Two native Indian groups in Canada plan to begin logging immediately on government land, acts of open defiance against the British Columbia government. Yesterday, more than 100 native leaders threw their support behind the Westbank Tribal Nation, which says it is exercising its aboriginal and common-law rights to log forests in its traditional territories. The Ulkatcho Indians plan to log a separate area of beetle-infested timber, claiming the government and forest industry are taking the wrong approach in battling the beetle. Tensions are rising, and it is unclear how the B.C. provincial government will respond. In other news of Canadian conflicts, scientists are angry over the federal government’s plan to put corporate representatives on the independent committee that prepares an annual report on which plant and animal species are in danger of extinction.
