Last remaining wildlife corridor along the Manitoba/Saskatchewan border poised for deforestation. Manitoba's Future Forest Alliance needs your urgent help on calling for a full federal public review and assessment.

Over the course of the last two years in Manitoba, Canada, two forest companies, Louisana-Pacific in 1996 and Tolko Industries in 1997 (formally Repap Manitoba), have been granted forest management licences from the provincial government to clear-cut a combined 3,590,000 cubic metres of soft and hardwoods annually for the next 10-13 years. Just across the border from Manitoba to the west, in Hudson Bay, Saskatchewan the provincial government is in the process of reviewing and possibly granting a licence for a 20 year forest management plan that will allow Saskfor MacMillan to clear-cut 1,307,000 cubic metres of mixed wood on an annual basis.

The cumulative impact associated with the combined clear cutting of 4,897,000 cubic metres annually of mixed wood by these three companies along the Manitoba/Saskatchewan border are largely unknown, as neither provincial government has assessed, nor are required to by law, the combined cumulative social, economic and environmental impacts of all three forest harvesting plans. The most immediate area under threat by these three forest operations will be the old growth stands of aspen in the escarpment region that straddles the Manitoba/Saskatchewan border. This region is also the only remaining north/south wildlife corridor left for elk, black bears, wolfs, cougar, woodland caribou and other large mammals migrating in and out of Riding Mountain National Park. It is also a stop over region for large populations of breeding neo-tropical migrant songbirds.

In Manitoba, northern First Nation communities have announced they are prepared to throw up blockades in the next few weeks should Tolko Industries start to move heavy logging equipment into areas that have been selected under the Treaty Land Entitlement Agreement. The Mathias Colomb Cree Nation stated in a January 21, 1998 Winnipeg Free Press article that they will setup blockades, the second such action by Mathias Colomb Cree Nation in less then two years, at the Charles rail siding and in the Highrock Lake area and on the road from Nelson House to the band's traditional trap line area near Pukatawagan.

On another tack, the Manitoba Future Forest Alliance (MFFA), a coalition of individual and organizations, have made repeated requests over the last few years to the Canadian Federal government to exercise their authority, under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (CEAA), and conduct a full federal assessment on the cumulative impacts of these three forest operations to the escarpment region straddling the Manitoba/Saskatchewan border. These repeated requests for a federal assessment seem to have fallen on deaf ears in Ottawa, this despite the commitment made in 1995 by the former federal Minister of Environment, The Hon. Sheila Copps , in the House Commons during question period. In 1996, the Hon. Sergio Marchi, then the Federal Minister of the Environment at the time, stated in a letter to his counterpart in Manitoba that "some species of neo-tropical migrant songbirds are known to breed almost exclusively within the Canadian southern boreal forest. Other species have the most productive component of their range within these Canadian forests. Continent-wide consequences of potentially significant adverse effects to the populations of these birds and other wildlife are possible given the vast majority of their habitat is under forest management licence and will be affected by forest operations."

We are urgently asking your assistance in helping us in a few ways;

• First, write, fax or e-mail the following Federal Ministers urging the Federal Government of Canada to conduct a full federal assessment of these three forest management plans for the potential cumulative social, economic and environmental impacts on the escarpment region that straddles the Manitoba/Saskatchewan border.

The Honourable Ralph Goodale
Minister of Natural Resources
Government of Canada
580 Booth Street
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0E4
Fax: (613) 996-4516
e-mail: Goodale.R@parl.gc.ca

• Secondly, we would ask that you send letters of support and solidarity to the Mathias Colomb Cree Nations for their blockade to protect their Treaty Land Entitlement areas.
  Attention: Chief Pascal Bighetty
  Mathias Colomb First Nation
  Pukatawagan, MB. Canada
  Fax: (204) 553-2419
  Ph: (204) 553-2089/90

• Finally, we would like you to pass on this request for action to your network and to anyone in the media interested in boreal forest issues.

For further information on this important issue contact Don Sullivan at; (204) 947-3081 or e-mail: sullivan@mbnet.mb.ca

Don Sullivan
2-70 Albert Street
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
R3B 1E7
Phone: 204-947-3081
Fax: 204-947-3076 e-mail: sullivan@mbnet.mb.ca

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