Friends of Clayoquot Sound: News: 5-Year Moratorium

Tofino Council's letter to Minister Abbott

June 3, 2004

Minister of Sustainable Resource Management
Honorable George Abbott
P.O. Box 9054 Stn Prov Govt
Victoria, B.C. V8W 9E2

Dear Minister Abbott,

My Councillors and I would like to thank you for meeting with us on May 12th. We found the meeting helpful and productive, and appreciate the time you and your staff made available to us. We were delighted to discover that you and your family have spent many wonderful summers in Tofino and Clayoquot Sound. I believe we can all agree on the importance of maintaining the beauty and wholeness of the natural environment in the UNESCO Clayoquot Biosphere Reserve.

As we noted in our meeting the tourism industry in our area is an economic engine for the whole region. In our community tourism supports more than 220 small businesses and generates an estimated $100 million a year. Port Alberni, Ucluelet, and the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations are also benefiting from current tourism activities in our area and making decisions for the future based on the continued integrity of the forests and waterways of Clayoquot Sound.

We were pleased to hear that logging practices in Clayoquot Sound will continued to be managed according to the Science Panel recommendations; however, we are concerned that Clayoquot is not yet exempted from the Working Forest Initiative. We understand that the Working Forest Initiative is, as you explained, a "high level" resource management policy; but, because the Initiative appears to remove options for the establishment of new protected areas, and as long as the stated goal of the Initiative is to provide land base certainty for the forestry sector, we feel that pristine valleys such as the Pretty Girl and Sidney could be at risk in the future. If Clayoquot Sound cannot be exempted from the Working Forest Initiative, we would request that these valleys be protected first.

Thank you again for your time to meet with us and discuss these issues that are so important to our community.

Respectfully,

Mayor Anderson

Contact us!

Friends of Clayoquot Sound
PO Box 489, 331 Neill St., Tofino BC V0R 2Z0
Tel: 250-725-4218 Fax: 250-725-2527
Email: info@focs.ca