‘Should have never happened’: B.C. MLA shocked with Indigenous band clearcutting

A large area of treaty land has been clear cut, leading to concerns with a B.C. MLA, Mike Morris, and a resource policy analyst, Ben Parfitt.

The Kerry Lake clear cut, north of Prince George, B.C., has Morris disturbed with its staggering size, which is seven times larger than Stanley Park, and he noticed no culverts were installed to manage erosion.

“This should never have happened,” Prince George-Mackenzie MLA Mike Morris told Global News.

“There should have been small wildfire retention areas. There should have been several hundred hectares of mature forest retained for wildlife habitat but it wasn’t. Everything was cleared right out.”

Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives B.C. resource policy analyst Ben Parfitt also investigated the clear cut area.

“What was so intriguing and worrying about this clear cut is that it had all occurred on treaty settlement lands that had been turned over to the McLeod Lake Indian Band during treaty negotiations between the band, the province and the federal government,” Parfitt told Global News.

The negotiations were signed in 1999 and were formally adhered to in 2000.

2:41 Clearcuts and the forest industry downturn

“Under the treaty agreement, the McLeod Lake Indian Band and the provincial and federal governments agreed these lands would be managed in a particular way,” Parfitt said.

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“In particular, forestry or logging activity on those lands were, in the words of the agreement, to be conducted in a ‘reasonable or gradual way.’”

Both Parfitt and Morris said the clear-cutting was not done in a way to preserve the lands for future logging.

“Virtually nothing of the treaty lands, that McLeod Lake holds, have any primary forest remaining on them at all,” Parfitt said.

“They were all logged out over a relatively short period of time.”

Global News has reached out to the McLeod Lake Indian band for comment but has not heard back in time for publication.

Parfitt said he was able to speak with some former McLeod Lake Indian band leaders regarding the situation who said they are shocked and saddened by the logging.