Watson Lake businessman Pat Irvin suspects it will take a couple of years before there's a noticeable hum of loggers in the southeast Yukon.

Last Friday's release of two commercial blocks of merchantable timber by the Yukon and Kaska governments is the first step toward what he believes will be a period of revival, the president of the town's chamber of commerce said in an interview today.

It's not realistic, Irvin suggested, to think that an industry would wait around for five years the last time any logging of significance occurred.

It will take time to rebuild, but the southeast Yukon has a resource, and some of that resource has been put back on the table, Irvin said.

He's heard some rumours of parties interested in the wood released last week for tender proposals.

But it will take a couple of years, with a new wood supply and some industry players with the right stuff, to get it going again, he said.

'So all of that stuff has to happen again, but this is a very, very positive step forward.'

Irvin suggested the political atmosphere locally is also positive, with the Kaska Nation and the Yukon government agreeing to joint-manage the forest resources in the southeast.

'With the first nation working fairly close with the Yukon government, and not so much animosity between them, and with the two of them saying we want to get into business, and there is some resource-sharing now, I think it is all positive.

'I think it will come around, but it will take some time and energy.'

The release of commercial timber in the southeast Yukon has been on hold for years as the management of the industry by the federal government came under fire from both loggers and conservation groups.

From one point of view, Ottawa wasn't putting out enough wood to sustain a viable industry. From the other, the federal government was ill-fitted to make any management decision because it has not done any of the responsible planning one would expect to see in advance of large-scale logging.

What Watson Lakers saw were tail lights.

An audit of the federal management structure for forest resources in the southeast was commissioned by the former federal minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, Robert Nault.

The Tough Report, compiled by George Tough, described the management structure as being in shambles. It's one that needed to be rebuilt from the ground up, with an aim to establish a long-term management goal for the southeast, Tough reported.

The result was a joint-committee of Kaska and Yukon government officials the Kaska Forest Resources Stewardship Council. It was to oversee the rebuilding, while providing some sort of interim logging opportunities until the master plan was complete.

The schedule for the completion of the first draft of the overall management plan is July 2005.

But the stewardship council recommended last year that up to 128,000 cubic metres of interim wood supply be provided for three years, allowing for the development and implementation of the master plan.

Friday's call for tender proposals for two cutblocks with a total volume of 15,500 cu. m is the first of several tender calls expected for this year.

Karen Baltgailis of the Yukon Conservation Society said the organization is in full support of the stewardship council and the process underway to develop a long-term management plan.

She was, however, sternly critical of the environmental assessment process undertaken on the two cutblocks released Friday and another four to be released over the summer.

It's a clear-cut case of the Yukon government's forest management branch developing a specific proposal using general recommendations from the stewardship council, then conducting its own environmental review of the proposal, she said.

The society, said Baltgailis, made representations regarding specific concerns on the impact the logging proposal will have on the local marten habitat. It also expressed how the proposed blocks will increase the overall size of clear-cuts once they are attached to former cutblocks.

On two accounts YCS made its representations, but they were dismissed, she insisted.

'The forest management branch should not be assessing its own proposal, and the forest management branch has shown clear bias in its assessment,' she said.

'... Nobody would consider it appropriate for a company to do the environmental assessment of its own logging proposal, and this is essentially the same thing.'

Baltgailis said the stewardship council overseeing the process can't be expected to watch over every technical detail once it forwards its recommendations to the forest management branch.

The society, she said, has asked that the Yukon environmental assessment branch be the body responsible for reviewing the proposal from the forestry branch.

Energy Mines and Resources Minister Archie Lang was unavailable yesterday and this morning to answer to Baltgailis' suggestion that his foresty branch shouldn't be grading its own papers.

Forest branch manager Gary Miltenberger countered yesterday that all submissions were taken into consideration, and that the proposal for management of the two cutblocks released Friday is moulded to the recommendations of the stewardship council.

'Karen Baltgailis' view of the world is not the only one,' Miltenberger said tersely.

He said the allotment of the 128,000 cu. m or so for year-one of the three-year interim wood supply has been broken up into pieces, to promote interest among smaller local companies rather than larger logging outfits from down south.

In addition to breaking up the total volume, a local hire and processing component has been built into the bid process to promote the use of local labour and process facililties, he said.

Successful biders will have two years to cut the wood released Friday, and it's recomended the wood be cut in the winter.

Baltgailis reiterated the society's support for keeping the logging local, and not releasing a bunch of wood all at once so that larger companies can come in, cut and run.

But she too is wondering how much interest there will be in this commercial allotment, given what she says is the Yukon's disadvantage of being so far the main market.

Norm MacLean, spokesman for the stewardship council, said it is the council's goal to complete its work to finalize the three years of interim wood supply, so that it can focus on finishing the draft master plan for management of forest resources in the southeast by summer 2005.