by Ralph Plath
Northern News Services

FORT SIMPSON (May 02/97) - A group of Fort Liard trappers are fighting to save their land from clearcut logging.

The area in question runs along the northern part of B.C. east of Fort Nelson, where both the Tackama and Slocan logging companies have been harvesting wood for some years.

"Our traplines are being raped," said George Jooris, who is spearheading a campaign to save the land from his home in Fort Liard. "It's pretty clear that neither British Columbia nor the federal government is interested in protecting our interests, even on registered traplines."

The 60 registered trapline holders are seeking compensation for loss of use of their lands. They also want to see the damaged lands repaired.

But so far, letters sent to David Zirnhelt, B.C.'s minister of forests, protesting the interference of logging operations with their treaty rights to use their traditional lands have gone unanswered.

Several organizations, including the Deh Cho First Nations, have lobbied on behalf of the trappers with letters and submissions sent to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Forests, the International Alliance and World Rainforest Movement in England and the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development.

"For those Acho Dene families, their traditional way of life may stop with this current generation," said Deh Cho First Nations Grand Chief Gerald Antoine.

"Federal and other administrations talk about taking care of the environment but it's clear that they cannot follow through."

Government consultation processes for land-use or lease applications are set up for approval of whatever applications are made for use of aboriginal lands, whether or not aboriginal governments consent, Antoine explained.

Fort Liard trappers say their elders met with Crown representatives in 1910 at Francois, the families' traditional trading place at the confluence of the Nelson and Liard rivers, to make an addendum to Treaty 8. The NWT border was moved north soon after, placing the peoples' traditional lands in the province of B.C.

Following several devastating epidemics, the families were relocated from Francois to Fort Liard, where they are registered treaty members. "Our traditional lands are still in B.C.," Jooris explained. "We not only do trapping but hunting there as well."

Jooris said two families are already without traplines because of the logging done in the area between the Nelson and Liard rivers.

"It's all being mowed down," he said. "It's a blatant attempt to get people off the land."

Jooris said he tried all winter to get cameras into the area to obtain solid evidence of the logging companies' practices.

Jooris and the other concerned families have the support of the Fort Nelson First Nation as well as two environmental groups, the Sierra Legal Defense Fund and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, which, he said, will be taking a serious look at the issue.

"It's one of the most spectacular boreal forests," Jooris said. "It's very frustrating to see this happen."