February 6, 2009

Vancouver. It is rumoured that Hillary Clinton may wish to add her name to the list of proponents for a National Park in the Flathead Valley of South Eastern BC. It is a concern of BC residents that many voices from the US have jumped on this "bandwagon" without doing their homework or taking into consideration the real needs, local wishes, or the economic consequences to British Columbians.

The BC Wildlife Federation strongly opposes the initiative to create a National Park in the Flathead Valley. We believe it to be completely unnecessary and will only detract from the use, enjoyment and economic benefits of this region to the British Columbian economy. Upon analysis the BCWF feels that the current land use plan, the Southern Rocky Mountains Management Plan (SRMMP) adequately addresses the concerns brought forward by the proponents of this park proposal. The SRMMP is a powerful land management tool that will ensure the Flathead Valley eco-systems will remain intact for future generations of British Columbians who will be able to recreate and work there. A panel of experts and local stakeholders meets regularly to advise and guide government on the implementation of the Southern Rocky Mountains Management Plan. A considerable amount of local effort is being exerted to ensure the Flathead Valley stays pristine, that wildlife and wilderness values are protected, and that industrial activity is sustainable and does not negatively impact these values.

The economic impacts of the proposed park to the forest industry in South Eastern BC would be devastating, resulting in a huge loss of jobs. The proposed park area represents a very significant part of the sustainable timber supply of the southern East Kootenay region.

Of note is that wise sustainable use has been conducted in the Flathead for more than 40 years. It is recognized over and over as the "Serengeti of the North", in spite of this. The mining and forestry industries have provided measurable benefits to wildlife habitats that are truly noticeable. Almost 30 years of research and monitoring has proven that it has the highest density and highest reproduction rate of inland Grizzly Bears in North America, even though they are a hunted population and live in an area that has seen significant timber harvesting.

Forest management in the Flathead is done under the FSC BC forest management standard-the highest standard of forest management in the world. The proposed park area has been designated by Tembec and their conservation partners as a "High Conservation Value Forest" with special management strategies to protect its identified values.

Additionally, over the years there have been several mining proposals including coal-bed methane extraction proposed for the Flathead Valley. Government regulations regarding coal-bed methane extraction in BC are the strictest in the world and have resulted in these proposals being withdrawn. No mining activity discussed to date has proven to be economically viable. Forestry and mining by wise sustainable use have not been a threat to this date. If these activities ever do become a threat there is a method of due process to ensure conservation needs are fully met with an opportunity to amend the Kootenay Boundary Land Use Plan or southern Rocky Mountains Management plan if ever needed.

The Flathead is a special place, there is no disputing that fact, but is a park really the best way to protect the values that almost all of us hold dear?

Backgrounder to the Flathead Debate: From a speech to the BC Legislative Assembly delivered by Bill Bennett, MLA East Kootenay, March, 2008

MANAGING THE FLATHEAD

• The eastern half of my Riding, next to Alberta, consists of two river valleys: the Elk River drainage and the Flathead River drainage.
  
  
• The Elk River drainage starts high in the mountains to the north that separate Kananaskis in Alberta from our Elk Lakes Provincial Park. The valley is still high elevation at Elkford but decreases in elevation as it meanders south to Sparwood and then swings west through Fernie.
  
  
• Legendary trout rivers such as the Wigwam and the Fording feed into the Elk, which flows into the mighty Kootenay before it arrives at the Libby, Montana dam that creates Lake Koocanusa.
  
  
• The Elk Valley has supported both logging and coal mining for over a century and today thousands of British Columbia families depend on mining and forestry from the Elk Valley.
  
  
• The Elk River drainage is prima facie evidence that a major industrial activity can co-exist with a clean and vibrant natural environment. Ask the thousands of people from around the world where the best cutthroat trout fishing is and they'll tell you the Elk, the Fording and the Wigwam rivers.
  
  
• Ask any hunter in the Elk Valley and they will tell you about huge populations of grizzly, elk, deer and sheep on the reclaimed mine properties.
  
  
• The Flathead River drainage is south of the Elk River drainage and forms the western boundary of Glacier National Park, which our US neighbours refer to as the crown jewel of the US national park system.
  
  
• This is an iconic river for the folks in Montana and we in BC must respect that fact.
  
  
• However, Montana politicians must also respect that the Canadian Flathead is BC's jurisdiction and that within Canada's acknowledged international obligation to steward waterways upstream from the US, we will manage the Canadian Flathead in accordance with responsible British Columbia standards and policies.
  
  
• It does not advance Canadian-US relations or the debate, for Montana politicians to consistently make disrespectful public comments about British Columbia laws, regulations and processes.
  
  
• An important distinction between the two valleys is the absence of permanent human habitation in the Flathead.
  
  
• Another distinction: the Flathead, unlike the Elk Valley, contains only one major industrial activity - forestry...
  
  
• ...although like the Elk Valley, there is also mining exploration, guide-outfitting, trapping, hunting, angling, camping and recreation.
• For the past 50 years, logging has been the primary resource extraction activity in the Flathead.
  
  
• The Flathead actually saw BC's first pine beetle epidemic in the 1970's. The wise stewards of the day had a large portion of the Flathead Valley clear-cut to stop the epidemic in its tracks.
  
  
• A few of my constituents and many Americans would like to see logging, hunting, guide-outfitting, trapping and motorized recreation removed forever from the Flathead by the creation of a federal park.
  
  
• If logging was stopped in the Flathead, the major employer in the region, Tembec, would probably go out of business and for certain their Elko mill would shut down, throwing hundreds of East Kootenay families out of work.
  
  
• But the majority of my constituents support the current activities in the Flathead and they do not wish to end logging, hunting, guide-outfitting, trapping and motorized recreation.
  
  
• It is a logical inconsistency that the proponents of a federal park argue we must stop doing what we have been doing for the past 50 years so that we can preserve the result of the past 50 year's management.
  
  
• Placing a federal park over the Flathead Valley would prevent local people from enjoying this beautiful area the way they have for generations and would kill the jobs generated from the Flathead.
  
  
• Certainly species like moose, elk, white-tail and mule deer and black bear all profit from the habitat created by logging. This of course is not true of all species, but overall the Canadian Flathead has flourished under the current management model.
  
  
• Some people suggest that a federal park would be a great economic driver for the area.
  
  
• But how can they argue there are too many people in the Flathead and then argue a federal park should be created so it will attract thousands of tourists who will crawl all over the Flathead.
  
  
• And as for the huge economic park spin-off, ask people in Golden who are 10 minutes away from Yoho and they will tell you the benefits are very minimal.
  
  
• And there's one more thing - although I support the tourism industry, not all rural British Columbians aspire to work in the service sector. They prefer logging, mining and construction and thank goodness for the rest of us they do, because BC's wealth is still coming from the ground, despite our post-modern penchant to pretend otherwise.
  
  
• Over the past five years, with the world price of coal rising and natural gas reserves dwindling, the Flathead has seen a renewed interest in exploration for both commodities.
  
  
• It is believed there are trillions of cubic feet of clean, pure natural gas trapped in Flathead coal seams. And of course there is coal aplenty in the Flathead.
  
  
• Unfortunately, the debate about managing the Flathead isn't about management models. It is more like a school yard fracas where name-calling is the order of the day.
  
  
• The proponents of a federal park trot out the absolute worst horror stories they can find about cbg in the US, often from 20 years ago when the industry was unregulated.
  
  
• Our friends in Montana reverse the Sam Slick stereotype that some Canadians love to use against Americans and try to paint British Columbians as Neanderthals eager to mine the heck out of every square inch. Both stereotypes are simple-minded.
  
  
• And of course the provincial Opposition is only too happy to hop aboard that bandwagon of simple-mindedness, thereby further reducing the chances of any meaningful dialogue between the different points of view.
  
  
• Last year, a local environmentalist in Fernie, after saying the Province had no environmental conscience, claimed on CBC radio that he could sit "on top of one of these great Rocky Mountain peaks in the Flathead and not see anywhere where the humans are, where the humans have done whatever humans do... "
  
  
• Only if he sat there with his eyes closed, could he actually say this with a straight face. There is evidence of humans in most parts of the Flathead. But that is the nature of the Flathead debate.
  
  
• Today, the Flathead, with all that activity over the decades has the highest concentrations of grizzlies in inland N.A. and a diversity of life that is all the more remarkable because of how far south in Canada it is located.
  
  
• Which brings me to the crux of the matter: what management model will work best to ensure that future generations have the same opportunity to hike, hunt, fish, trap, guide and recreate in the beautiful Flathead Valley and see the same vibrant diversity of flora and fauna that exists there today?

CONCLUSION

• Today, the Kootenay-Boundary Land Use Plan guides activities in our region and after the 2001 election, we kept our promise to my constituents and completed an exhaustive public land use planning process to create the SRMMP.
  
  
• A committee of local people with diverse perspectives now meet regularly to advise government on how the SRMMP should be implemented.
  
  
• Since the Plan was created in, 2003, government has added AMA's under the Wildlife Act and in, 2004, we put staking reserves on the Cabin and Sage Creeks area of the Flathead.
  
  
• Our approach is in contrast to the attempt in early 2001 by the former government to make a secret deal with the local environmentalist group to restrict local people, without going through the difficult but essential public consultation process.
  
  
• Apparently they felt it was just simpler to bypass listening to the people who have used the Flathead for business and pleasure the past 50 years.
  
  
• The SRMMP currently allows mining and oil and gas exploration in the Flathead, as did the KBLUP created under the New Democrats.
  
  
• * The question is: can the Flathead retain its ecological integrity and diversity, with coal mining and/or cbg development added to what activities already happen there.
  
  
• In my opinion as the local MLA, the majority of my constituents do not support coal mining in the Flathead Valley and I support my constituents in that view.
  
  
• The Elk Valley, including the north piece of the Dominion Coal Block, have enough coal to sustain our SE coal industry for a hundred years. Limit the coal mining to the Elk Valley.
  
  
• There is one proposed coal mining project in the Flathead, that after more than two years of talking about building a mine, is still in pre-assessment at the EAO.
  
  
• Opponents want government to simply make a political decision. Scrap due process, to heck with the proponent's rights and to heck with the reputation of BC to investors from around the world.
  
  
• But we do have a vehicle we can use to advise government on how the management of the Flathead should change and that's the SRMMP advisory committee.
  
  
• There are legal implications to saying no to mining in the Flathead because there are other claims and exploration in the Valley in addition to the one proposed project but it is not an impossible task.
  
  
• The SRMMP advisory committee should have this difficult discussion and to decide if they want to recommend to government that the SRMMP be changed to remove mining from acceptable uses in the Flathead.
  
  
• As for cbg exploration and development, I recently asked our government to not include the Flathead in the cbg tenure being advertised.
  
  
• BP, if it obtains the tenure in the Elk Valley, will have the opportunity to prove to the public how well it operates before it applies to explore in the Flathead.
  
  
• Over the next few years, my constituents will have an opportunity to assess cbg exploration and to inform the SRMMP advisory committee whether cbg exploration and development in the Flathead will be acceptable, or not.
  
  
• Government policies on managing the Flathead must be informed by the people who know the area intimately and policies must be based on science and the best interests of British Columbians.
  
  
• No one disputes the value of what we have in the Canadian side of the Flathead and the absolute moral imperative to ensure what we have today is there for future generations.