, leaving behind the young pine.
According to the CALA report, forest characteristics typical of old-growth - such as very large dead snags, large decaying logs on the ground, deep creases in the larger white pine, a multi-layered canopy - are not especially evident in the Owain Lake pine stands.
"Perhaps Owain Lake is the ultimate example of sustainable forestry," it said.
Based on the evidence, the area has been logged before, but has returned to a state "where environmental groups refer to it as a 'pristine old growth' forest and will risk civil disobedience to protect it.
"There is no reason to expect that the same recovery cycle will not occur again given a long enough 'time out' after logging."
Mr. Volpe said the ministry does know that logging took place in the broader Owain Lake area.
"We have the records and the photos and the evidence on the ground," he said.
But it's difficult so much later to prove or disprove where logging or fire occurred in the block now being harvested. That fact, he said, "indicates that the ecology of the area is fairly healthy."
But a technician who helped Ancient Forest Exploration and Research review the Owain Lake forest said he found no evidence of logging in much of the block.
Looking at the area's geography, Ian Huggett said the lack of easy water access would have made logging difficult.
But he said researchers also did on-the-ground surveys to find evidence of logging. They looked, for example, for neatly sheared off stumps that resulted from logging rather than natural deterioration.
"Our research indicates there are no stumps in this area," he said.
They also found no sign of trails where logs would have been skidded out of the area.
Mr. Huggett was confident in their results.
"There is no one in a position to refute that, because we're the only ones that did research in the area," he said.
LOGGING PRACTICE
Mr. Volpe does not disagree with the contention that white pine is less common in the Temagami forest today than it was in the past.
But he believes the current logging practices will give white pine a future.
The block is not being clear-cut. Instead, loggers are following a shelterwood system that will take between 40 and 50 per cent of the trees in an "every other tree" cutting pattern.
He said the method mimics fire, which was once the trigger for white pine regeneration.
White pine, for example, needs some sunlight for natural regeneration. But at the same time, open conditions leave young seedlings vulnerable to pests like the white pine weevil.
The shelterwood system leaves about half the pine and other species standing to shelter the new growth.
At one time, he said, loggers harvested only the best trees.
"Now, they take the worst," he said. "That's not to say they get no good trees. They do, but they tend to leave the best on site."
Without fire or logging, he predicted that white pine would still be around in two or three centuries' time. But it would represent a smaller share of the forest, rather than the dominant species he believes it will remain under current logging methods.
TO LOG OR NOT?
But the issue for environmentalists is not how to log "but whether it should be logged at all," Mr. Huggett said.
He said that, with less than one per cent of Ontario's old-growth white pine forest remaining, it's crucial that all be preserved.
He referred to a study of the Owain Lake ecosystem by Peter Quinby, which was prepared for Earthroots and released in August.
The Quinby report compared plant and tree life in the Owain Lake area and an old-growth stand in the Lake Obabika area that has been protected.
It found 10 plants in the Owain Lake area that were not present in the Lake Obabika area.
Four of the plants - indian cucumber root, marginal wood fern, partridgeberry and striped maple - are deemed regionally rare, or rare within the five-million-hectare Lake Temagami site region.
Three of the plants - dwarf rattlesnake plantain, ostrich fern and round-leaved dogwood - are considered rare within the comprehensive planning area.
The make-up of plants and trees found in both stands also differed.
That too is significant, said Mr. Huggett, because "that same kind of mosaic would not reestablish itself elsewhere."
But the Quinby report concluded that ecological representation should not be considered an issue in whether to preserve the Owain Lake stand.
Given the endangered status of the ecosystem, Dr. Quinby wrote, "any and all old-growth white and red pine stands should be protected."
About 10,800 hectares, or about 45 per cent, of old-growth red and white pine in the Temagami area are protected.
ECONOMICS
Mr. Huggett and an Earthroots protest leader discounted the argument that old-growth logging is economically viable.
"I believe it's time that Canadians stopped being the hewers of wood and the drawers of water," Mr. Huggett said.
Lea Ann Mallett of Earthroots saw no room for logging "an ancient forest."
"They have a treasure here," she said.
Cutting the forest would also cut out a burgeoning ecotourism industry, she said. She said people will not buy into the idea of "beauty corridors" and "the illusion of wilderness."
But tourism does not offer the full-time jobs the community needs, say advocates of multiple use in the Temagami forest.
Asked what Earthroots proposed as a sustainable job base for the region, Ms. Mallett said that is not the organization's role.
Other groups are working on long-term strategies, she said.
"This place needs to be saved now."
As for people who look to resource extraction as the area's economic salvation, "I think they're being duped by an irresponsible group of people who say that mining and logging will save their community."
If they were, she said, "why do we see the boom and bust economy happening over and over again?"
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by Diane Johnston
Speaker Reporter
TEMAGAMI - Like racers at the starting line, hundreds of mine claim stakers were poised to speed over some 6,000 square kilometres in a rush that began at 9 a.m. sharp Tuesday September 17.
Helicopters, all-terrain vehicles, and even a couple of high school track teams were expected to join prospectors as they raced against the clock and each other to stake their claim in Crown land opened to new mineral exploration for the first time in more than two decades.
"This is like the Oklahoma land rush," said Bob Munro, a Toronto prospector who had spent the past several days intensively studying the area he hoped to stake.
Up for grabs was the chance to acquire rights to explore for mineral potential in 103 townships in Temiskaming and the Temagami area.
Competitive staking rules apply: the first licensed prospector to complete staking - erecting claim posts and tagging them with identification, and recording the exercise's finish time - wins rights to explore the area.
Two companies had reportedly hired high school track teams to help stake.
"We hear that Donovan Bailey is still available," joked Roy Denomme of the Sudbury office of the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines at an information meeting in Temagami September 15.
And other prospectors were hiring notary publics to witness their completion times with statements, photos, and videotapes.
But unlike previous rushes, claim stakers did not then have to rush to the nearest mine recorder's office to file their claim.
The Mining Act was recently amended to give prospectors a 31-day period to file claims. Claim stakers can even FAX their documentation, complete with credit card number for staking fees, to the nearest mine recorder's office.
"All the rush is on foot in the bush," said Mark Hall, chief mining recorder with the ministry's Sudbury office.
REGULATIONS
Basic rules were outlined for prospectors, land owners, and the media at the Temagami information session.
Some areas - provincial parks, protected areas, and identified areas of Native, heritage or natural interest - remain off-limits. Existing valid claims must be respected, as are lands whose owners have both surface and underground rights.
No claim staking is allowed in the lands formally set aside as a proposed settlement in the Temagami Native land claim dispute.
Recently withdrawn from staking in this round is the Lake Temagami skyline reserve and lake bed. Staking will be possible when regulations protecting the area's sensitive environment and scenic beauty are formally approved.
The key to a successful rush is consideration and sensitivity to land owners' concerns, said Mike Leahy, president of the Northern Prospectors' Association.
The prospect of exploring land in the Temagami area after a 23-year freeze has sparked interest all across Canada, said Gino Chitaroni, a Cobalt prospector and an association director.
"There's several big companies that are going to do this. There's lots of juniors, small to medium sized companies, a lot of prospectors like myself - independent," he said.
"I hope to interest juniors and majors with the ground that I pick up."
Mr. Chitaroni said the stereotypical loner-prospector will be out there. But he said claim stakers frequently make business arrangements with each other to work together on staking parcels.
As for the potential, he said, "the Temagami area has had producing mines before, and so based on just past experience in that area there's a real opportunity for new ones."
At the same time, he said, relatively unexplored areas around Shining Tree, for example, have a certain allure.
"There's high mineral potential and it has to be assessed. Whoever gets there first gets that chance to assess it."
Because the area has been out of exploration bounds for so long, stakers have had no opportunity to do preliminary prospecting work, said Mr. Munro.
"A CRAP SHOOT"
The Vancouver native said he had done his homework, reviewing claim maps, old geological records, documentation of earlier finds and mining company records, and "word of mouth."
But at the same time, he said, "it's a crap shoot."
The land rush has already inspired a boom of sorts.
In Elk Lake and Gowganda, the biggest tourist camps were fully booked and helicopters regularly spotted buzzing in and out of town in the days before the September 17 opening.
"Vehicles are all over the place," said James Township councillor Chester Jobson.
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Is one of the prerequisites for being a protester in Northern Ontario a passport from southern Ontario?
The recent protests on Rabbit Lake Road south of Temagami have highlighted one of the ironies of political activism in Northern Ontario: that people who don't live here have unbelievably strong convictions about what is best for the North.
When southern Ontario protesters are asked why they are here making a fuss in an area in which they don't live, they infer that they are being told to mind their own business. Their reaction is to state their citizenship in Canada and Ontario is as valid as a Northerner's and as such they have as much right to want to protect the environment as anyone else, no matter where a cause takes them. Their doggedness is grudgingly admirable for its thick skinned and unwavering certainty.
The second irony is that, in the Owain Lake protest on Rabbit Lake Road, there have been no local people from Temiskaming taking a stand either on a barricade or in a bicycle lock. People who took part in the original blockade by allowing themselves to be cemented in concrete blocks all gave their home addresses as southern Ontario locales. One woman said she once lived in Temagami years ago, but her connection to the area today was tenuous at best. With no person saying they were from the North, it looked like we in the North didn't care about the preservation of our natural resources.
Perhaps it shows that we look at the relationship of humans to nature a little differently from our cousins in southern Ontario. Northerners love to hunt and fish and spend time in the bush, but we also see it as a way to make a living and to provide for our families. These interlopers want to preserve the forests while they extol the possibilities of eco-tourism.
The difference is the concrete results of immediate harvesting and usage of our natural resources compared with the idea of preserving it and they will come, an idea along the lines of building a baseball diamond in a cornfield: it takes faith.
Northerners, though never short of faith, are growing increasingly short of patience.
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by Diane Johnston
Speaker Reporter
RABBIT LAKE ROAD - As public attention shifted to the flood of claim stakers in the Temagami area and much of Temiskaming, a logging protest continued on Rabbit Lake Road.
Two men were arrested early Tuesday September 17 after police removed protesters who had chained themselves to a bridge on Rabbit Lake Road.
Sergeant Mike Jordan of the Ontario Provincial Police said two Earthroots protesters were spotted lying face down on bridge number four on Rabbit Lake Road near the group's camp at 7:18 a.m.
They had wrapped their arms around bridge timbers and their hands were encased in plastic tubing.
It took about half an hour for police to remove the pair.
Two men - a 26-year-old from Toronto, and an 18-year-old from London - have been charged with mischief and intimidation.
One day earlier, eight protesters, including two Ma-Kominising Anishnawbeg (MKA) members and a Quebec youth, were arrested.
On September 16, about 20 people were reported to be conducting a Native ceremony on Rabbit Lake Road.
In a press release, Earthroots described the event as a sunrise ceremony intended to welcome environmentalists to the area.
When police learned of the ceremony, they contacted a Native Friendship Centre in Timmins and a Temagami First Nations constable for information.
Sergeant Jordan said they were told a ceremony could last anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour. But he said protesters told them they planned to continue it all day.
He said that while police were warning the group, a Goulard Lumber Company representative requested access through the road.
While most of the protesters left, eight people - including the two MKA members, a Quebec 16-year-old, and five people from Toronto, Nepean and Freelton - were arrested and charged with mischief and intimidation.
Later that day, there were more arrests after three people chained themselves to heavy equipment.
At about 11 a.m., police arrested a 32-year-old Ottawa man, a 23-year-old Tilbury man and a 28-year-old London woman who had chained themselves to a backhoe and bulldozer.
Sergeant Jordan said keys that had been tossed into the nearby bush were found and used to unlock two of the people. Bolt cutters were needed to free a third.
Nine of the 11 people arrested were released on the condition they not obstruct employees or the use of machinery by the Goulard Lumber Company, and that they not obstruct traffic on the road.
The two MKA members, including spokesperson Woody Becker, remained in custody until a bail hearing scheduled for yesterday afternoon.
Sergeant Jordan said both men had been out on their own recognizance after charges on other unrelated matters.
The latest spate of arrests comes two weeks after Earthroots set up camp on Rabbit Lake Road to protest plans to log what it considers a substantial stand of old-growth pine forest.
Twenty-two protesters were arrested during the action's first two days on charges of mischief and intimidation.
On September 13, a protest leader - Lea Ann Mallett - was released from custody in North Bay after she successfully appealed a condition that would have barred her from returning to the protest site.
Earthroots hailed the dropping of the condition, which is expected to apply to all the protesters arrested September 5, as a victory.
REACTION
Temagami Township, meanwhile, is looking at protests of its own protest.
Last week, Temagami Reeve Wayne Adair said the municipality is considering seeking a court injunction that would bar further illegal activity on the road.
Some Temagami residents are planning a demonstration of their own.
A march begins at the Ontario Northland station at 6 p.m. Wednesday, September 19 and proceeds along Lakeshore Drive.
Residents will be walking to show their support for multiple use of the area's resources, said resident Evelyn Davies.
"We want to be a working community, rather than no community," she said.
"We are interested in having mining, logging and tourism work together. It is possible."
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by Diane Johnston
Speaker Reporter
TEMAGAMI - Two environmental organizations are taking the Ontario government to court, charging that it is illegally permitting logging to go ahead in Temagami, Elk Lake and elsewhere.
Earlier this week, the Friends of Temagami and the Algonquin Wildlands League also asked Natural Resources Minister Chris Hodgson to defer any logging in the Owain Lake forest until the legal action is heard in court.
They asked the minister to respond by Wednesday,September 18.
The groups said the court action, if successful, could halt logging in six areas, including Temagami and Elk Lake, Algonquin Park, and the Algoma Highlands.
But the request to hold off on logging concerns only the Owain Lake forest, where Earthroots is protesting Goulard Lumber's plans to begin cutting later this month.
"The other areas aren't under as immediate a threat," said Jerry DeMarco, staff lawyer with the Sierra Legal Defence Fund which is handling the legal action.
"Temagami is the one where there's a highly sensitive area and a fairly large intact old-growth stand which is under threat."
As of September 17, the groups had taken no steps to seek a formal injunction against Owain Lake logging.
MANAGEMENT PLANS
In their application for a judicial review last week, the groups asked that six forest management plans -including the Elk Lake forest management plan and Temagami contingency plan - be declared null and void.
Mr. DeMarco said a forest management planning manual, which sets out broad guidelines for sustainable forestry, is demanded under the Crown Forest Sustainability Act of 1994.
He said that while a manual has been drafted it has not yet been approved.
"If a key component of the act is not in place, then the government is in contravention of its own act," said Francis Boyes, president of Friends of Temagami, earlier this week.
Furthermore, the action asserts that the minister has not complied with ten conditions under a class environmental assessment in 1994 of timber management on Crown lands.
Among the specific issues is the requirement that specific guidelines be developed to protect habitat for the pine marten and pileated woodpecker, both old-growth pine wildlife species found in the Temagami area, Mr. DeMarco said.
REACTION
Rob Savage, press secretary to Natural Resources Minister Chris Hodgson, said some of the points raised in the legal action deal with interpretation of the law.
"We believe we are in compliance with the law and that our forest management plans are valid," Mr. Savage said earlier this week.
Forest management activities in the area will continue, he said.
A court date to hear the application for a judicial review has been set for September 24 in Toronto.
Mr. Boyes said the legal action comes only after the Friends of Temagami felt it had exhausted "more conventional" avenues to express its fears for the future of Temagami's old-growth forest.
The Friends of Temagami was among a coalition of environmental groups that submitted their views to the Comprehensive Planing Council earlier this year.
"What we are talking about is a better balance than what is going on," he said.
He said one of the components of their plan for Temagami's future was a moratorium on the cutting of old-growth pine to give researchers a chance to study an endangered ecosystem.
But their concerns, he said, "apparently fell on deaf ears."
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TEMAGAMI (Staff) - The number of trees known to have been spiked in the Owain Lake area now stands at more than 50.
On September 6, 30-centimetre metal spikes were found in five trees on the west side of an access road located at the east end of Rabbit Lake Road. The most recent discoveries were made September 10 by two MCTV reporters researching a story about the Owain Lake controversy.
Police investigated the area, located on the east side of the access road, with a metal detector.
Altogether, spikes have been found in more than 50 trees, all more than half a metre in diameter.
"We're still patrolling and looking, but we haven't found any more as of yet," said Sergeant Mike Jordan of the Ontario Provincial Police earlier this week.
Tree spiking is a tactic that has been used by radical environmental groups elsewhere in North America to protest logging.
It's dangerous - when a saw blade hits a concealed spike, the blade can shatter, sending metal fragments flying towards loggers and mill workers.
A note has recently surfaced that warned that more than 500 nails had been driven into old-grown trees in Temagami. It was reportedly sent to the Ministry of Natural Resources, Greenpeace and two Toronto media outlets last fall.
The note warned that attempts to process the trees would damage mill equipment, and appeared to have been signed by "Temagami Liberation Committee."
The Ontario Provincial Police was alerted to the existence of the letter by the media and investigated at that time, said Constable Dana McLean earlier this week from Temagami.
Police could not confirm the note's authenticity or the existence of such a group, she said.
An environmental group protesting plans to log the Owain Forest has said it does not spike trees.
Earthroots said it supports peaceful civil disobedience, and does not condone actions that cause injury or property damage.
Earthroots executive director Dan McDermott said his organization did not receive a copy of the communique. He knows nothing about the Temagami Liberation Committee, "if it indeed is an organization."
"For all we know it is one person," he said.
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by Diane Johnston
Speaker Reporter
TEMAGAMI - Temagami Township wants the province to postpone establishing a new governance body for Crown land in the Temagami area until a Native land claim dispute is resolved.
"The issues around here as usual are pretty complicated," said Reeve Wayne Adair at a September 12 council meeting.
Throwing another agency into the mix would "just confuse the issue," he said.
In its final report, the Comprehensive Planning Council (CPC) had advised that a governance body be established to oversee the plan's implementation.
Sheila MacFeeters, North Bay district manager of the Ministry of Natural Resources, is to recommend a structure to Minister Chris Hodgson by the end of September.
But Temagami is advising the province to hold off.
The township had originally been concerned that a plan would be adopted without an implementing agency in place, leaving a void.
Temagami proposed that one-third of the representatives on any new body be from the township and one-third from the Native community. Under Temagami's plan, the remainder would be provincial appointees, selected perhaps from other areas in Temiskaming.
But the township's fears were eased when it appeared that "things were going to roll smoothly" after the province adopted most of the plan's recommendations, Reeve Adair said.
In a letter to Ms. MacFeeters, he said negotiations with Native people should precede the establishment of any new governance body.
A new organization will not work unless Temagami area Natives either agree to participate or step out of the issue, he said.
He said that setting up a new body without consultation with the Native community would jeopardize negotiations on resolving the land claim.
He added that discussion of governance is premature while operational plans for forestry and parks, for example, have yet to be drafted.
The township believes that amalgamation with neighboring islands and unincorporated areas is being stalled because a new governance body may be seen as an alternative to amalgamation.
The township recommends that the ministry staff continue development of operational plans and that the two-year period set aside of lands for land claim discussions be observed.
It also suggests that the government include governance in any land claim discussions, and that the township participate in these talks.
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by Diane Johnston
Speaker Reporter
TEMAGAMI - The Ontario Ministry of Environment and Energy will investigate charges of pollution originating from the former Sherman Mine iron mine in Temagami.
The investigation was triggered by an application from environmental groups Earthroots and the Algonquin Wildlands League under Ontario's Environmental Bill of Rights.
A full-time investigator from the ministry's Barrie district office has been assigned to the case, said Sharon Suter of the ministry's Environmental Bill of Rights office.
Its investigation of the specific issues on a point-by-point basis will be completed by November 7, she said. A report and the ministry's planned course of action must be submitted to the applicants no longer than December 7.
In their application for an investigation, the groups charge that sections of the Ontario Environmental Protection Act, the Ontario Water Resources Act, and the federal Fisheries Act prohibiting the discharge of harmful contaminants into the environment and water have been violated.
"The reality is that leachate is already polluting the adjacent aquatic environment," said Earthroots executive director Dan McDermott earlier this week.
He considered the former ore pits a major concern. He said they are rapidly filling with water, and are almost ready to overflow.
Discharge from four pits as well as the Turtle pit, once a lake, are specifically noted in the groups' application, said Jerry DeMarco, a Sierra Legal Defence Fund lawyer who helped draft the appeal for an investigation.
The contaminants cited in the groups' submission include aluminum, cadmium, copper, iron and lead, and acidic waste water.
The groups announced the investigation on the eve of a claim staking rush in some 6,000 square kilometres around Temagami and Temiskaming.
"The Sherman Mine pollution is the future for the Temagami region as the miners and loggers swarm over this precious old-growth forest area," Mr. McDermott said in a press release.
Its report and recommended course of action must be made available to the groups by December 7, she said.
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by Diane Johnston
Speaker Reporter
DISTRICT - In just one week, about 6,000 square kilometres of Crown land locked away from mineral exploration for more than two decades is set to open.
At 9 a.m. Tuesday September 17, land in 103 townships stretching from River Valley to a point midway between Elk Lake and Matachewan will reopen to prospecting and staking.
"It'll be pandemonium for a couple of days," said Mike Leahy, a Kirkland Lake prospector and president of the Northern Prospectors Association.
The Ontario Provincial Police are anticipating a flood of 2,000 people into the area, said Sergeant Mike Jordan.
Mr. Leahy is aware of crews that have already begun preparing for next week's staking rush in the Shining Tree, Gowganda and Temagami areas.
The rush has been a long time coming.
A Temagami area Native land caution filed in 1973 stopped new claim filing and exploration.
That caution was quashed in the fall of 1995. Late in June, Natural Resources Minister Chris Hodgson announced the reopening of much of the area to staking after he adopted most of the recommendations in a comprehensive planning study of the Temagami area.
NATIVE DISMAY
But the news that staking would begin was greeted with dismay in the Native community.
Chief Jim Twain of the Temagami First Nation is disappointed that the staking ban has been lifted while a land claim in the area remains unresolved.
The band is still party to appeals of court decisions in 1995 that eventually led to the caution's removal.
But Chief Twain said the band council has no specific plans to protest the September 17 reopening.
A spokesperson for a traditionalist faction, on the other hand, says it will do what it can to stop the reopening of the area next week.
"We're going to give it a God damned good shot," Woody Becker of the Ma-Kominising Anishnawbeg (MKA) said last week.
The MKA, which has half a dozen active members, helped defeat an agreement-in-principle that would have set the stage for a resolution of the land claim in 1994.
It was the defeat of that negotiated proposal that spurred the then New Democratic government to take the land caution to court.
The MKA maintains that Native interest in the area must be first.
"You've got to deal with us before you initiate any CPC (Comprehensive Planning Council), any MNR (Ministry of Natural Resources) use forest," Mr. Becker said.
"To me, it's our last stand. What's here to live for if our people don't have rights to our land?"
He would not specify what actions the MKA would take.
"I'm just leaving a question mark. It's up to their imagination," he said.
But he did rule out violence against people. "That's not our nature," he said.
If anyone brings arms into the bush, "it won't be us."
MORE POLICE
Mr. Leahy said the fear of encountering problems in the bush during staking has caused some members of prospectors association concern.
"I guess we'll just have to play on a case by case basis, and hope that the Ontario Provincial Police are out, and that cooler heads prevail."
Police plan to bring additional RIDE units into the area to patrol Highway 11 and side roads, Sergeant Jordan said. They will also be keeping an eye on parked vehicles.
He added that the comprehensive land use plan that recommended the reopening of the area to mining and other development came only after seven years of study.
While no interest group was completely satisfied with the final plan, "the MNR has tried to accommodate everybody as best they can."
Most people, he said, are willing to live by the comprehensive plan's recommendations.
STILL HELD UP
New prospecting is still being held up in two areas.
The government has set aside an area around Lake Temagami as part of a possible land claim settlement package.
A temporary hold has been put on the islands and shoreline area of the lake, following concerns by the Temagami Lakes Association that adequate regulations to protect the environmentally sensitive and scenic area were not yet in place.
Specific regulations for the area, known as the Lake Temagami skyline reserve, are in the works.
On Rabbit Lake Road
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by Diane Johnston
Speaker Reporter
OWAIN LAKE - One week after the establishment of a road block on Rabbit Lake Road by logging protesters, all was quiet.
But the environmental group protesting plans to log in the Owain Lake forest later this month was scheduled to bring fresh recruits into its forest defence camp on Rabbit Lake Road.
"This is not over. There will be more actions and there will be more peaceful direct action to protect the Owain Lake Forest," said Paul Winterton, community relations director for Earthroots, earlier this week.
Earthroots contends that the forest is part of the endangered ecosystem of old-growth red and white pine. But there is some evidence that parts of the area have been logged at least twice this century.
Goulard Lumber of Sturgeon Falls is currently completing bridge and road repairs on the road in preparation for logging, slated to begin later this month.
NEW BATCH SCHEDULED
Early in the week, Mr. Winterton said only ten volunteers manned the camp located about 28 kilometres off Highway 11 on the road.
But its numbers were to swell to between 30 and 40 yesterday (September 10), when a new batch of volunteers from London and Toronto was scheduled to arrive.
"The next step for Earthroots is going to become evident when we begin it. At the moment, the police presence at the camp is extremely obtrusive," Mr. Winterton said.
WRAP-UP
The normally quiet Rabbit Lake Road saw a lot of action last week.
The protest began Labor Day weekend with the setting up of a camp.
On September 3, a score of reporters converged on the camp and the road block itself, located about eight kilometres from the camp on the road.
There, one protester was found atop a tripod-type platform, and several people had affixed themselves to large concrete blocks.
One day later, Lea Ann Mallett, a protest leader, was arrested on charges of mischief and intimidation after two Temagami area minnow trappers complained to police they had been denied access through the road block.
Earthroots was "not at all comfortable" that its first confrontation was with minnow trappers, Mr. Winterton said.
The organization supports tourism, which includes fishing, as a sustainable use of the Temagami forest, he said.
"We have no quarrel with minnow trapping. We were sorry that they were the first people that came upon the barricade."
He said Earthroots and the trappers were able to reach an arrangement that permitted them access via all terrain vehicles.
Immediately after Ms. Mallett's arrest, Earthroots executive director Dan McDermott charged that her arrest was "ordered by Queen's Park in an effort to dismantle the blockade."
In a press release, Mr. McDermott said, "This is another example of the OPP being used as a political tool, like at Ipperwash and during the OPSEU (Ontario Public Service Employees Union) strike."
But the OPP said it was reacting to a complaint.
"Our actions were the direct result of a complaint made by a citizen. An investigation ensued. The investigators on reasonable, probable grounds achieved an information and arrest warrants," said Constable Dana McLean late last week.
The blockade came down September 5, when three prospectors in a pick-up truck attempted to cross the barricade.
Mike Leahy, a Kirkland Lake prospector and president of the Northern Prospectors Association, was among the three.
When they were denied permission, police moved in.
They protected themselves and protesters with tarps and hard hats as they used hand-held hammers and chisels to break the protesters away from the concrete blocks.
After practicing with a small-scale replica of the tripod device, officers were able to gently lower the protester to the ground.
A total of 19 men and women, ranging in age from 18 to 69, were arrested on charges of mischief and intimidation. Two 16-year-olds from Toronto were also arrested.
Most of the people charged came from the Toronto area, while others came from Nepean, London, and Peterborough.
Eleven of the people remained in custody until early this week because they would not agree to release conditions. Among the conditions was a prohibition on returning to the townships of Askin, Hebert, Eldridge and Hartle, site of the protest.
Ms. Mallett has opted to remain in custody.
"I am staying in jail to protest the release conditions imposed on peaceful people," she said in a press release.
"We have an agreement with the Crown to appeal the bail conditions as a group through my appeal on Friday (September 13)," she said.
"If my conditions are lifted, then they are lifted for everyone."
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by Diane Johnston
Speaker Reporter
TEMAGAMI - Metal spikes have been found in at least 30 trees in an area of the Owain Forest located about eight kilometres behind last week's road blockade, and police are checking for more.
"We've made the Ministry of Natural Resources and Goulard Lumber company aware of the situation, and they're going to have to be extra careful," said Sergeant Mike Jordan from the Temagami Ontario Provincial Police headquarters.
Who concealed the 30-centimetre spikes in the trees, and when, is still under investigation. Police are appealing to the public for anyone with any information about the incident to contact Crime Stoppers.
Tree spiking - which poses a risk to loggers, mill workers and equipment - has been used elsewhere in North America to protest logging.
The environmental group protesting plans to cut what it says is old-growth pine in the Owain Forest said it is not responsible for the tree spiking.
Earthroots has "consistently maintained" that it does not condone any action causing injury or property damage, said Paul Winterton, the organization's community relations director.
"We simply don't do that," Mr. Winterton said from Earthroots' Toronto office earlier this week.
"This message of peaceful non-violent action has been the watchword for Earthroots since it was formed. These people are committed to passive resistance."
The first five spikes were discovered September 6 by Temagami Reeve Wayne Adair, township public works director Russ Manderstrom, and chief administrative officer John Hodgson.
Council members decided early last week they would visit Earthroots' barricade on Rabbit Lake Road, Mr. Hodgson said. But on September 5, police arrested 21 protesters and dismantled the road block.
Mr. Hodgson said they decided to visit the site anyway, and brought along a metal detector.
They followed a trail marked by a single red flag, and then ran the metal detector up a red pine. When it sounded, they cut the bark away and found spikes about 60 centimetres and just over two metres from the ground.
They had been so well concealed under the bark's vertical cracks that they left no bruise on the bark, Mr. Hodgson said.
"It was a definite intent to injure, very clearly," he said.
A chain saw or sawmill blade striking a hidden spike can shatter a blade, sending teeth and shards of steel flying through the air "like shrapnel," Mr. Hodgson said.
"When you say 'spiking' up around here, they know that's a threat to them, absolutely."
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TEMAGAMI (Staff) - Answers to the "wheres and hows" of new claim staking in the Temagami area may be answered next week at a public information session hosted by the Northern Prospectors Association.
"This is meant to inform both the participants and the general public," said association president Mike Leahy of the September 15 meeting.
On September 17, about 6,000 square kilometres of Crown land throughout Temiskaming and the Temagami area will be reopened to new claim staking after more than 20 years.
The activity has sparked some questions that the prospectors association hopes will be answered by speakers at the meeting.
Representatives of the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines will be on hand with information about the Mining Act, claim map updates, and how to flag claims in sensitive areas.
Ministry of Natural Resources staff will answer questions about issues ranging from the comprehensive land use plan and the Public Lands Act to work permits.
The Ontario Provincial Police will also offer information about, for example, highway safety and handling confrontation.
The meeting will be held at the Temagami Welcome Centre, beginning at 7 p.m.
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DISTRICT (Staff/Special) - A Temiskaming municipal group that promotes multiple use in the district's forests has urged the province to make no concessions to logging protesters.
In a press release late last week, the Municipal Advisory Group (MAG) - which represents the municipalities of Latchford, James, Temagami, Coleman, New Liskeard, Cobalt and Haileybury - said, "Enough is enough."
It said no concessions should be made to "minority fringe groups" under the guise of comprehensive planning.
"The forest management plan and the parks management plan still have to be written for the Comprehensive Planning Council area.
"The residents of Timiskaming will not accept further compromises, green areas, or withdrawal of multi use land base through these planning processes."
The municipal group said it sympathized with the Ontario Provincial Police in its efforts to keep Rabbit Lake Road open.
It urged local residents to hold off on any involvement in the dispute that would add to the police's problems, or the "excessive financial burden" that the policing campaign is putting on Ontario taxpayers.
"However, should the situation persist, and industry essential to our residents be denied access, we would encourage an indication of support from local residents.
"This would be intended to show that maintenance of existing jobs, and the creation of new ones, are essential to the future of Northeastern Ontario."
MAG also pledged to bring its concerns to the Temiskaming Municipal Association when it meets later this month.
MAG is also calling for an opportunity to tell the Ontario government directly how much the land use conflicts and Native land claim disputes of the past 25 years have cost the district.
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by Steven Larocque
Speaker Reporter
OWAIN LAKE - Because of the heavy police presence on Rabbit Lake Road, it is probably one of the safest places to travel in the region of Nipissing.
Eighteen kilometres south of Temagami and about three kilometres east of Highway 11 is a checkpoint staffed by two Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) officers who count the number of people in vehicles and record drivers' license numbers. Along the road are police vehicles on the east side of each of the three bridges on Rabbit Lake Road. Over half a dozen police vehicles were spotted along the highway on a trip from the Tri-Towns to the Rabbit Lake Road turnoff on Tuesday.
The road itself, almost impassable to a car only a week ago, now resembles almost any other rough gravel road familiar to hunters and anglers.
Workers from Goulard Lumber from Sturgeon Falls have graded and smoothed over some of the roughness, and areas that were washed out as the result of overflowing beaver dams have since been filled in.
The encampment that still exists, about 8 kilometres from the site of the original blockade and 28 kilometres from the highway, is now home to about 20 tents and 10-15 members of Earthroots. Another 10-15 Earthroots supporters were expected to arrive the night of Tuesday September 10, said the organization's executive director Dan McDermott.
All that remains at the site of the blockade are some large chunks of concrete and green plastic pails with holes in their bottoms, as well as the cardboard casing that housed the concrete. Three large blocks of cement were put across the road last week and protesters handcuffed themselves to iron rods inside the cement as a means of protesting the logging that is set to begin in the Owain Lake area. The police released the protesters by chipping away at the blocks and then subsequently arresting the protesters and their supporters, over 20 in all.
BUILDING BRIDGES
The last bridge, which lies between the encampment and the site of the blockade, was repaired Tuesday by the Goulard workers under the watchful eyes of the OPP.
One worker, who refused to identify himself, said he and the others have experienced no problems with the protesters. He said the workers found it amusing that, while working on a bridge the previous day, an activist stood nearby beating a drum.
A statement from Superintendent Ted Andress from the Northeastern Region of the OPP, out of North Bay, said the force has "sufficient personnel available to effectively operate 24 hour patrols, keeping in mind the officers' safety, the distances involved, the terrain, communication difficulties and the large area of uninhabited woodlands."
Officer Emile Lamothe from Kirkland Lake, who was on the scene, said the exact number of officers on duty on the road could not be stated due to safety reasons.
Search and rescue units and all-terrain vehicles are on the scene, with canine units and helicopters available if needed, said Officer Lamothe.
The objective of the OPP, said Officer Lamothe, is to "provide appropriate policing service, to maintain the public peace, well-being and security of all persons who have the legal right of access (on Rabbit Lake Road)." The officers "will react to complaints and take appropriate actions like we did last week," he added. The blockade was removed after some people complained to police that they were unable to travel on the public access road.
POLITICALLY MOTIVATED
He said the relations between the activists and the police were almost cordial at the beginning of the protest but became strained once arrests were made last week. The arrests were politically motivated, said Mr. McDermott, a result of pressure from the provincial government to end the blockade.
Superintendent Andress also stated that the cost of the police presence is not known at this time but rises "daily to meet our operational needs."
Mr. McDermott said there is "no doubt in my mind that this is costing them millions of dollars."
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By WALTER FRANCZYK
KIRKLAND LAKE - A logging road blockade in the Temagami area lasted less than three days before a prospector's challenge sent it crumbling.
Ontario Provincial Police arrested 21 demonstrators on Rabbit Lake Road, south of Temagami last Thursday, after they stopped three prospectors from entering the area.
"I was with two other local prospectors that have property in the area and we were going in there to look around," said Kirkland Lake prospector Michael Leahy.
Environmentalist had blocked the road last Tuesday to prevent logging of what they describe as old growth red and white pine near Owain Lake. Some had handcuffed themselves to large, heavy concrete blocks placed on the road.
Mr. Leahy, president of the Northern Prospectors Association, said he drove his truck over a couple of logs on the road and up to a protester standing between the logs and the blockade.
He said he refused to get into a discussion with demonstrators and repeatedly demanded immediate access down the road.
Police moved in after protesters denied the prospectors access.
"When the protesters all stood in front of the truck and refused to allow it to proceed, the police, who were already on the scene, just started arresting them," Mr. Leahy said.
He said he hadn't spoken to police before approaching the blockade and described police reaction to the confrontation as "somewhat surprised."
Police used hammers and chisels to extricate protestors from the concrete.
Environmentalist vow they haven't given up their campaign. The Green Party of Ontario says it intends to help pay the fines and legal bills of those arrested.
With more than 50 fresh environmentalists now camped near the road,
Mr. Leahy doubts Timiskaming has seen the end of the protests.
He predicts any Crown land users will react negatively to another blockade.
Prospectors, he noted, have waited through seven years of negotiations for a compromise solution on land use in the Temagami area.
While prospectors didn't get everything they wanted, Mr. Leahy says that as far as he knows, they're willing to abide by the law.
It appears, however, that other groups aren't, he said.
The provincial government's adoption of the Temagami land use plan clears the way for mining claims staking in a vast area of Crown land for the first time in two decades.
Prospectors are expected to flock to the Temagami area next Tuesday, when about 6,000 square kilometres of land open for staking.
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TEMAGAMI - Answers to the wheres and hows of new claim staking in the Temagami area may be answered next week at a public information session hosted by the Northern Prospectors Association.
"This is meant to inform both the participants and the general public," said association president Mike Leahy of the Sept. 15 meeting.
On Sept. 17, about 6,000 square kilometres of Crown land throughout Timiskaming and the Temagami area will be reopened to claim staking after more than 20 years.
The activity has sparked some questions that the prospectors association hopes will be answered by speakers at the meeting.
Representatives of the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines will be on hand with information about the Mining Act, claim map updates, and how to flag claims in sensitive areas.
Ministry of Natural Resources staff will answer questions about issues ranging from the comprehensive land use plan and the Public Lands Act to work permits.
The Ontario Provincial Police will also offer information about, for example, highway safety and handling confrontation.
The meeting will be held at the Temagami Welcome Centre, beginning at 7 p.m.
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by Steven Larocque
Speaker Reporter
TEMAGAMI - Spirits were high and the mood was confident as up to 25 protesters from the environmental group Earthroots set up their blockade on Rabbit Lake Road, 18 kilometres south of Temagami in Hebert Township.
The blockade is built 36 kilometres off of Highway 11 along the road to Owain Lake. The group has installed three cement blocks, each weighing 800 pounds, across the gravel road. Four young protesters have placed their hands inside the blocks and have handcuffed themselves to iron rods that are inside the cement blocks. Behind the blocks is a teepee-like tripod on top of which is a platform where another protester sits.
The group moved into the area on Friday, August 30 of the Labor Day weekend and alerted media on Tuesday morning, September 3. By Tuesday afternoon a score of journalists from newspapers, radio and television had made the trip to the site to speak with the protesters who had been alerted through a check-point eight kilometres from the blockade. Members of the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) from Temagami, Haileybury and North Bay also visited the site during the day to assess the situation.
ANTICIPATE LOGGING
The group is protesting the anticipated logging of the forest in the Owain Lake area, which they say is old growth forest. Harvesting by Goulard Lumber of Sturgeon Falls is due to begin this month.
Earthroots spokesperson Lea Ann Mallett said the group will maintain the blockade "however long it takes (until the message gets through that) it is no longer acceptable to log in an old growth pine forest." Protestors will be rotating to maintain the blockade.
Her sentiments were echoed by Dave Fields of Peterborough who is handcuffed to the blocks. A second-year student at Trent University in Peterborough. He plans to stay a couple of weeks and then return to school. But if police decide to remove the blockade while he is there he is "prepared to get arrested."
Toronto resident Joan O'Reilly, atop the platform since early Tuesday morning, said she is "not planning on coming down any time soon." Not an Earthroots member, she said her actions are based on a "desire to save these forests for everybody." The oldest member of the group at age 60, she characterized herself as "just a concerned person who is worried about the environment."
MKA REPRESENTED
Also on hand to lend the support and endorsement of the Ma-Kominising Anishnawbeg (MKA) was spokesman Woody Becker. The two groups have "a different agenda but (share) the same concept. Protecting Mother Earth." The MKA "will try to be here as much as possible. We will be a force in the next few weeks. It's our survival. We don't know if we'll stop them (Goulard Lumber) but we'll give them a damn good run," said Mr. Becker.
In a conversation with Ms. Mallett, Staff Sergeant Tom Donnelly from the North Bay OPP said Regional Command will be made aware of the situation and the police will "go from there.
"It's against the law to block public road access," said Staff Sergeant Donnelly.
As for the issue of Southern Ontarians protesting in Northern Ontario, Ms. Mallett said "I have as much say as any other citizen in Ontario. I don't believe this is a North versus South issue. It's an issue that is key to all Canadians."
The participants have come prepared with first aid and lots of food, water and shelter, she said. The protesters are "willing to be arrested because they feel so strongly about old growth forests."
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by Diane Johnston
Speaker Reporter
TEMAGAMI - Objections have spurred the provincial government to postpone the reopening of the Lake Temagami skyline area to claim staking.
Staking will be permitted in the environmentally sensitive area - originally to have been opened September 17 - when formal regulations are in place.
"What you'll see on the 17th is the vast majority of the area reopening, minus the skyline reserve," said Philip Bousquet, policy assistant to Chris Hodgson, minister of both natural resources and Northern development and mines.
Mr. Bousquet said the postponement was a direct response to concerns raised earlier in the week by the Temagami Lakes Association (TLA), which publicly denounced the lack of legal protections for the area.
The association, which represents island and shoreline cottagers, camps and businesses on the lake, has demanded that the area's scenic natural environment be protected.
CPC RECOMMENDATIONS
The Comprehensive Planning Council recommended that special measures be taken to minimize any visual impact of mining activities on the 41,500-hectare parcel.
Regulations based on the recommendations are in the works, Mr. Bousquet said. But prospectors would have been asked to follow guidelines for claim staking in the area pending formal approval of regulations.
Among the guidelines, for example, was a request that prospectors carry in stakes to mark the boundaries of their claims, rather than cutting trees at quarter-mile intervals. But the guideline was not legally enforceable.
On August 26, the TLA decried the lack of legal weight behind the guidelines, and said it would seek an environmental assessment on the land use plan.
Late last week, the TLA had little comment on the postponement.
TENTATIVE ACCOMMODATION
TLA executive secretary Tim Gooderham described the announced postponement as "a tentative accommodation."
Still undecided is the future of its environmental assessment request. He said the association is waiting to see the actual regulations.
When they will be in force is not yet known.
"We're trying to settle on a particular date and haven't been able to as of yet. Certainly we would expect early fall, perhaps late October, early November," Mr. Bousquet said.
But the exact date depends on when the regulations can be approved and added to legislation, he said.
Only a fraction of the entire area recommended by the Comprehensive Planning Council as suitable for mining is found within the skyline reserve, he said.
The decision left Mike Leahy, president of the Northern Prospectors Association, a little disappointed.
ADEQUATE PROTECTION
Like the ministry, he said, the prospectors association believed the guidelines give adequate protection.
While the skyline reserve area is geographically quite small, Mr. Leahy said it also has one of the highest mineral potentials of any in the comprehensive planning area.
"It might have represented 25 per cent of the action on opening day."
The postponement means the area will see two staking rushes - the first on September 17, and the second when the skyline area is ordered open, he said.
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by Diane Johnston
Speaker Reporter
RIVER VALLEY - Investigation continues into last week's explosion that left a Temagami River bridge near River Valley impassable.
A report by an RCMP post-blast team and Ontario Provincial Police explosives experts is not yet available, said Detective Constable Ian Borden of the Sturgeon Falls Ontario Provincial Police detachment's crime unit.
Police have determined that the blast occurred sometime between 11:30 p.m. and midnight August 26.
Detective Constable Borden said the force of the blast shook a house four kilometres from the bridge, located in McWilliams Township about eight kilometres north of River Valley.
The road is travelled primarily by logging trucks and recreational users. They now face a 22-kilometre detour along South Pardo Road.
No one has claimed responsibility for last week's damage.
Members of the media did gather at the site of the explosion August 28 for a press conference that had reportedly been called to reveal the identity of the group responsible.
Notice of the press conference was said to have been faxed to a Toronto newspaper, said Sergeant Larry Hudson of the OPP's Northeast regional headquarters.
The press release was reported to have said that Woody Becker, a member of a traditionalist Temagami Native group, would be at the bridge to identify the group responsible for the explosion.
Sergeant Hudson said he himself had not seen a copy of the press release.
Media representatives and police officers met at the bridge, but neither Mr. Becker nor anyone else showed up.
Police have not yet questioned Mr. Becker, Detective Constable Borden said.
Mr. Becker, a spokesman for the Ma-Kominising Anishnawbeg, could not be reached for comment.
Last week's explosion was the most serious of four incidents at bridges on logging roads in the River Valley and Lake Obabika area over the summer.
Police found signs that a gasoline-type substance had been poured on wooden bridges in the Lake Obabika area and ignited, said Sergeant Hudson.
But he described damage as only minor.
REACTION
The explosion together with an environmentalists' blockade set up September 3 on a logging road southeast of Temagami come only weeks before Crown land throughout much of the Temagami area will to open to mine claim staking.
The risk of further violence such as last week's bridge destruction alarms Mike Leahy, president of the Northern Prospectors Association.
"We're starting to get apprehensive about the possibility of conflicts out there," Mr. Leahy said late last week.
On September 17, prospectors are expected to flood into the area for the first time in two decades to stake claims.
"This will be taking place during hunting season, so that means people will be legitimately able to carry guns on the way to and from their work," he said.
The risk of danger may make prospectors and mining companies nervous about going into the area.
"You don't want to be chased out of the bush by threats, but at the same time you don't want to put anybody at risk," he said.
In the wake of last week's blast, police stepped up their patrols of bridges in the area.
"It will continue, that's for sure," said Detective Constable Borden.
The bridge meanwhile has been turned back to the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources.
Repair costs are estimated at $75,000 and would take about six weeks to complete, said Bill Hagborg, area supervisor for the ministry's North Bay district.
Under normal circumstances, the users of a road - be they lodges, forestry companies or mining companies - are responsible for repairs that follow normal wear and tear, he said.
But last week's instance of deliberate damage is "a little bit different," he said.
Mr. Hagborg said the prospect of finding government funding for repairs "looks quite promising right now."
The ministry plans no special surveillance in the area.
But staff will watch for signs of anything suspicious on their regular rounds, and he said the ministry is also asking the public to contact Crime Stoppers if they spot anything out of the ordinary.
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by Diane Johnston
Speaker Reporter
STURGEON FALLS - Dealing with a protest on a logging road leading to the Owain Lake area is up to the Ontario Provincial Police, says the owner of a company with cutting rights in the area.
"We're leaving that in their hands. We just want to keep going at our own business," said Marc Goulard, owner and general manager of Goulard Lumber in Sturgeon Falls, yesterday afternoon (September 3).
Protesters affiliated with the environmental group Earthroots set up camp over the Labor Day weekend to protest plans to log what they say is old-growth red and white pine forest.
The Ministry of Natural Resources approved cutting in the area earlier this summer under a one-year timber management plan for the Temagami unit.
Cutting is slated to begin in about two weeks, and Mr. Goulard said the area is key to the company's business.
HAVE TO GO IN
"We have to go in there this fall," he said.
But work on the road and its bridges must first be completed. He said road crews will not reach the protest site, located about 36 kilometres off Highway 11 on Rabbit Lake Road southeast of Temagami, for a couple of days.
Given the need for road work, Temagami Township Reeve Wayne Adair said it does not appear the protest will have an immediate impact on plans to log.
But he said there will probably be hunters on the road soon for bird season and, later in the fall, moose season.
Reeve Adair talked to protesters at the blockade in mid-morning.
"They seemed to be quite jovial, in a good mood," he said.
But he said they gave little credence to information showing that parcels of the area have been logged in the past.
PHOTOGRAPHS
Reeve Adair said Temagami has photographs showing logged areas along the Ottawa River "from way back when."
"It's been logged a couple of times," said Temagami chief administrative officer John Hodgson.
His own research found records of timber cutting licenses issued in the area in 1963 and the mid-1940s.
On the weekend, he said he spoke to an older man who could remember farms in the area that looked after horses used in logging operations.
Mr. Hodgson was told that virgin white or red pine can be found in isolated spots "here and there," but the majority of the area has been logged over twice.
He said the environmental activists are "manufacturing a crisis.
"They've created their own forest," he said.
Reeve Adair also spoke to protesters located at the camp set up about eight kilometres from the blockade. Their tents, he said, are located on the former site of a logging camp.
USING OLD LOGGING CAMP
"It's nice of them to make use of the old logging camp," he said wryly.
The latest environmental action comes seven years after protests on the Red Squirrel Road in 1989.
But Reeve Adair, who was with the Ontario Provincial Police in Temagami during the controversies of the late 1980s, doubted that this week's effort would have the same impact.
The earlier protest was also seen as a Native issue, and that's not the case in the Owain Lake area, he said.
"I don't think they can gain as much support as they did back then."
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by Diane Johnston
Speaker Reporter
ELK LAKE - James Township is turning real estate agent, and has for sale waterfront property that has been under a development freeze for two decades.
"As of now, we have four waterfront lots on the Montreal River," said Councillor Janet MacDowall last week.
"We finally got the deed about a week-and-a-half ago, and it's been registered at the land titles office."
Another five riverfront lots on Ontario Street are expected to be transferred to the township early in 1997, while a total of 32 lots on the other side of the street are to be available in the spring.
The land rush actually has its roots in 1972, when the Crown land was surveyed and promised to the township. But the provincial transfer of land was stalled in 1973, when a Native land caution was filed to support a 4,000-square-mile land claim.
The Teme-Augama Anishnabai voluntarily lifted the caution covering James Township in 1992. Four years of talks over what the township would pay the province for the land then followed.
Councillor MacDowall declined to state how much the township paid for the property.
She did say the province turned over the first four lots for its costs in legally transferring the land. Payment for the other 37 lots will be made over time, and as the lots are sold.
Over the past several years, the township has received a number of inquiries about the possibility of purchasing property.
"We've been taking a list of names. They'll be sent a letter, but they won't be given priority at all," Councillor MacDowall said.
Each of the nine waterfront lots that will ultimately be up for grabs are about 35 metres wide, and up to 100 metres deep.
The block of 32 lots are even larger, ranging up to 40 metres in width and 150 metres in depth. They back onto a rail line and trails used by cross-country skiers and snowmobilers.
Each lot is serviced by water, but purchasers will be responsible for installing their own septic system.
For James Township, which has about 280 households, the lots offer the promise of an expanded population and tax base.
Ideally, council would like to see the lots purchased for year-round homes. But seasonal residences would also be welcomed, Councillor MacDowall said.
Council has discussed a tentative minimum price of $15,000 for a water-serviced lot, but she cautioned that no firm price has yet been set.
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by Diane Johnston
Speaker Reporter
LAKE TEMAGAMI - A group representing landowners in the Lake Temagami area fears that mine staking will proceed in the sensitive shoreline area without adequate control.
The Temagami Lakes Association (TLA) is appealing to Ontario's environmental commissioner under the province's Environmental Bill of Rights to order an environmental assessment of the land use plan for the Temagami area.
"While the TLA supports carefully managed resource development for Northern Ontario, uncontrolled development can lead to serious environmental damage," TLA president Sandy Navaro stated earlier this week.
A two-decade ban on claim staking in the Temagami area ends September 17.
Tim Gooderham, the TLA's executive secretary, said the Comprehensive Planning Council (CPC) recommended "quite acceptable" measures to control staking in the area known as the skyline reserve.
"Our problem is, they are simply recommendations. They have no force in law," he said.
The TLA fears that prospectors will be able to cut trees, blaze trails and drill in the most scenic areas of the shoreline.
But the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines believes that many of the TLA's concerns are addressed in the recently amended Mining Act and the Public Lands Act.
Furthermore, guidelines for staking in the skyline reserve will be attached to any claim map that prospectors pick up when they acquire their licence, said Jim Ireland, Cobalt district resident geologist.
"We feel guidelines are more than adequate at this time," he said earlier this week.
He added that the ministry believes that stakers will act responsibly, and abide by the guidelines.
The guidelines, which are based on the CPC recommendations for claim staking in the area, form the basis for regulations now being drafted.
The Temagami First Nation is also worried about the lack of regulations.
A committee of community members is currently working on a new land claim proposal to present to the provincial government, but the band's immediate concern is the lifting of the staking ban, said Chief Jim Twain.
With the September 17 deadline looming, "we're coming to a place where we're getting concerned," he said earlier this week.
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by Diane Johnston
Speaker Reporter
NORTH BAY - A new player entered the Temagami forestry management game last week.
The first meeting of the new local citizens committee - which brings representatives of 13 groups with an interest in the Temagami area forest - was held August 22.
It was largely a get-acquainted session, said Sheila MacFeeters, manager of the Ministry of Natural Resources' North Bay district.
But over the coming months, the new group will find itself advising the ministry on how to organize effective public consultation, and making recommendations on how the ministry's forestry proposals will affect user groups.
Ms. MacFeeters said the committee's job is to "help us develop a forest management plan that best addresses the needs and the interests of people in the area."
But its role is advisory only, she said.
"I don't look to this committee at all to replace other forms of public consultation that we do."
Nor will be it be a version of the Comprehensive Planning Council, which was mandated to develop recommendations for the government.
Instead, she said, the committee will consider how ministry proposals will affect various interests, and perhaps head off some disputes before they develop by suggesting ways contentious issues could be resolved.
While the local citizens committee is new for the Temagami district, North Bay has had a similar committee in place for several years.
MEMBERSHIP
Thirteen groups are represented on the Temagami council.
They include the Montreal River-Bay Lake Users Association, the Temagami and Latchford Economic Development Corporation, the Temagami Lakes Association, and the Friends of Temagami.
Recreational and industry interests are represented by the Mid-North Forest Industry Alliance and a small independent logger representative, the Northern Ontario Tourist Outfitters Association, the Northern Prospectors Association, the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters, and Temagami Trappers Council.
Representatives of the Association of Youth Camps on Lake Temagami and the Temiskaming Municipal Association have yet to be named.
The ministry is currently drafting a management plan to cover activities ranging from cutting to planting for a five-year period from the spring of 1997 to 2002.
The complete plan will not be prepared by April, so ministry staff are working on a one-year contingency management plan.
Without it, Ms. MacFeeters said activities such as tree planting and tending cannot proceed. The interim plan will focus on areas where decisions can be made with little dispute.
Ms. MacFeeters said the first public information session on the draft contingency management plan is scheduled to begin in December.
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By Darlene Wroe
Speaker Reporter
TORONTO/STURGEON FALLS - A planned forest defence camp in the Owain Lake area southeast of Temagami has been postponed by the Toronto-based environmental organization Earthroots.
The organization had planned to lead a group of people to a forest defence camp Thursday, August 22 to give them civil disobedience training, but road upgrading in the area has caused them to cancel, at least for the time being, according to Earthroots representative Lee Ann Mallett.
Ms. Mallett says the organization had concerns that it would not be able to get its people in and out of the area if there were road closures due to the construction activity.
Earthroots has vowed to defend the 700 hectare Owain Lake Forest, located in Hebert and Burnaby townships, should any attempt to cut it occur.
The forest is located near the Ottawa River and harvesting is planned to take place this fall. It includes white pine, red pine, jack pine and spruce.
Earthroots believes the area to be an old-growth pine stand and believes it should be protected along with other forest sites in the Temagami area.
The first forest defence camp was set May 30. At that time, about 19 people gathered there, says Mr. McDermott.
AVAILABLE FOR CUTTING
The harvestable area is 228 hectares in size, according to the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR).
The area has been allocated to Goulard Lumber of Sturgeon Falls. Woodlands manager Claude Goulard, in charge of the logging operation, says the company hopes to be cutting on schedule. Mr. Goulard would not give a date when cutting is planned to begin, but the MNR has previously stated the cutting was expected to begin in September.
Mr. Goulard says the company will harvest the trees under the shelter wood system leaving 40 to 50 per cent of the trees representing all species, except jackpine, standing. Jackpine, he says, is not one of the species that can be managed in a mixed forest.
The harvesting operation is expected to last at least three months.
Mr. Goulard says between 20 and 25 people will be employed on site.
The harvest is expected to yield four million board feet and supply the company's sawmill with four months of production. Fifty people are employed at the sawmill, and the company employs approximately ten other people in other capacities, according to Mr. Goulard.
Goulard Lumber will then be responsible for regenerating the site through a mixture of natural regeneration as well as planting.
Mr. Goulard says if the company cannot harvest the Owain Lake area "we might as well forget about harvesting in Temagami".
And, if the harvest cannot take place, "it will certainly jeopardize the viability of this company".
The sawmill produces construction boards. The market, says Mr. Goulard, is cyclical.
On Wednesday, August 21, Earthroots released a report written by forest ecologist Dr. Peter Quinby stating that the Owain Lake Forest is the third largest such ecosystem remaining in the world.
Earthroots says the "paper makes it clear that old-growth red and white pine forests are endangered ecosystems and Owain Lake is unique among these rare forests in terms of the species it contains".
The paper is titled A Critique of the Proposed Management of Old-Growth White and Red Pine Forest in Temagami, Ontario Resulting From the Comprehensive Planning Process of 1996 With a Case Study Analysis of the Owain Lake Old-Growth Pine Stand as a Representative Ecosystem.
Earthroots says the paper "establishes the Harris government's Temagami plan as a direct threat to the survival of old-growth pine ecosystems".
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by Diane Johnston
Speaker Reporter
COBALT - Concerns about the legal force of guidelines for claim staking in the Lake Temagami area are valid, says a Ministry of Northern Development and Mines geologist.
But Jim Ireland, Cobalt district geologist, is confident that the visual impact of staking in the scenic shoreline area will be minimized by existing legislation, pending regulations, and the claim stakers themselves.
The Temagami Lakes Association and Temagami First Nation are concerned that formal regulations will not be ready in time for the reopening of the skyline area to claim staking September 17.
A draft of guidelines will be available by August 30, Mr. Ireland said earlier this week.
"They have no official status per se," he said.
But he said anyone who acquires a prospector's licence will be informed of them.
"We feel the guidelines are certainly sufficient in the short term," he said.
Recent amendments to the Mining Act have been designed to protect all lakeshore areas, he said. Claim stakers for example are no longer required to install posts along the shoreline, he said.
Regulations that are in line with the recommendations in the recent Comprehensive Planning Council report are in the works, and will be approved as soon as possible, he said.
He noted that any disruptive activities - such as trail cutting and drilling - will require a work permit from the Ministry of Natural Resources.
The ministry has agreed to attach conditions to any work permit that reflect the pending regulations.
He said one area of potential conflict does exist.
The Mining Act requires that a tree be cut every quarter mile to mark the boundaries of a claim.
Any claim staker in the Lake Temagami skyline area will be requested to refrain from cutting trees and carry in claim posts instead.
Mr. Ireland acknowledged that nothing can be done to prevent a claim staker from cutting trees, but expressed confidence that the mining industry would act in good faith.
"We're counting on the stakers to abide by these guidelines," he said.
He doubted the industry would contravene the ministry's suggestions, because it does not want to create controversy.
Mr. Ireland believes that some of the fear about staking stems from the public's unfamiliarity with the activity itself.
Staking, he said, is relatively innocuous. The cutting of a single tree every quarter mile, for example, would not be visually arresting, he said.
Mr. Ireland said the coming regulations promise to make claim staking even less noticeable.
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by Diane Johnston
Speaker Reporter
BEAR ISLAND - The comprehensive land use plan for the Temagami area has left the door open to resolutions of the two decade Native land dispute.
But whether that door is opening or closing is still the subject of debate.
Jim Twain, elected in May as chief of the Temagami First Nation, said the plan offers good news and bad news.
The good news is the provincial government has set aside land for at least two years as the subject of a future settlement, he said.
It comes one year after the provincial government said its earlier offer of land under a negotiated deal turned down by the band was no longer open for acceptance.
"It seems like there's still something there," Chief Twain said earlier this week.
But the bad news, he said, is the absence of a way for the area's Natives to have input into the opening of Crown land, which falls under a 1973 land claim dispute, to mine staking.
"We would have liked to have had some say in what was opening up, and how they were going to do it."
THE LAND
The land that is being set aside includes the Austin Bay Tract, a 170-square-kilometre area first surveyed in 1885 as a potential reserve.
It also includes the area identified as Teme-Augama Anishnabai (TAA) development lands in the failed agreement - in -principle, which band members narrowly rejected in 1994.
The set-aside land will not be open to staking, and the province has said it will make no new development or resource commitments for the area without the consent of the band or the TAA.
Any development that ultimately occurs on the lands will be subject to provincial regulations.
If no settlement is reached in two years' time, the government has said it will then review the status of the lands.
MKA
But the plan falls far short of the demands of the Ma-Kominising Anishnawbeg (MKA), a traditionalist group of Temagami area Natives.
The proposal would leave the lands subject to provincial control, and make Temagami area Natives "puppets" of the Ministry of Natural Resources, said MKA member Woody Becker.
Rather than development or sole stewardship lands, the MKA demands federal involvement in negotiations to designate the area a reserve.
Without reserve status for the lands, Temagami Natives would become no more than ordinary citizens of Canada, Mr. Becker said.
"That's one thing we lobbied against, and we're not going to give in."
He predicted that the two-year period will see no resolution, and the lands will then revert to Crown status.
But he said the government is acting prematurely. Appeals of last year's ruling that quashed the 22-year-old land caution could still be heard, "and that could change everything," he said.
PROTEST
Mr. Becker said the MKA will offer environmental groups its moral support if they protest the plan this summer.
"It might be physical, too, to participate with them," he said.
At present, band council has no plans to associate itself with any protest action launched by environmental groups.
"What they do is what they do," Chief Twain said. "If we get involved with that, it takes away from what we want to do."
The next step for the band is a community meeting to inform everyone of the plan's ramifications.
Chief Twain is also concerned about the opening of another access road to Lake Temagami at Cross Lake, and the possible loss of sites of Native heritage significance that require further research.
Chief Twain said a band representative will also raise the plan at a meeting of the Assembly of First Nations in Ottawa later this week.
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by Diane Johnston
Speaker Reporter
TEMAGAMI - The release of a comprehensive land use plan for the Temagami area has cleared the fog of uncertainty that has clouded the township's future, says the township's reeve.
"It's not completely what we hoped for. The big thing is, it is a plan," said Reeve Wayne Adair earlier this week.
"Now we can get on with attracting business. People can be confident that there is a future around here."
Chris Hodgson, Minister of Natural Resources and Northern Development and Mines, fulfilled a pledge to township officials to meet with them before the final plan was released.
On June 28, he met Reeve Adair, Latchford Mayor George Lefebvre and James Township Reeve Terry Fiset at the township's municipal office to outline a land-use strategy for the Temagami area.
The plan maps out zones where resource extraction is prohibited, limited or permitted over some 5,700 square kilometres of Crown land.
The plan lifts in one fell swoop on September 17 a 23-year ban on mine staking from areas throughout the vast planning region where resource extraction will be allowed.
COMPLETE REOPENING
It satisfied a township demand for a complete reopening of land, rather than phasing in new areas for staking.
The plan identifies almost 11,000 hectares of old-growth red and white pine where logging will be prohibited. Included in the protected zone is the township's White Bear Forest, a key part of its long-term tourism strategy.
Reeve Adair said resolution of Temagami Natives' longstanding land claim dispute is also eased by the setting aside of a large tract of land for the next two years.
"It's a good news announcement all around," he said.
He believes that the final plan should satisfy most environmentalists.
"I think mainstream environmental groups are reasonably satisfied, and they can see where we can all work together with the plan to sort out some of the perceived problems," he said.
Earthroots has already criticized elements of the plan, and plans to protest in particular any logging in the Owain Lake area.
But Reeve Adair said radical groups like Earthroots would not be happy "unless the whole area is completely shutdown."
The plan does have shortcomings, he said.
In the township's view, additional protection for buffer areas around Lady Evelyn-Smoothwater Wilderness Park was unnecessary.
"We have been pushing that they would not increase the size of park, but that appears to be what they've done," he said.
The land use strategy has also not addressed the question of governance for the Temagami area. It has set a September 30 deadline for the Ministry of Natural Resources to consult with local interests to come up with a new structure.
Because Temagami is at the heart of the area under discussion, council is proposing that at least one-third of the membership of any new body be from the township, Reeve Adair.
One-third should represent the Native community, while the provincial interest - with appointees perhaps from areas of Temiskaming - makes up the rest, he said.
The final plan still leaves uncertain the fate of a proposal to amalgamate the township and the surrounding lake area.
Talks had been put on hold pending the release of the final plan.
The plan is now out, but one of the stumbling blocks in the amalgamation talks - how to protect the Lake Temagami shoreline and skyline - is still unresolved.
He said much of the shoreline falls within the area that has been set aside for two years for land claim settlement negotiations.
"It's a little up in the air again," he said.
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TEMAGAMI (Staff) - After a decade of planning, what was to have been a model forest plan has emerged.
The Temagami area's Comprehensive Plan was announced Friday, June 28.
"This land-use strategy sets up a framework that will protect the environment, improve community stability and, after years of uncertainty, get on with the job of enhancing the quality of life in the Temagami area," said Ontario Minister of Natural Resources Chris Hodgson who visited Temagami June 28.
The Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) reviewed a series of 39 recommendations from the Comprehensive Planning Council (CPC) which was chaired by Dr. Roman Brozowski.
Some were accepted. Some were accepted in principle. And some were altered.
The North Bay office of the MNR will be actively involved in studying best ways to implement the recommendations, such as seasonal use of Red Squirrel Road for resource extraction purposes.
The MNR will also consider ways of directing a portion of the benefits from the harvesting of timber resources to the communities.
The MNR has also set aside for two years land which could form part of a land claim settlement with the Teme-Augama Anishnabai. The land is located mainly running north to south east of Lake Temagami mainly in Aston, Cynthia, Briggs, Law, Yates, Torrington and Vogt townships. "The Ontario Native Affairs Secretariat will pursue a resolution over the next two years," the MNR states.
ANALYSIS NEEDED
The CPC recommended a socioeconomic analysis for the area and the MNR has agreed that it is needed, but it is pending available funding.
The province touts the new plan as increasing environmental protection.
But Earthroots is not satisfied with the plan. "Forest ecologists such as Dr. Peter Quinby have stated that old-growth red and white pine forests are endangered ecosystems and merit complete protection. Even limited logging of these forests will result in the depletion of the already damaged gene pool of these species," stated Earthroots Coalition spokesperson Dan McDermott. "Earthroots' plan to protect Temagami's Owain Lake Forest will be carried out," said Mr. McDermott. Cutting is planned for that area of pine stand southeast of Temagami in September.
The MNR has surpassed the recommendations of the CPC in forest it intends to protest. "The province will protect an additional 2,628 hectares of old growth red and white pine and will also protect the 3,520 hectare North Obabika site, which includes 939 hectares of old growth red and white pine. "This government recognizes the importance of old growth forests. That's why we've increased the area of protected old growth red and white pine," Mr. Hodgson said.
Protected areas where resource extraction is prohibited and special management areas that require careful management of resource extraction, now created in the area, total 300,000 hectares.
PUBLIC EDUCATION
The MNR also accepted a proposal from CPC for a public education/communications plan to be prepared to explain the approach taken by the MNR to manage old-growth red and white pine in the forest management plan.
The MNR states it will develop a forest management plan, with extensive public consultation, for the area where timber harvesting is allowed.
Staking of new mining claims will be allowed to resume in the areas identified for resource development. Following a notice period, staking will begin September 17.
But strict guidelines will be implemented in the Temagami area, the MNR states. "Regulations under the Public Lands Act will be developed to recognize the uniqueness of the Temagami area. In addition, any activities initiated under the Mining Act will be strictly controlled, reflecting protection that is the toughest mining regulation in North America."
The government promises to highlight the tourism values of the Temagami area where appropriate, in response to CPC's recommendation that a Temagami recreation area be identified as a basis of the marketing of tourism and recreation opportunities.
The MNR also recognizes the value of red and white pine forests in tourism, and accepted the recommendation of CPC that the view from area highways be renewed and maintained with signage for points of interest.
The MNR staff will also be consulting with local people and will make recommendations to Mr. Hodgson by September 30 regarding governance issues.
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By WALTER FRANCZYK
KIRKLAND LAKE - Trained eyes are turning south as prospectors size up a vast new mineral hunting ground.
For the first time in more than 20 years, thousands of hectares of Timiskaming will open for mining claim staking on Sept. 17.
The opening comes with the Ontario government's adoption of a new land use strategy for Temagami area lands that had been tied up by an Indian land claim and a lengthy and contentious planning process.
Northern Prospectors Association president Michael Leahy welcomes the September opening.
"We're all relieved and glad to see that after 23 years, plus, we're going to be able to get back to work in the area and try to create some employment," Mr. Leahy said in an interview.
He describes it as a great opportunity for prospectors to get out and explore new ground, with new techniques and new interpretations of geology. Exploration on patented ground and in some recently opened townships has led to interesting new discoveries that will be followed up on adjoining ground, he said.
The opening will have a significant impact on the economy during the staking rush, as hundreds of stakers and exploration managers acquire land, Mr. Leahy said.
Two or three years of intensive assessment work will follow.
"After that point, it will depend on results. But judging from the results of past exploration in the Temagami area, we expect there will be some major programs ongoing for many years to come," Mr. Leahy said.
Prospectors have been shut out of about 10,000 square kilometres of Timiskaming since 1973 by three land cautions imposed to protect an Indian land claim. Often described by municipal leaders as the region's biggest stumbling block to economic development, those cautions were lifted by an Ontario court last fall.
Last week, the Ontario government cleared the way for mining exploration by adopting most re- commendations put forward by the Comprehensive Planning Council.
The new land use strategy will create protected areas where logging and mining are banned as well as special management areas when resource extraction will be permitted under special prescriptions. It also establishes areas with less restrictive rules and places where resource management will be permitted and controlled.
Timiskaming MPP David Ramsay said he's fairly pleased with the government's decision.
But he's disappointed mining was banned in a park buffer zone near Elk Lake.
"I just wish, in the end, there hadn't been the buffer zone set aside without taking a look at the potential mineralization," Mr. Ramsay said.
He said he had asked that mining companies be allowed to explore the area under special conditions before a final decision was made.
"People will always wonder, 'well gee, what if there was a mine there. That could be 200 jobs for 20 years'," Mr. Ramsay said.
The important thing, he said, is to get on with development.
"We've got, I think, certainly enough preservation of resources. Now we have to get on, with the caution off, and find out what we can develop and create jobs," he said.
The opening of claim staking will create opportunities in an area with potential for industrial and precious metals, Mr. Ramsay said.
"I think in three years' time there will be a mine down there and maybe there will be more than one," he said.
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KIRKLAND LAKE - The Ontario government's new land use strategy for Temagami may be just a pause in decades of controversy.
Minister of Natural Resources Chris Hodgson announced the strategy last week saying it will protect the environment, improve community stability and enhance the quality of life in the area.
But Timiskaming MPP David Ramsay doubts it spells an end to confrontations that have characterized land use decisions in Temagami.
"Not all sides are going to live with this," Mr. Ramsay said.
For more than 20 years environmentalists have squared off against logging and mining industries and community leaders often desperate for economic development.
Mr. Ramsay says there are no easy answers. He admits he can't be too critical of the government's strategy.
"Maybe we know we've struck the balance here because both sides are a little upset," the MPP said.
The government says it will protect an additional 3,567 hectares of old growth red and white pine in the Temagami area. To provide a buffer around Lady Evelyn Smoothwater Provincial Park, it intends to ban logging and mining in some areas while requiring special prescriptions for resource extraction on other lands.
Michael Leahy, president of the Northern Prospectors Association said the government's land use strategy isn't going to please anybody.
"As far as we're concerned, they went overboard to appease the environmentalists by major expansions to the park and by some of the other reservations," Mr. Leahy said. "I don't think the environmentalists have any reason to continue their whining."
Prospectors will abide by the law, take whatever ground is open and do the best they can, he said.
The prospecting community, he said, has been willing all along to take special measures to avoid esthetically disturbing the landscape or other uses.
"We willingly agreed to take special precautions. What the actual details are going to be is another matter," he said.
But prospectors will have to know the details to see whether they agree with all of them, Mr. Leahy said.
Jim Twain, elected chief of the Temagami First Nation, said the plan offers good news and bad news.
The good news is the provincial government has set aside land for at least two years for a future land settlement, he said.
But the bad news, he said, is the absence of a way for area natives to have input into the opening of Crown land to claim staking.
The set-aside land will not be open to staking and the province has said it will make no new development or resource commitments for the area without the consent of the band or the TAA.
Mr. Ramsay said the government gave up some economic opportunity in meeting the demands of environmentalists.
He hopes the government now enforces its decisions and takes a strong stand so that permitted development can move forward.
Mr. Ramsay said he's glad Minister of Natural Resources Chris Hodgson responded to his request to allow sustainable forestry in a park buffer zone near Elk Lake.
The way forestry works today, logging can take place near streams and rivers with setbacks and cutting methods that don't pollute, he explained.
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