The Dominion - boreal

The Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement Reconsidered

dru — Wed, 26 May 2010 06:28:28 +0000

ENGOs sign over right to criticize, companies continue to log caribou habitat

VANCOUVER—Last week’s announcement of the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement (CBFA) was celebrated by environmental groups as a historic deal that could save a significant amount of sensitive woodland caribou habitat.

An early criticism of the deal was that Indigenous governments and organizations were left out of the creation of the agreement. The public was also left in the dark while the CBFA was negotiated in secret between nine environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) and 21 forestry companies.

The 71-page agreement has yet to be released on the CBFA website. The Vancouver Media Co-op obtained a leaked copy shortly after the deal was announced.

Greenpeace and the other ENGOs involved in the agreement have chosen their words carefully. Greenpeace has called the deal an “unprecedented accord...covering more than 72 million hectares of public forests, an area twice the size of Germany.” The agreement includes what the proponents are calling a series of interim measures to protect caribou habitat while various levels of government take action to create protected areas for caribou.

Further investigation reveals that this agreement aims to silence all criticism of logging practices in the boreal forest in return for less than two years of diverting harvesting and road building from 72,205 hectares of woodland caribou habitat into other areas of the boreal forest.

The 21 logging companies involved in the deal are grouped together as the Forest Products Association of Canada (FPAC). Together, FPAC member firms hold tenures for over 72 million hectares of boreal forest, stretching north from the Northwest Territories down through northeastern British Columbia and continuing east all the way to Newfoundland. Included in these tenures are 29,336,953 hectares of caribou range lands, according to the report.

Between April 1, 2009 and March 31, 2012, FPAC companies had scheduled to harvest and build roads on 756,666 hectares inside caribou range lands. That means according to existing industry plans, the vast majority of caribou range lands were not slated to be harvested by the spring of 2012, when the current agreement expires.

Far from protecting caribou lands in their entirety, the outcome of the CBFA reduces the FPAC affiliate cut in caribou range lands from 756,666 to 684,461 hectares until spring 2012. This means 72,205 hectares of harvesting and road building will be “deferred” to “areas outside of caribou range.” In other words, there is no change in the amount of harvesting, only in the locations where harvesting takes place.

While the agreement technically "covers" a forest twice the size of Germany, the amount of caribou range that will not be cut before 2012 as a result of the agreement is only slightly larger than the City of Toronto.

The deal still allows 684,461 hectares to be cut in caribou habitat. This, despite the fact that an expert committee of the Canadian Wildlife Service recently recommended that virtually all industrial activity within woodland caribou range be suspended. In agreeing to the CBFA, the nine ENGOs involved are actively supporting the logging of an area larger than the entire province of Prince Edward Island within caribou habitat between now and 2012.

According to section 14.F of the deal, “FPAC members will publicly state that between April 1 2009 and March 31, 2012 there will be no harvesting or road building in approximately 28,651,492 hectares of caribou range in their tenures (or over 97.6 per cent of the caribou habitat in managed forest).”

By reducing the overall number of hectares of caribou range they refer to, logging companies and ENGOs can claim a near total halt on logging in caribou range lands, even though they’ll still log 684,461 hectares, almost 10 times the area they’re claiming to have saved.

Finally, the “three year” deal actually started more than a year ago, on April 1, 2009: industry promises for harvesting deferrals expire April 1, 2012.

But the numbers game is far from the only Orwellian aspect of the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement.

Until April 1, 2012, nine ENGOs have signed on to work together with FPAC companies in “developing and advocating for policies and investments that improve the competitiveness of the Canadian forest sector, create a climate of greater investment certainty, while at the same time have a neutral to positive impact on the sector’s ecological performance.”

In addition, these ENGOs have agreed to express a “continuum” of support for FPAC members, ranging from “recognizing that [sic] the leadership represented by the commitment of FPAC Members to develop and implement the CBFA” to “demonstrating support for products from the boreal operations of FPAC members.”

To ensure that the days of Greenpeace dropping banners from Abitibi-Bowater’s HQ are long forgotten, the agreement stipulates that ENGOs will take back whatever bad things they may have said about FPAC member companies in the past.

This mandatory change in tone by environmental groups takes a couple of forms.

According to Section 6.3.D.ii, “Where an FPAC Member demonstrates an impediment to selling forest products to a specific customer from the boreal as a result of past or current advocacy work or communications, ENGOs will communicate with that customer to confirm they are receiving all joint communications related to progress in implementing the CFBA and that this should be taken into consideration in making procurement decisions.”

The agreement also stipulates that ENGOs will “review and update” their websites to “remove or update any information superseded by the CFBA.” For example, should Canfor find a photo or story about their activities in the boreal forest on the Forest Ethics website objectionable, “immediate steps will be taken to revise that material.”

The agreement also means that if an environmental group which is not a signatory of the deal should happen to tell someone from, say, the David Suzuki Foundation about plans to denounce one of the companies involved in the CBFA, the person from the Suzuki Foundation must warn FPAC member companies immediately.

ENGOs and FPAC will then jointly plan how to respond, which includes actively working together to “have such a third party appropriately modify its position and/or public statements.” This legalese means that the ENGOs and FPAC might jointly threaten to sue or sue the third party. In the past, industry has undertaken such SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) suits, but it is precedent-setting that ENGOs have now become willing participants in striking down criticism of forest practices across Canada.

In return for swapping 72,205 hectares of harvesting out of the boreal forest and maintaining “voluntary deferrals” for another two years, the CBFA transforms the nine ENGOs involved into a promotional service, protection racket and intelligence gathering service for twenty one companies that are actively logging woodland caribou habitat within the boreal forest.

Dawn Paley is a Vancouver-based journalist and a member of the Vancouver Media Co-op.

Claims vs. Actual Protection: Land mass comparisons:

Click to enlarge:
Click to enlarge

Signatories to the CBFA:

Environmental Non-governmental Organizations:

Canadian Boreal Initiative
Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society
Canopy
David Suzuki Foundation
ForestEthics
Greenpeace
The Nature Conservancy
Pew Environment Group
International Boreal Conservation Campaign
Ivey Foundation

Logging companies (grouped together as the Forest Products Association of Canada):

AbitibiBowater Inc.
Alberta-Pacific Forest Industries Inc.
AV Group
Canfor Corporation
Canfor Pulp Limited Partnership
Cariboo Pulp & Paper Company
Cascades inc.
Daishowa-Marubeni International Ltd.
F.F. Soucy Inc.
Howe Sound Pulp and Paper Limited Partnership
Kruger Inc.
Louisiana-Pacific Canada Ltd.
Mercer International
Mill & Timber Products Ltd.
NewPage Corporation
Papier Masson Ltée
SFK Pâte
Tembec
Tolko Industries Ltd.
West Fraser Timber Co. Ltd.
Weyerhaeuser Company Limited

Boreal Logging

Annotated Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement Map

Reactions to Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement

dru — Wed, 26 May 2010 05:18:23 +0000

Officials, First Nations, activists offer praise, criticism

The announcement of the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement has sparked a mix of sweeping pronouncements and passionate reactions. Below, we have compiled a small sampling. See also Dawn Paley's analysis of the agreement itself, published today.

Readers are invited to post additions in the comments sections at the bottom of the page.

"The Ontario government is encouraged to see environmental groups and forest companies working together to help develop a plan that would lead to both a healthy and a prosperous Canadian forest."

—Ontario Ministry of Northern Development, Mines and Forestry

"As Minister of the Environment, I welcome the signing of this collaborative agreement between forest sector companies and environmental groups, which represents significant progress for the conservation and sustainable use of the boreal forest of Canada. I am pleased that the agreement has goals that will help the federal government to implement our interests related to conservation of species at risk."

—Jim Prentice, Environment Minister

"It epitomizes what I have been saying all along—that you can successfully protect our natural resources while at the same time protecting jobs, and all in a way that will help make Canada a world leader in the future green economy."

—Michael Ignatieff, Liberal Party Leader

"For Greenpeace and the other major environmental organizations that negotiated this agreement, it is a mark of their maturity and accomplishment. They will change the direction and tactics of a defining campaign begun over 20 years ago. For many in government, industry and unions who said that you can not negotiate with or satisfy ENGOs, this proves them very wrong."

—Fred Wilson, Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union, Rabble.ca

"The Canadian Boreal Initiative's Larry Innes, David Suzuki Foundation, CPAWS, ForestEthics, and Greenpeace do not speak for the people of Fort Chipewyan. Any ENGO group out there who speaks on tar sands issues related to rare cancers being found in Fort Chipewyan or the boreal forest in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Manitoba are not speaking on behalf of any First Nations in any of these regions. They do not have the right to even mention First Nations rights at any event, campaign, rally or protest...the sovereignty of the First Nations people of Canada is at risk and will be extinguished if this carries on and I will not allow it to happen. We are not allowing ENGOs to bargain with our children's future, nor will we allow any ENGO to speak on our First Nation's behalf."

—Mike Mercredi, Fort Chipewyan

"I say that this is an ingenious bit of divide and conquer because it obliges the signatories to inform on anyone they are associated with (who does not go along with this deal) to the Forest Companies. This creates mistrust that weakens the larger environmental movement, weakens the Indigenous rights movement and weakens existing or emerging alliances between Indigenous People and ENGOs.

"The only way to avoid all this division is to remember that only a few individuals in the ENGOs who signed this agreement have actually read the entire agreement. The leadership of these groups only released an eight-page abridged version of the agreement to the public and the...leaked 39 pages of the agreement does not include any of the Schedules or maps that are also part of the agreement."

—John H.W. Hummel

"Despite announcements made today, the devastation of Ontario’s forests continues largely unabated. Giant clearcuts, which level forested areas as large as pre-megacity Toronto (10,000 hectares), still make up 94 per cent of the area logged each year in Ontario. Canada’s logging industry employs only two thirds of the workers per tree cut that Sweden employs, and Ontario has still not respected the human right of Indigenous peoples to say 'No' to logging on their traditional lands."

—Earthroots

"The agreement really does not protect woodland caribou, as it only defers logging and road construction in 72,205 hectares over the next two years and not the supposed 29 million hectares that the signatories told the public on May 18.

"The Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement, signed by Canadian forest products companies and several prominent environmental groups, will make it more difficult for ENGOs to effectively campaign against large-scale resource extraction by the Canadian forest industry and sidelines Indigenous peoples' rights to plan, manage and control activities on their traditional territories."

—Boreal Forest Network

"More troubling, the agreement provides much-needed legitimacy to timber and pulp industry efforts to log much, if not all, of the remaining 43 million hectares of Canada’s old growth boreal forests, and ultimately much of the caribou habitat after the moratorium lapses. The agreement uses fancy, meaningless worlds like "ecosystem-based" and "sustainable forest management" to describe first-time industrial logging of primary forests for toilet paper and other throw-away consumer items."

—Glen Barry, Ecological Internet

"This neocolonial agreement to conservation, in which southern, centralized ENGOs presume to have authority over inherent Indigenous territories, only serves the Canadian state's deeper interest in accessing and exploiting resources at the cost of Indigenous nationhoods. Accessing resources by neutralizing Indigenous Nations has always been the colonial state's imperative; as Canadian legislation contours both ENGOs and forestry corporations, and as the Canadian tax coffers will continue to benefit from the exploitation of the Boreal, the ENGOs involved have demonstrated fabulously their role of doing the state's dirty work."

—Damien Lee

"The Carrier Sekani Tribal Council [CSTC] is calling on all environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) to improve their policies on working with First Nations communities, particularly CSTC communities that have unresolved land and resource claims in British Columbia, Canada. At a minimum these ENGOs should be adhering to, supporting and promoting the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), which sets an international minimum standards on how First Nations and Indigenous people should be treated. This includes the free, prior and informed consent of our people to decide what happens in our territories."

—Carrier Sekani Tribal Council

"Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) Grand Chief Stan Beardy says the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement, recently signed by Canadian forest product companies and environmental groups, disrespects First Nations rights.

"'Nobody has the right to develop an agreement that affects any of NAN’s lands and resources without consultation, accommodation and consent from us,' said NAN Grand Chief Stan Beardy. 'This Agreement was made without our knowledge and treats NAN as a stakeholder—not a government.'"

—Nishnawbe Aski Nation

Boreal Forest Destruction