FROM SALT SPRING ISLAND, BC CANADA March 28, 2005 Dear Premier Gordon Campbell and Forestry Minister Mike DeJong: I fully support the Council of the Haida Nation and their actions towards maintaining the responsible use of a major British Columbia resource - the forests, which are a legacy for all of us and our children. No one has the right to wantonly destroy the richly diverse forestry lands, the closely related quality of water serving an abundance of needs, or the livelihood of sustainable logging which should process as much as possible in BC for many more jobs. Responsible government would ensure that the value of this vast eco-system is much more than money in the pockets of international companies and the BC government, and their continuing refusal, generally, to consult with affected First Nations. I worked on Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands) the summer of 1954 and returned in 1984, and know what the Haida people are saying about the kind of logging which has destroyed whole sides of steep mountains; denuded, with the soil gone- washed into, and destroying salmon-bearing streams and rivers at their foot. Government support of companies has allowed this and the present government is party to its rapid continuance. This is responsible governance on behalf of the people of B.C. and beyond? B.C. Attorney-General, Geoff Plant, and Minister of Treaty Negotiations, thinks Guujaaw, Haida spokesperson, in his concern for the land which has been kept healthy for thousands of years because the people believed that to destroy the land was to destroy themselves, says Guujaaw must 'live on a different planet'. Perhaps it is those who do not see the planet as our only home that we destroy at our peril, who are really promoting a different kind of planet from what the First Nations preserved. What is so difficult in Guujaaw's kind of planet to be willing to consult and share with First Nations the bounty of the land? To paraphrase Gandhi: the land gives plenty for our needs; it can never give enough for our greed. Where does the B.C. government stand? Yours, for governance that is with all its people, Eileen Wttewaall Salt Spring Island, BC