Geez, I'm hurt, I didn't realise I was soo scarey... I really only tried to help these discussions back onto the issues I thought leftwingers would be most concerned, which is the many many problems that aboriginal people the world over have to deal with now, but maybe I was being a bit naive or worse. If it helps these discussions along I can tell you that Erik the Half Red won't be here much longer and yeah, I'm a little conflicted about this myself.

IMO (which others are perfectly free to disagree with here) some activists take too much of a puritan "noble savage" view of FNs and seem to expect them to suffer quietly in hopeless poverty. OTOH (and according to some FN contributers I've seen) some native leaders mostly just seem interested in economic development now, regardless of potential future costs to their own autonomy, culture, environment or health. Where the balance between two valid interests are is a question I guess everyone involved will have to consider carefully, hopefully within the context of each situation, but IMO Again the final decision should remain up to the FN involved themselves. Perhaps we should learn to trust their collective judgement a bit more -if indeed that is what this decision actually represents.

(On our little island the local band faced some resistence when they announced their intention to do some selective logging here to generate some needed income. Turned out they did such a good job of it that it was almost invisible from the outside and they won a conservaTION award for it. Ironically a white neighbour who raised some of the most noise over it promptly began a near clearcut on his large property and then left the island. Didn't receive as much local comment but wasn't able to sell any of the land for further home development either. Maybe there's a lesson here somewhere)

Re Clayoquot Sound I guess I'll have to see what this particular deal involves first, before casting any stones. The previous compromise by the BC NDP allowed for some limited mostly selective logging as well as preservation areas so I'm curious now to see what or who exactly is motivating this latest turn of events. If anyone else has anymore information or angles on it then I'd be interested in seeing it. That's all from Erik the Terrible here.

[ 03 August 2006: Message edited by: EriKtheHalfaRed ]