The Dominion - forestry

Stern Warning

Tim McSorley — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:55:29 +0000

Nova Scotia environmentalists say government must revise lease of public lands to private corporations

HALIFAX—“In 1961 we leveraged a tremendous amount of Crown Land to get a company to come to Nova Scotia,” says Matt Miller, Forestry Program Coordinator at the Ecology Action Centre (EAC) in Halifax. “The focus was only on jobs and wood supply, and we gave them complete and utter control of 40 per cent of the Crown Land in the province, one in nine acres.”

The company in question, Finland-based Stora Enso, has been gone from Nova Scotia for five years, though, having sold its key asset, the Point Tupper pulp and paper mill near Port Hawkesbury, in Cape Breton, to Ohio-based Newpage in 2007. At the time, Newpage inherited the Crown Land along with the mill purchase. Amidst slumping sales and escalating power bills, the mill went into receivership in 2011.

Enter Vancouver-based Stern Partners. Headed by multimillionaire paper mogul Ron Stern, the company is the buyer of choice for the shuttered mill. Details of the purchase are yet to emerge, but Stern has let it be known that the workforce, which at the time of Newpage's demise stood at about 600, stands to be halved. Stern will enter into negotiations with the province to hammer out the purchase, and one of the key items on the table will be the 1961 Crown Land lease, which actually expired in 2011. Many independent woodlot owners, including Miller (who is also an award-winning independent woodlot owner), would like to see the deal revisited in order to better reflect 2012 conditions.

“We are expecting this government to negotiate a new agreement that doesn't sell the whole farm,” says Miller. “That means that one company doesn't have full control over [the crown land].” It would also mean that the company takes on more responsibilities than simply managing wood supplies and creating jobs, he says. Rather, the company would need to uphold the spirit of the Natural Resources Strategy by managing Crown lands to the highest standards possible, and consulting the public on how the land is managed, argues Miller.

Phase 1 of the Natural Resource Strategy (NRS), in 2009, was the last example of public consultation, and the only one ever undertaken by the Dexter government. Many blame this recoil from a decades-old tradition of government-public interaction on the fact that when the Nova Scotia public spoke up—which they did in the thousands in the case of the NRS—they demanded something the Dexter government didn't want to hear: stewardship and accountability of the province's forests, and public involvement in the process. If there were a time to make amends with the original intent of the NRS, Dexter might seize the day and revisit the land lease that now needs their attention.

“The logic of ever-shrinking workforce, ever-expanding, ever-increasing harvesting [suggests that] the government should tear up that old lease, and develop one that's modern and based on current conditions,” including the public's expectations that Crown Land should be managed to the highest level, says Miller's co-worker, EAC Wilderness Coordinator Ray Plourde. “We should not have to compensate any new owner that's going to scoop up that mill for pennies on the dollar in a bankruptcy fire sale.”

Fire sale aside, the provincial government has committed to earmarking 12 per cent of Nova Scotia land, by 2015, as protected areas, under the provincial Environmental Goals and Sustainable Prosperity Act of 2007. This puts the government in a difficult position: if the lease is not revised, the push to protect 12 per cent of the land could end up in direct conflict with Stern's stake, meaning the government would need to compensate the company for the property it would lose. Miller and Plourde agree that protected areas need to be exempted from the land lease before the deal with Stern is finalized.

As well, with the current state of Nova Scotia's “big three” pulp mills, one being in receivership (Newpage), one being responsible for one of Canada's worst environmental disasters (Northern Pulp and Boat Harbour), and one having just seen workers forced to give up many concessions, while CEOs walked away with 8 million in payoffs and the company given tens of millions in taxpayer bailout money (Bowater), it may well be time to give the smaller players in the forestry business a chance at bidding for Crown Land, according to Miller.

“There's already some existing manufacturing infrastructure in Eastern Nova Scotia. There's a series of value-added hardwood mills,” he says. “They've traditionally been shut out of any allocation of wood from Crown Land. This is a perfect opportunity for them to have access to that wood.”

“Smaller lease arrangements could be made for those local industry players that already exist,” says Plourde. “Hardwood mills that are making things like fine flooring, door and wall moldings, wainscoting, trim, and so on and so forth. They employ more people per unit of wood harvested, and they make a value-added product, so it's economically much better for the province. It would also allow for new enterprises to emerge, because they'd have some wood to access.”

Dexter actions have made it clear that the "big three" won't fail. The future of forestry in Nova Scotia suggests that now is the time to set the conditions for "small successes" that don't involve either extreme environmental degradation or a steady, continuous, flow of taxpayer bailouts.

Miles Howe is an editor with the Media Co-op and a member of the Halifax Media Co-op. This article was originally published by the HMC.

NS Jack Pine

Hemp Wanted

Moira Peters — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 05:59:20 +0000

Once illegal material promises dizzying array of green energy uses

HALIFAX—Wanda Beattie, president and CEO of Atlantic Healing Hemp, paces the floor of her flagship store in Berwick, Nova Scotia. She is a woman on a mission. The shelves around her are lined with hemp salves, hemp balms, cold-pressed hemp seed oil and vacuum-sealed bags of crushed hemp seeds. The hemp is top quality and Canadian grown, but it’s definitely not local—and that's something Beattie would like to change.

“At the moment I’m bringing in hemp oil in large quantities from Winnipeg," she says. "That’s the hemp heartland. There was an attempt to grow hemp in Nova Scotia, back in 2000, but it wasn’t feasible because there wasn’t a market for the product. There was some amateur processing being done, but nothing of any scale."

Beattie's mission: to resurrect the deep-seeded relationship between Nova Scotia soil and hemp.

Port Royal, Nova Scotia, was the site of North America’s first recorded hemp crop, in 1606.

But by 2009, Saskatchewan had 5,090 acres licensed for hemp and Manitoba had 6,015 acres. Nova Scotia had none.

“The issue is not related to soil,” says Beattie. “There is wonderful soil here in the Annapolis Valley. You can grow hemp here. Top quality hemp. In 2000, Nova Scotia farmers proved it could be done. There’s simply not enough of a market.”

The hemp plant has had many uses. Christopher Columbus swore by hemp sails. Hemp rope, even 50-year-old hemp rope, is still highly sought after for its water-resistant qualities. Anything oil, lumber or cotton can do, hemp can do better. The seeds can be eaten or pressed into oil. Both methods of ingestion are extremely healthy.

As Beattie will tell you, hemp seeds contain all the essential fatty acids. Her hemp cream also goes on smooth after a shave.

Re-education is a large part of Beattie’s campaign to get hemp back into the Nova Scotia diet and consciousness. She and her husband Brian offer weekly, one-hour information sessions out of the Berwick store. She also offers free presentations to Nova Scotia groups and businesses.

“People in the area just don’t know about the benefits of hemp. We grew up in a generation that didn’t hear anything about hemp. Consumers are looking at our products now, and they know they have a value, because they have been used for thousands of years. Younger people are using hemp as a preventative, incorporating it into their diets to stay healthy." Others use it to treat chronic health issues like sciatic nerve pain, eczema, psoriasis, arthritis, acid reflux and to lower chloresterol levels.

Hemp was banned in Canada and the US in 1938. Jack Herer, in his book The Emperor Wears No Clothes, highlights the link between DuPont’s patenting, that same year, of the processes of making plastics out of petroleum and paper out of wood pulp, and the continent-wide ban on growing hemp. In 1998, amid growing interest in textile alternatives, Health Canada lifted its ban.

Hemp requires a relatively small up-front investment for processing infrastructure. Compared to oil, pulp and cotton, hemp is of higher quality and is much cheaper. Hemp is therefore a logical alternative to many of the products the Western diet currently consumes at an alarming rate.

Travis Truso is the owner of Hemp Haven in Regina, Saskatchewan. He has been in the hemp selling business for six years, and he is the main contact for the Saskatchewan Hemp Association.

“I’ve talked to 100 farmers in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and only one of them even baled his stalk," says Truso. "The rest just burned their stalks or cultivated them back into the soil. Ninety-nine per cent of farmers are just selling their hemp seed. There is zero industry in Canada for fibre and stalk.”

The fibre and stalk of the hemp plant is where so many of its benefits are found. When processed, the fibres and hurd (stalk centre) can produce a multitude of products.

“There are quite a few encouraging things going on in Canada with hemp right now," says Truso. "Motive is a car company out of Alberta. They just created an electric car, and the body of the car is made out of hemp composite. The car has been reviewed really positively, and they want to commercially launch it by 2013."

“I see hemp fibre board as being a very promising industry with lots of room to grow," he says. "Right now the government annually subsidizes the lumber industry with $1 billion of taxpayers’ money. You cannot produce paper from lumber for the price we buy it at in the store. The entire industry is subsidized. And once you cut a forest down, your next crop isn’t ready for 100 years. Why have we built a society that takes trees for paper? It’s insane.”

Truso argues that when it comes to textiles, hemp doesn’t just compete with cotton, it’s far superior.

"The absurdity of growing cotton for textiles... Pests love it, and the only way it could have evolved was through intensive labour. Cotton needed slave labour to evolve. And then the product is just a short, brittle piece of fibre that wears out in a year. Hemp makes the strongest fibre, and it doesn’t wear out, it wears in. Levis jeans were originally made from hemp.”

Truso also points to hemp's potential energy efficiency.

“Henry Ford grew hemp, and his first diesel engine ran off hemp oil at 90 per cent cleaner and 60 per cent more efficient than fuel oil. It’s got the most biomass per crop, per acre, of anything grown.”

Hemp is also one of the greenest crops grown. “All the farmers that currently grow hemp in Saskatchewan do so keeping organic practices in mind," says Truso. "They are growing it in rotation with wheat, rye and grain crops. Hemp pulls an enormous amount of toxins out of the soil, and I’ve got it from a representative from Health Canada who says that if hemp were grown in three consecutive years on the same land, that land would be free of other weeds. You can virtually drop the seed in the soil, come back in 120 days, and combine your yield.”

Canadian law, however, makes it hard to be a hemp farmer. “Hemp is the only legal crop in Canada that requires a license to grow. You have to go through so much paper work. You need to have a criminal check, and you need to have your crops tested for THC content twice yearly. For a lot of farmers, the hassle is just too much.”

Processing the stalk, on an industrial scale, requires a processing plant, which would cost several million dollars—so far a prohibitive sum for investors. Various levels of Canadian government have had several opportunities to build a Canadian hemp processing plant, and each time they failed to seal the deal.

Truso talks about one that got away.

“In Craik, Saskatchewan, a company called Natural Alternative Technologies (NAT) approached the town with the idea of building a hemp processing plant. That was in 2004. At that point we had a New Democratic government in Saskatchewan, and they were for it. They offered up half the capital for the plant if NAT could raise the rest.

"From 2004 to 2008, NAT developed its technology, and raised its capital. In 2008 Saskatchewan elected the Saskatchewan Party, which is a far right party. In their first week of being in office they cancelled their contract with NAT. Since then NAT has gone bankrupt, and has sold its technology to Haines Underwear.”

Despite growing almost 20,000 acres of hemp, Canada remains without a plant to process it. Canadian hemp stalks, for lack of a buyer, are burned. Hemp-stalk products, among them hemp textiles, are largely imported from China.

“Almost every Canadian designer that’s manufacturing hemp clothing is getting their yarn from China," says Truso. "The floor of my store is made from hemp fibre board. It’s twice as strong as plywood and will last twice as long. I bought it imported from China.”

Without government assistance, and without a processing plant, hemp farmers across Saskatchewan are still growing over 5,000 acres of hemp. Only the seeds are being harvested.

“There are no government subsidies for hemp seed," says Truso. "The farmers need to go out on their own, and find all of their own contracts. At the end of the year, a lot of them still have 50 to 100,000 pounds of hemp seed left over.”

Truso says any initiative for processing stalk will have to come from the grassroots. “A company called Hill Agra in Ontario has invented a portable fibre extractor that can fit behind any tractor. The base model sells for $80,000. Several have been sold to Europe, and quite a few to China, but so far none in Canada. In the spring this extractor would decorticate your fibre and your hurds [process the stalk]. You’d be ready to stamp fibre boards. You’d be ready to mix hemp concrete."

"And," he adds, "hemp is still illegal to grow in America, so you’d have a huge market for your product. You’d be creating a groundbreaking industry."

For more information on applying to grow your own hemp, contact the Controlled Substances Division of Health Canada, at 1-613-948-6408.

Miles Howe hails from Ottawa, Ontario, and currently calls Halifax home. He has a Masters degree in Sociology, plays a wicked harmonica, and bakes a mean banana cake.

Hemp seeds

Hemp yarn

Boreal Forest Conflicts Far From Over

Moira Peters — Thu, 20 May 2010 09:54:38 +0000

Mainstream enviros, timber industry shut First Nations out of "historic" deal

VANCOUVER—Timber companies and environmental organizations came together Tuesday to announce the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement, which they say could protect a swath of boreal forest twice the size of Germany, and maintain forestry jobs across Canada.

"This is an agreement between the two principle combatants over logging," said Steve Kallick, director of the Boreal Conservation campaign of the Pew Environment Group.

But Indigenous peoples have been left out of the agreement, and grassroots environmentalists are concerned that the proposal represents a move towards corporate control over forests in Canada.

"Name a forest struggle in Canada that hasn't been spearheaded by First Nations from the beginning," said Clayton Thomas-Muller, tar sands campaigner with the Indigenous Environmental Network, addressing Kallick's exclusion of First Nations as "principle combatants" over forestry policy.

"A lot of First Nations groups—in Haida Gwaii, in the boreal forest, and places like Grassy Narrows, Barrier Lake and Temagami—I think they would have a much different analysis and memory then Mr. Kallick."

The three-year agreement is the largest of its kind anywhere on the planet, according to a representative from Greenpeace. Twenty-one forestry companies have signed on, as have nine environmental organizations.

But for some, like Thomas-Muller, today's announcement is reminiscent of a another deal, signed in British Columbia in 2006.

"I think we have to remember the previous version of this deal, which was the Great Bear Rainforest, and we have to remember how that deal in the end was signed: it was signed not with all the First Nations partners, it was signed behind closed doors, by Tzeporah Berman and company," he said. "And many First Nations felt extremely burned by that."

"It's a massive tomb, uh, tome that we've put together," misspoke Richard Brooks from Greenpeace at the press conference on Tuesday morning. Only a 12-page abridged version of the agreement has been made public. The full agreement was leaked to the Vancouver Media Co-op (VMC) May 19. According to Brooks, it will now be presented to various levels of government.

"It will really change the nature of environmental work and the debates around the environment," said Kallick. But whether those changes are for better or for worse is up for debate.

"The Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement is essentially another huge jump away from democracy, towards corporate control of the lands of Canada, as well as the corporatization of what is left of a once-defiant environmental movement," said Macdonald Stainsby, co-ordinator of OilSandsTruth.org.

Although the big environmental groups will drop their "do not buy" and divestment campaigns around Canadian timber, Thomas-Muller thinks the conflicts will continue.

"I hardly think that this in any way represents an end to the conflict between the true proponents of the war over the boreal forest, which of course are corporations and First Nations," he said. "What this means is that First Nations no longer have the support of these mainstream environmental groups that have fallen into the strategy of conquer and divide deployed by industry."

For their part, smaller environmental groups are worried the deal will distract from the ongoing devastation of Canada's forests, and could contribute to more false solutions for climate change.

“Ontario has no legal limit on the size of clearcuts, which are permitted to flatten an area equivalent to 1,400 football fields each day in our province,” said Amber Ellis, Earthroots Executive Director, in a press release.

"Unless we are to believe that the CBI [Canadian Boreal Initiative], David Suzuki Foundation, CPAWS and ForestEthics all under-cut their own campaigns, this is only a part-and-parcel to set up a carbon market, and allow forest offsets to go alongside carbon offsets and further entrench false solutions to the climate crisis," said Stainsby.

"We plan to turn this into a competitive advantage," said Avrim Lazer, CEO of the Forest Products Association of Canada. "We think this sets the pattern that everyone should follow."

Greenpeace spearheaded the deal, which was "in some ways" sponsored by the Pew and Ivey Foundations, according to Lazer.

The Pew foundation has already come under close scrutiny by activists because of its ties to large oil companies. The Ivey Foundation has been a prime backer of controversial BC environmentalist Tzeporah Berman's organization PowerUp.

For his part, Kallick would like to see other industries at the table on the agreement. "They're not within the four corners of this agreement, but we would love to have similar talks with the oil and gas industry and also with the mining industry as well," he said.

With files from Dru Oja Jay. This article was originally published by the Vancouver Media Co-op. Dawn Paley is a Vancouver-based journalist.

Green Logs

Cranberry Co-operative Goes Big in Rogersville

Moira Peters — Mon, 03 May 2010 05:07:26 +0000

Ocean Spray to take over 3,400 hectares in New Brunswick

FREDERICTON—Rogersville, a predominately francophone village in southeastern New Brunswick with a population of 1,100 and a greater regional population of 3,500, is set to become North America's largest cranberry-growing farm. In spite of the promise of jobs big agricultural brings, not everyone is supportive of the new cranberry beds.

"Whoever approved this project must not care too much about the environment. This is my opinion,” said Roger Babin, from the neighbouring village of Acadieville. “I've talked to people, some who used to go to this area for pleasure and now they hate to go there for a drive. Seeing what is happening hurts them. Others seem happy that work is being generated. We saw around 30 pieces of machinery working today. Yes, there is work, but at what price?"

Premier Shawn Graham was on hand to break the ground for the operations last June. "This project puts Rogersville on the map as one of Canada's key cranberry growing regions. Having an internationally recognized juice brand such as Ocean Spray choose our province as the location for a potential regional hub demonstrates that New Brunswick is the place to be for business and that we have the expertise to produce world-class agricultural products," said Graham.

Approximately 3,400 hectares of Crown land has been leased to Ocean Spray. The company plans to transform 775 hectares into profitable cranberry beds and expects to employ 100 people. Ocean Spray has invested $8 million in the first phase of the project and plans to invest $90 million over five phases. More than 100 acres have been planted this spring and another 200 acres will be planted in the spring of 2011. The first yield of cranberries is expected in 2012.

The government of New Brunswick granted conditional environmental approval to Ocean Spray to develop the cranberry bog on May 29, 2009. The project will involve withdrawing water from Lac Despres and impounding South Lake, about 20 kilometres west of Rogersville. Ocean Spray is required to monitor pesticide residues, in-stream total suspended sediments, groundwater levels, stream flows, effects to Lac Despres and South Lake and effects to endangered and rare species such as the Southern twayblade. The Southern twayblade, a rare bog orchid, has been found at only six sites in the province.

At the end of the project, Ocean Spray must restore to functional wetlands those areas lost to infill from the project. Babin wonders whether restoration of the wetlands is possible.

"What will happen to the water around the project if pesticides are used? Now there are many jobs, but once the project is running, how many people will be needed to keep it going?" asked Babin.

Babin, a 64-year-old father of seven, grandfather of fifteen and great-grandfather of one, has worked in the woods all his life. Surrounded by woods and encroaching clearcuts, Babin and his neighbours no longer make a living from the forest. Two of Babin's children have worked in Alberta and two of his grandchildren now work in Edmonton.

Babin has seen too many clearcuts in his area. He wants the government to protect the public forest for its watersheds and biodiversity—and he is not alone. A public survey commissioned by the government of New Brunswick in 2008 revealed that respondents in all areas of the province ranked the environment their highest value. The protection of water, air and soil was ranked as the most important forest value by 45 per cent of respondents, and the forest as “a place for a variety of animal and plant life” was ranked second by 38 per cent of respondents. Economic wealth and jobs ranked third by 17 per cent.

Today, Babin is a driving force behind a petition to ban herbicide spraying in public forests in New Brunswick.

****

Ocean Spray, started 75 years ago by three farmers from Massachusetts and New Jersey, is the largest cranberry growers' cooperative, supplying two-thirds of the world's cranberries. The cooperative has been North America's top producer of canned and bottled juice drinks since 1981. Ocean Spray made $1.9 billion in gross sales in 2008.

Ocean Spray growers individually own their bogs while the factories and the brand are collectively owned. To meet global demand for cranberries, the company decided to create a separate investing business from the cooperative. Ocean Spray's search for an ideal growing environment for cranberries led them to the bogs of Rogersville.

Tracy Glynn is an organizer with the New Brunswick Media Co-op (NBMC) and a director on the board of the Dominion Newspaper Cooperative. This article was originally published by the NBMC.

cranberry fields

Making a Bio-Mess of Nova Scotia's Forests

Moira Peters — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 11:30:48 +0000

Whole-tree clear-cutting not a green energy source, say environmentalists

HALIFAX—“This is slash and burn. This is destroy the province,” says Barbara Markovitz, co-chair of the Eastern Shore Forest Watch.

Markovitz lives in Calm Harbour on the Eastern Shore where Northern Pulp Ltd. is whole-tree clear-cut harvesting for biomass energy. “Residents in the area are very upset, shocked and appalled,” she says.

After whole-tree clear-cut harvesting, the land once covered by forest is barren, with no trees or wildlife. The soil, once protected by trees, can now be damaged by sun and rain.

Jamie Simpson, forester with the Ecology Action Centre (EAC), recently visited a biomass and pulpwood harvest site run by Northern Pulp Ltd. The land near Upper Mosquodoboit is owned by Neenah Paper Ltd.

“This is the worst I’ve ever seen—it’s hard to believe this is happening in Nova Scotia, in the 21st century,” says Simpson. “It’s an embarrassment.”

Biomass is material derived from living or recently living organisms, and whole-tree clear-cut harvesting is “the cheapest way to get biomass material for burning [in order] to produce energy,” explains Simpson.

But the benefits do not outweigh the costs, he says. Most of the nutrients in a tree are in its branches and leaves. “With whole-tree harvesting, you remove the tops and the branches, and you also remove the really, really small trees and the trees that would normally be too poor quality to take for pulp or for lumber, and then you’re also going to take out the dead trees,” says Simpson. “So essentially you’re not really leaving anything to go back into soil.

“It proves that we need a regulation to stop companies from whole-tree clear-cut harvesting,” Simpson says.

That’s why the Ecology Action Centre, nine other Nova Scotia groups, and the Nova Scotia Woodlot Owners and Operators Association (NSWOOA) are trying to stop whole-tree clear-cut harvesting.

Northern Pulp’s operation has been certified as "green" by the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI Inc.), a third-party certification program that was set up by the American Forest and Paper Association. “Typically, the SFI has been considered the less stringent certification option for North American companies,” explains Graeme Auld, assistant professor of public policy and administration at Carleton University.

The SFI is greenwashing, says Simpson, explaining that the organization is trying to appear more environmentally friendly than it is.

Simpson says the government’s response to the EAC and other groups’ demand for legally binding restrictions on whole-tree harvesting has been wishy-washy. “The Minister of Natural Resources said that they won’t commit to no whole-tree harvesting in their modeling of available biomass,” says Simpson.

“I think the Department of Natural Resource has to realize that we don’t want to sacrifice our soil productivity and wildlife habitats for a little bit of energy,” Simpson says.

The Department of Natural Resources has recently received many complaints, including a petition from the nine groups working to combat whole-tree clear-cut harvesting.

The whole-tree clear-cut harvest near Caribou Mines, in Upper Musquodoboit, was a pulp harvest, says Dan Davis, spokesperson for Nova Scotia’s Ministry of Natural Resources. “It wasn’t a harvest for biomass,” he says.

But Simpson says whether it was a harvest for pulp or biomass is not the issue. Simpson says while the majority probably went to pulp, “the key issue is around the result after the whole-tree clear-cut harvest was done.” The effect whole-tree clear-cut harvesting has on the land is what concerns Simpson and others the most.

Although Davis said the minister would "prefer" companies didn't use whole-tree clear-cut harvesting, he confirmed there are no regulations against the practice.

Northern Pulp, based in the US, is an affiliate of Atlas Holdings LLC and Blue Wolf Capital Management LLC. John Hamm, former Premier of Nova Scotia, is one of Atlas Holdings’ operating partners.

Northern Pulp has a license to 80,000 hectares of Nova Scotia's Crown land, and has an agreement to manage Neenah Paper's 195,000 hectares of private land. On March 26, 2009, the Nova Scotia government loaned Northern Pulp $15 million to assist its mill in Pictou.

This summer, Northern Pulp whole-tree clear-cut harvested approximately 260 hectares (650 acres). More cutting is planned for this winter.

In order to produce biomass, explains Auld, “there are probably many options, but the less biomass per hectare an operation can extract, the less economically viable it is likely to be.” Since whole-tree removal generates the most biomass per hectare, it is of particular interest to harvesters.

Although financial costs of whole-tree clear-cutting may be relatively low in terms of producing biomass energy, there are many other costs, according to Simpson, including the cost to climate.

“It causes a net loss of carbon from our forests and forest soils,” explains Simpson. “It’s not a carbon-neutral energy source—that’s nothing but a myth.”

With the eight other groups, the Eastern Shore Forest Watch has been notifying the public, writing letters to the government and contacting the media. ESFW's Markovitz is determined to stop companies from whole-tree clear-cutting. “We will continue as long as necessary and as hard as necessary until some sanity returns to forestry in Nova Scotia,” says Markovitz.

Aethne Hinchliffe is studying journalism at King's College and is currently interning with the Halifax Media Co-op.

Biomass Treeless

Biomass 80,000 hectares

Sprayed Kedgwick Women Fight Back

hillarybain — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 06:20:03 +0000

Herbicide use set to increase in New Brunswick

On September 4, people working in the woods of northern New Brunswick, including more than 50 women planting trees, were doused with chemicals from a helicopter spraying the public forest to kill the hardwoods for a softwood plantation.

Betty St. Pierre, a spokeswoman for the group of people who say they were sprayed, says people were told to evacuate the area in Kedgwick because of imminent spraying, but the spraying began before they had the chance to leave. According to St. Pierre, tree planters experienced runny eyes, sore throats and nausea after being sprayed by the herbicide.

Many of the women and men are afraid to speak publicly about the event for fear of losing their jobs. St. Pierre, who scales trees for a living, says someone has to speak up.

“We have had enough. They are scaring people by telling them there will be no work. Meanwhile, they are using us as guinea pigs.” She says that since the incident many people have relayed stories of getting sprayed while fishing or working in the woods.

The frustration is apparent in St. Pierre's voice as she describes the community and surrounding forest.

“A man reported fish kills along a stream here after the last spraying. It is not normal to do that to the forest. We can't prove we are sick because of the spraying but cancer and pesticides have been linked. People are starting to question why do so many people in our community, in northern New Brunswick, have cancer, and rare cancers,” she says.

A new high-tech wind tunnel was unveiled at the Acadia Research Forest near Fredericton on the same day that the news broke across the province that women sprayed in Kedgwick were calling for a ban on aerial forest spraying. The HJ Irving-JJC Picot Wind Tunnel will be used to determine the exact location where spraying planes should fly depending on weather and wind.

St. Pierre says her message for the provincial government is to ban all pesticides. St. Pierre and a group of women have held community demonstrations and have collected 5,000 signatures on a petition calling for a ban on aerial forest spraying. They plan to present the petition to New Brunswick Premier Shawn Graham when the NB Legislature reopens on November 17.

On its website, the New Brunswick Department of Natural Resources (DNR) admits it has tried alternatives to spraying herbicides on New Brunswick's public forest but continues to use herbicides because they are cheaper and involve less labour. “Natural Resources has tried clearing the brush using hand tools and brush saws. Cut stems re-sprout the following year, causing severe competition; therefore, these treatments must be repeated often. This raises the cost to over 10 times that of a single application of herbicide.” According to DNR, herbicides are sprayed on approximately 25 per cent of the softwood land cut over each year in the province.

In late January, the province of New Brunswick announced a new plan for the forest that would allow the area of plantations on public lands to increase to 28 per cent. Plantations currently represent 10 per cent of the public forest.

More plantations will mean an increase in herbicide spraying. The increase in plantation area concerns scientists working with the Greater Fundy Ecosystem Research Group. They recommend that plantations not exceed more than 15 per cent of the forest area in order to preserve biodiversity.

St. Pierre points to other regions in Canada that have banned spraying. No herbicides have been sprayed on Quebec's public forest since 2001. Carol Hughes and Glen Thibeault, two NDP MPs in Northern Ontario, are expressing concerns with aerial forest spraying. Hughes is calling for an investigation on the impacts of aerial spraying of glyphosate over forests in northern Ontario.

Over half of the forest in New Brunswick is designated Crown land (public land). This land has never been ceded by its Indigenous people.

Tracy Glynn is the Forest Campaigner at the Conservation Council of New Brunswick and a director on the board of the Dominion Newspaper Cooperative.

Aerial Spraying

Kedgwick - Foresticide cropped

BC forestry industry "in a tail spin"

Geordie — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 20:48:36 +0000

BC finance minister, Colin Hansen, has just released a report showing that forestry revenues in BC are down by 36 per cent.

Hansen was quoted in the Tyee's new election blog "The Hook" as saying: "The downturn we are seeing in the forest sector is unprecedented. Since 1993 it has never even come close to being that low."

The pine beetle, sub-prime crisis, high dollar and a series of forestry strikes in BC have all contributed to the downturn which the NDP finance critic Bruce Ralston characterized the industry as being "in a tail spin".

The New Chainsaw

Sat, 20 May 2006 14:16:41 +0000

Genetically engineered trees are the new threat to Canada's forests

Biotechnology could create a forest that kills insects. photo: GE Free Maine

The debate over genetically modified plants is moving beyond the fields and heating up under the forest canopy. Research on genetically engineered (GE) trees is well under way in many countries and GE trees may soon be a familiar presence in our forests. Orin Langelle and Anne Petermann of Global Justice Ecology have embarked on a campaign to stop GE tree research. According to Petermann, "GE trees are the greatest threat to the native forest since the chainsaw."

Currently, genetic research on trees is largely focused on developing methods that will make growing, harvesting and processing trees and their fruits and nuts, more 'efficient.' Scientists are experimenting with increasing levels of BT (a naturally occurring pesticide) in trees, increasing trees' resistance to herbicides, reducing levels of lignin (the substance which promotes rigidity) in trees, and making trees sterile. Each of these characteristics will have devastating consequences on the environment, says Petermann. "Biotechnology is so revolutionary that we know almost nothing about it…but so far everything has been one problem after another." For example, trees with increased levels of BT are supposed to result in a decrease in sprayed pesticides, but the opposite has been the case.

Trees with increased levels of BT result in the 'natural' selection of insects that are more resistant to the BT pesticide. This, in turn, necessitates higher pesticide levels, which can inadvertently kill non-target species. In the film A Silent Forest: The Growing Threat, Genetically Engineered Trees, David Suzuki explains that the BT pesticide will also leach into the ecological cycle through the roots, leaves, flowers, and pollen. "A forest that kills insects would be catastrophic," says Suzuki.

Scientists are also working on creating sterile GE trees to prevent pollination of native trees; however, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), it is nearly impossible to control gene flow through pollen and seed dispersal - even at a 95 percent success rate. As Petermann points out, "the sterilized trees are producing nothing, and the other 5% are still sending out tainted genes—it's a lose-lose situation." By bearing no flowers, fruit, or nuts, the sterile trees will offer little nourishment to the wildlife around them, and accidental contamination of native forests by the non-sterile - but genetically modified - trees will result in unforeseeable upsets to the ecological balance. For example, according to Greenpeace's website, "reduced lignin could speed up the decomposition of trees, altering soil ecology, structure and fertility."

The Nanjing Institute of Environmental Science has already found genes from the GE poplars in Xinjiang, China appearing in natural varieties, and researchers have found backyard and organic papaya trees in Thailand and Hawaii contaminated by pollen from nearby GE papaya plantations.

Despite the risks, the biotechnology industry is promoting genetic modification as a way to clean up the environment by addressing problems like climate change and soil contamination. Aziz Choudry, Board Member of Global Justice Ecology, says this is simply a public relations move meant to "make the insane palatable," and will not work.

"They say that they can engineer trees to suck mercury [from the soil]," says Petermann, "but then the mercury is just displaced into the air." As for global warming, GE trees could be engineered to take CO2 out of the air faster than normal trees, but GE plantations would replace native forestland, inhibiting biodiversity. "Studies done by the US Environmental Protection Agency and the World Resources Institute found that in tropical areas plantations at best sequester only 1/4 the carbon as native forests," says Petermann. GE trees wouldn't offset carbon emissions enough to make a serious impact on global warming, says Petermann. A better response to global warming, she says, would be to cut down on pollution.

On March 22nd, Langelle and Petermann attended the Convention on Biological Diversity in Brazil to seek a moratorium on the research and commercial use of GE trees. While they did not achieve an all-out ban, the UN did recommend that the precautionary approach be used with GE trees. The application of the precautionary principle would mean that GE technology must be proven safe and necessary before being used. Canada and the United States argued against the recommendation.

The United States has a large stake in biotechnology, with 150 test plots conducting over two thirds of the world's GE tree research. The Canadian government has not yet released genetically modified trees into the commercial sector, but has been testing GE black spruce, white spruce, and poplar in greenhouses and outdoors since 1997, with test plots in Quebec, New Brunswick, British Columbia, and Alberta.

So far, the only commercial GE tree plantations are in China, which released BT poplar trees in 2001. A destructive cycle led to China's GE forests, says Petermann. Initial deforestation in China led to desertification, leading to poplar plantations to curb the desertification. The poplar monoculture was vulnerable to insect infestation, so insect-resistant BT poplars were planted, which China did with the help of the UN Development Program and the FAO. "The accurate area of GM plantations cannot be assessed because of the ease of propagation and marketing of GM trees and the difficulty of morphologically distinguishing GM from non-GM trees," says Huoran Wang of the Chinese Academy of Forestry, "a lot of materials are moved from one nursery to another and it is difficult to trace them."

"It's completely unregulated," Langelle says. "People can buy these trees at any local nursery and plant them anywhere."

"Chile sees itself as a model for industrial forestry in the world," says Petermann, and may be next to commercialize GE trees. Genetic research is currently focused on the eucalyptus, which occupies a large portion of Chilean plantations. These plantations are already having devastating impacts on the environment and indigenous communities.

Plantations are water-intensive, which means they deplete groundwater, making it harder for other organisms and local communities to obtain water. The trees leach nutrients from the soil, reduce biodiversity and as monocultures, allow pests and diseases to flourish, requiring increased use of pesticides and herbicides. "Timber plantations are a scourge of the South," says Langelle, and combined with GE technology, plantations could have even more destructive effects. As the Greenpeace website reports, research is being done to create faster-growing trees, which would exacerbate problems of nutrient depletion and groundwater loss already present in plantations.

Petermann and Langelle are continuing their drive for a worldwide ban of GE trees at the next UN Convention on Biological Diversity in 2008. But Langelle's expectations of the UN are minimal, noting that "the UN is not really a body that's going to stop anything." Nevertheless, he believes that "people have the power to stop this."

GE trees are considered the new threat to global forests. Katie Shafley wonders why no one knows they're being grown in Canada.

The Life of A Clearcut

Sun, 26 Mar 2006 22:52:19 +0000

John Haney collaborates with his environment

Ice Formation in Skidder Track, November 2005. copyright John Haney

It was "an especially obscene clearcut, one which came right up to the road," remembers John Haney. "I figured that I could either get mad or deal with it somehow - and there was one way I knew [how to deal with it]. So I started making trips out to this clearcut with my camera."

John Haney, a photographer currently living in St. John's, Newfoundland, has been working on a photographic series whose process is as noteworthy as its images. The process of the project has required a give-and-take between the artist and the life and agency of the project's subject: a New Brunswick clearcut.

"I knew that there had been countless pictures made of clearcutting, but I'm pretty sure nobody else has been stupid enough to haul around a 25-pound camera to do it with." Haney's camera is an Eastman Kodak 11" x 14" view camera dating back to around 1928, complete with focusing cloth.

"My first intention was simple: to document the devastation as blatantly as possible. I wanted to show something sublime — in the original sense of the word — displaying something both gorgeous and terrifying."

Haney was inspired by images he'd seen of the devastated landscape around Mount St. Helens in Washington State after it erupted; images in which all the trees were blown down in the same direction. He quickly realized, however, that his approach would have to be different. "First of all, there weren't any trees." The objects signifying the devastation, "which I had imagined might be lying around, were probably two-by-fours being used to build houses in Mississauga. Secondly, I was immediately attracted to something far less obvious. I kept getting drawn to subtle things, to the evidence of life growing back."

Haney decided to go back to the clearcut three months later to continue to document this process. "I wanted to see if there was some sign that beauty and life were returning. I realized that if I didn't find this, the project would be one-dimensional and would fall flat."

There have been thousands of documentary-style photographs depicting clearcuts and the devastation they cause, and this familiar mode of depiction was Haney's original intention. But the landscape began to show him something else.

Birch Suckers, November 2005. copyright John Haney

"Returning to the clearcut in November was interesting. Many of the leaves of the living trees had yellowed and fallen off, the ferns were brown and dying, and there was ice on the water that filled the skidder tracks. I felt that the place had changed — it was coming back slowly. So if there's an underlying motive to the work, it is to show how fortunate this is. Also humbling. It points to the poignant fact that all the environmental/ecological issues that we are concerned about in regards to the earth ultimately point to us.

"The truth of the matter is that we will only kill ourselves off, and take a handful of species with us. In time, this place is going to keep on going — and, in fact, it will come tothrive — without us. As I thought about this I realized that my original intent had actually been turned on its head. That my pictures weren't an epitaph for a forest, but rather for humans – for us."

It wasn't that Haney's images had become less political – Jacqueline Rose, a feminist film critic, states that all images are political. These images of a clearcut landscape go beyond the already familiar political images of outrage that have no relation to its opposite: the equally ubiquitous and romanticized painterly landscapes of rebirth and salvation. Haney's interaction with this place and an audience's interaction with the images push careful observation into a more nuanced political-geographical-cultural-natural space. This space has an integrity — not borrowed from moralizing "nature," but from a narrative of observation. This space is more complex but also more simple in its decay, growth, re-growth, shift and pull. The space is hybridized by the passage of machines, not destroyed by them or triumphant over them. The space is a collaboration of events that have taken place within it, including Haney's photographing of it. This multiple collaboration is the subject of Haney's work.

Ice Formation in Skidder Track, November 2005. copyright John Haney

"I made a photograph of a skidder track [a skidder is huge, log-hauling machine], whose tires had made a pair of deep trenches in the ground. It was one of the first pictures I made that looks, in some way, like a completely natural landscape. There's even a slight degree of abstraction in the way the ground is divided by a wedge of sky reflected in the water of the trench. " The image achieves a sense of dichotomy that Haney was aiming for. " It looks like a natural landscape, and it doesn't seem to bear any traces of humanity, except for the fact that, in actuality, the whole landscape is a human landscape; it was made that way by machines, and is now left to its own devices. There is no obvious evidence that one is looking at a ruined landscape, except that the entire subject of the picture is a product of that ruining."

Haney hopes these photos will provide a space for studied inspection of a place that usually doesn't get a second look. " I don't necessarily expect people looking at the pictures to go through the same stages of thought that I did, which is to say, to begin with anger, then come to wonder, then arrive at epiphany. However, I do hope that viewers will be able to get a sense of the slow and considered approach of photographing the clearcut with a view camera, and that they will afford the pictures the same consideration, paying attention to the small and interesting details in a huge, chaotic mess of a landscape. I think that there is a quality about the pictures that speaks of process — both the processes of method and thought, and the slow process of renewal."

The first public showing of the work, currently with the working title Clearcut, will be at the Emerson Gallery in Berlin from July 12 to 22, 2006. Images are currently available at www.johnhaney.ca/clearcut.

Max Liboiron speaks to photographer John Haney about the process of art. Slow down and take a second look.

A Bear of a PR Scam

Wed, 08 Mar 2006 23:48:55 +0000

Letter from Michael Michael Major

The full court PR press by our government, the forest industry and the foundation funded industrial sustainabilism engos has marginalized and deprecated many of BC's environmental voices that wish to contain coastal industrial forestry entirely within the existing second growth plantations that have already replaced natural forests on the most productive lands of the region.

The environmental context for the agreement is that more than 50% of the original north and central coast forest has already been harvested. Most of that harvest (about 70%) has taken place during the last 45 years. Public forest policy for the region has priorized and targeted the best and most accessible timber for earliest harvest. The biggest, the best and the most accessible timber is almost precisely identified with the most ecologically productive core alluvial zones of the region. These core alluvial zones are hundreds of times more productive than the medium and marginal forest areas that predominate in the remaining unharvested areas (perhaps economically unharvestable).

Though 50% of the original forest cover still remains technically available for harvest much of it is uneconomic and only about 10% of the original core highly productive ecological areas remain unharvested. These core alluvial productive areas are the critical ancient interfaces between terrestrial ecosystems and oceanic (mostly salmon mediated) nitrogen exchange that drives the engines of environmental resilience and ecological diversity for the Great Bear Rainforest and closely integrated marine ecosystems.

These few precious uncut highly productive alluvial areas are the only fully functioning restoration templates remaining for the entire GBR region. The RSP enviros (Rainforest Solution Project: Greenpeace & SCBC with leadership and financial support from the US engos ForestEthics & RAN) concurred with the forest industry to accept and allow the continued liquidation and conversion of these remaining core highly productive alluvial zones into silvicultural plantations that maximize early seral timber productivity at the expense of natural forest resilience and biodiversity.

Essentially, the government of BC and its forest industry received green cover from their hand-picked enviros to continue the liquidation of the core alluvial areas on which the ecological sustainability of the GBR depends. In return, government will convey some of the economically unharvestable, lower quality and less ecologically significant sites for conservation and for an imprecise PR scam called EBM (ecosystem based management) which simultaneously promises greenwashed timber for logging and sustainable old growth logging for naive and distant enviros.

The announcement was a none-event. It provided ForestEthics with an apparent declaration of victory with which they can recruit enviros for a campaign to enjoin the Ontario forest industry to lower expectations of its environmental performance. This new psuedo environmentalism is called sustainabilism and it begins with the objective not of protecting the environment but of reforming industrial appearances to make development seem just a little bit greener. Sustainabilism is the product of frustrated engo pragmatism and public relations that in the total absence of environmental acheivement has decided instead to market celebrity enviros, greenwash, drive-by photo-ops and serial victory press releases for the media to lull us to sleep.

The GBR deal is a travesty, not because some of its components are not desirable, but because the deal functions first to deliver the appearance of positive response, environmental effectiveness, systemic change and potential for wholistic and civilized improvement as a disposable wrapper and legitimizing rationale for continuing the depletion and exploitation of the few remaining sites eventually with which the GBR may ultimately restore itself. Having worked, lived-in and loved this forest for much of my life, I can not pretend that its continued industrial depletion is any fashion sustainable.

The so-called agreement commits the RSP enviros to stay invested, to steward and spin the deal, to marginalize the deals opponents and to defend the certainty of forest liquidation and conversion which this agreement provides to the provincial government and its forest industry. Look on the PR glitz, rock, ice, high altitude vistas and areas of marginal forest protected from entirely uneconomic logging and realize that Burson Marsteller, NPR, Hill & Knowlton, Michael Marx and their rented celebrity enviros have delivered a corporate victory for the forest depletion business in BC and conned the media into warmly declaring environmentalism achieved.

Michael Major

The Dominion welcomes discussion, criticism, and commentary from readers. Letters can be sent to the Dominion by post or email. Letters may be edited for style, clarity and length; if there is a dispute, we will link to an unaltered version of the published letter.

Great Bear Deal is Defeat for Environmentalism

Wed, 08 Mar 2006 22:39:49 +0000

Herbert's "Bear of a Deal" in the Dominion. The Dominion purports to be a 'grassroots' newsletter, but Mr. Herberts article panders blatantly to all the big professional enviro-corp hype about what is basically an awful compromise/collaborationist sell-out of the world's largest remaining tract of temperate rainforest. This deal has produced a divisive schism within BC's once strong and united environmental movement, a minimal 30% protection featured in a shot-gun blast scatter of isolated refugia tufts amidst a future sea of ill-defined industrial logging, but it has also superceded and sacrificed important grass-roots protection work on all other areas of British Columbia forest.

People need to understand that the Weyerhaeuser's of the world (the largest logging company on the planet and a signatory to the deal) have only one single objective, and that is to provide the largest possible return to its investors. Weyerhaeuser investors don't buy into Weyerhaeuser because they think it's a progressive, green, ethical investment, but because they know that the corporation is expert at destroying the maximum amount of wilderness that it can get away with. Weyerhaeuser only talks to environmentalists when it knows that if it doesn't, its forest-consumption rate will be impacted. That means that BC's environmental movement was on track to severely damage Weyerhaeuser and its destructive logging ideology. We should have stayed the course.

Ten years ago, the BC environmental movement was a widely inclusive, diverse, predominantly grassroots effort which had accumulated a powerful stock of political capital from its tenacious obstructionist action against the destruction of BC's forests. More than 800 individual activists were arrested at Clayoquot Sound. We had a lot of traction towards turning around the voracious wanton destruction of our forests. Since then, this power has gradually slipped away, and now the BC enviro-movement is mired in apathetic intertia and neutered. The RSP groups spent 10 years negotiating secretly behind closed doors with Weyerhaeuser and ilk, and have sucked up the vast bulk of BC's enviro-buck. They agreed to suspend support for campaigns anywhere else while they worked on the deal, and grassroots efforts were starved and marginalized as a result. There is virtually no opposition to the destruction of forests going on anywhere in British Columbia today, and they are logging at the fastest, most voracious rate ever, and the have Greenwashed the future of logging, as yet an undefined pipe-dream of "EBM" in the GBR.

The RSP groups--Greenpeace, Sierra Club of BC, Forest Ethics and RAN have squandered all of BC's hard-won grass-roots capital in exchange for the GBR deal--certainly a deal which has enriched their professional organizations, but nevertheless, in the end, a shoddy tragic deal. Today, British Columbia's once-proud and effective grassroots volunteer activist community has been reduced to licking fundraising flyer envelopes in RSP offices and signing grovelling petitions destined straight for Gordon Campbell's shredder.

For some counterpoint to Mr. Herbert's article, please see:

Going, Going, Almost Gone: Compromise with a Chainsaw in the Forests of British Columbia

Ingmar Lee

Yuill Herbert responds:

Thank you for your response. On may points I agree with you. You make very clearly the point that this agreement is not perfect from an ecological perspective; I believe I reflected that in the article, highlighting both Suzuki Foundation and Raincoast Conservation Society's perspectives. I agree with your analysis of Weyerhauser; its aim is to maximise profits. Certainly the companies did not voluntarily enter into negotations, rather they were forced to the table by environmental activism, including actions such as yours at a shareholder meeting; I also pointed this out in the article. While I'm not sure about the inclusivity and diversity of the environmental movement during the Clayoquot protests, these protests clearly played a key role in setting the stage for the GBR negotiations; and I reflected that in the article.

I suspect your disappointment lies in its tone. And this highlights the fact that a writer is never neutral. In my opinion, the GBR deal is a significant milestone, but not a panacea, for the following reasons which I stand by; (1) it unarguably sets a new global precedent in terms of ecological protection for a region, (2)it has initiated steps to create a new type of management regieme that has the potential to transform the relationship between humans and the forest, (3) it represents a new level of respect for indigenous peoples in Canada and (4)the conservation fund initiates an innovative support mechanism both for people who are put out of work and for people without work in the region. Obviously, your opinion is considerably more severe. So long as it encourages people to aim higher, all the power to you.

I do think you have to be wary of over-simplifying the nature of the agreement; if for nothing else but to respect the work of a wide range of people in BC. The protected areas in the GBR were negotiated at two land use tables that included representatives from unions, small business, recreation, tourism, local government, provincial and federal governments (members are listed at:* http://srmwww.gov.bc.ca/cr/resource_mgmt/lrmp/cencoast/contacts.htm). *The consensus land use plan that came out of these tables was then negotiated between the provincial and first nations governments, who had developed their own land use plans, which was highly significant for the First Nations. So, at least from what I understand, it was not some sort of conspiracy between environmentalists and large corporations, but rather a complex, participatory process that involved representatives of a wide range of people that spanned a decade.

Yuill Herbert

I am very disappointed to read Yuill Herbert's "Bear of a Deal" in the Dominion. The Dominion purports to be a 'grassroots' newsletter, but Mr. Herberts article panders blatantly to all the big professional enviro-corp hype about what is basically...

A Bear Of A Deal

Mon, 06 Mar 2006 22:27:08 +0000

A decade of negotiations give way to an unprecedented agreement

The protected area is three times the size or Prince Edward Island. photo: The Coast Forest Conservation Initiative

In February, the Great Bear Rainforest agreement was announced in the media around the world; the story was printed in over a thousand newspapers, including coverage in India, Russia and China.

The agreement covers an area that represents 45 per cent of North America's three temperate rainforest ecoregions. New parks total 1.8 million hectares – more than three times the size of Prince Edward Island. Another 4.6 million hectares are subject to a strict new management regime that puts the ecosystem first.

The Great Bear Rainforest contains the world's largest tracts of intact temperate rainforest, and it is home to spawning runs for 20 per cent of the world's remaining wild salmon. The area is so rich in wildlife and flora that biologists have compared it to the Galapagos Islands and the Amazon jungles. The agreement means that habitat for endangered species including grizzlies, the total population of 400 white "spirit" bears, coastal wolves, peregrine falcons, and the Northern Goshawk is preserved.

Unprecedented collaboration

In 1993, following protests and blockades, the British Columbia government announced the Clayoquot compromise – a deal that protected 33 per cent of the region, leaving the rest to be logged. The decision sparked the largest act of civil disobedience in Canada's history; that summer more than 850 people were arrested. First Nations were not consulted and the communities remain divided over logging in Clayoquot Sound.

The focus shifted to the Great Bear Rainforest with its hundreds of pristine and intact watersheds. In a high profile international campaign, a collaboration of environmental groups forced the customers of the companies operating in the Great Bear Rainforest to cancel contracts. Over 80 companies, including Ikea, Home Depot, Staples and IBM, committed to stop selling wood and paper products made from ancient forests.

As a result of the market pressure lumber companies on the coast began to shift their approach and agreed to sit down with the environmental groups.

"It was tough in the beginning, but everyone agreed in the end," says Lisa Matthaus of the Sierra Club. "People came to accept that they no longer had the social licence to log in the way or in the places that they were, so it had to change."

The Joint Solutions Project was formed in 2000 as an initiative between coastal forest companies and a coalition of environmental groups including ForestEthics, Sierra Club of BC, Greenpeace and Rainforest Action Network.

While a land use plan was being developed, the coastal forest industry agreed to stop logging in exchange for a hold on the environmental groups' market campaigns. They then agreed to create a team of international and local scientists to create ecosystem-based management (EBM) for the coastal forests using the best available conservation biology. Environmental groups and industry each raised $600,000 to support this process with provincial and federal governments providing the remainder.

Two multi-stakeholder processes had been mandated by the province to develop land use plans for the Great Bear Rainforest region. The Joint Solutions Project fed the conclusions of its scientific work into this process.

Meanwhile, but separately, the David Suzuki Foundation was working with a group of eight coastal First Nations in an initiative called the Turning Point to develop a set of principles for EBM. To many coastal First Nations, EBM represents a scientific articulation of thousands of years of cultural practice and traditional resource use.

photo: savethegreatbear.org

The area that is not protected will be managed according to the EBM process. "This is a transformation of what happens in the British Columbia forest," Merran Smith of ForestEthics says. "The revolution is looking at a standing forest not as a commodity, but as an economic model based on conservation."

The BC government took the land use plans developed by the multi-stakeholder committees and entered into unprecedented government-to-government negotiations with the First Nations, who had developed their own land use plans. The final outcome is a compromise between the two parties.

"It's a cultural shift," says Shawn Kenmuir, an area manager for Triumph Timber, which has already forsaken old clear-cut practices and begun consulting with the Gitga'at before cutting on their traditional lands. "We've started the transition from entitlement to collaboration."

Many areas that will be preserved have been chosen based on the oral tradition of native groups and the opinions of their elders. These include areas with cultural significance such as ancient cemeteries, or areas that contain medicinal herbs and cedars big enough to make totem poles, canoes and longhouses.

"We are [excited]. We all [coastal First Nations] came together and agreed to something that hasn't happened for a long time", says Ross Wilson, chairman of the tribal council of the Heiltsuk, one of the native nations involved.

"Now we can manage our destiny. Without this agreement, we would be going to court forever and we would have to put our children and old ladies dressed in button blankets in the way of the chain saws."

Transforming the economy

"For all the First Nations the value to protect the Great Bear Rainforest is utmost, not only for cultural and environmental but also for economic reasons," says Ross Wilson. To emphasize the economic benefits of preservation, he adds, "The hunter comes in and pays a lot for one night but you can never see that bear again; with wildlife viewing, as long as that bear lives you can have tourism activities that happen year after year."

This philosophy is supported by an innovative $120 million endowment to support the creation of a conservation economy in the Great Bear Rainforest. It includes: $30 million contributed by the BC government to help ease the transition of impacted forestry workers; $60 million raised by the US-based Nature Conservancy from donors and foundations; and a $30 million contribution from the federal government.

The endowment includes a Coast Conservation Fund that will invest in skills development and monitoring amongst First Nations to guarantee the implementation of the Great Bear Agreement. A Coast Economic Development Fund will invest in shellfish aquaculture, cruise-ship tourism, sustainable forestry, conservation activities, fisheries, high-end lodge tourism, and pine mushroom harvesting, potentially creating up to 1700 new jobs.

In addition, Vancouver-based credit union VanCity will create an innovative fund with up to $80 million dollars from socially responsible investors for sustainable economic initiatives on the coast.

Challenges Remain

Environmental groups acknowledge that challenges remain. It is not clear what EBM will actually look like on the ground. A number of First Nations groups have yet to sign government-to-government agreements.

Both the David Suzuki Foundation and the Raincoast Conservation Society point out that the agreement does not meet the minimum target of 44 per cent protection that the scientific body indicated was required to ensure that biodiversity is maintained.

"Raincoast supports the legislating of the proposed protected areas, but the province should do so with the full knowledge and recognition that lasting protection of the Great Bear Rainforest will require additional steps and commitment from all parties," says Raincoast Conservation Society's executive director, Chris Genovali.

The entire population of the spirit bear lives in the Great Bear Rainforest photo: Forest Ethics

And, as the Globe and Mail article pointed out, if the lifting of the oil and gas moratorium on the BC coast will mean that supertankers loaded with tar sands oil enter the Queen Charlottes basin, then an ecosystem that is inextricably linked with the ocean will be endangered.

"Greenpeace will be watching to see if the British Columbian government follows through on these commitments and takes this opportunity to make the Great Bear Rainforest a global model of forest sustainability," says Amanda Carr, forest campaigner for Greenpeace Canada.

Ecosystem-Based Management Guiding Principles
Ecological Integrity Is Maintained: Biological richness and the ecosystem services provided by natural terrestrial and marine processes are sustained at all scales through time.
Wellbeing Is Promoted: A diversity of economic opportunities is key to healthy communities and sustainable economies.
Cultures, Communities, and Economies Are Sustained within the Context of Healthy Ecosystems: This idea of entrenching a demand for both human wellbeing and ecosystem integrity veers sharply away from thinking in terms of a "trade-off" between people and the environment.
Aboriginal Rights and Title Are Recognized and Accommodated: First Nations assert aboriginal rights and title to the lands and resources within their territories.
The Precautionary Principle Is Applied: the proponent of change in the ecosystem should err on the side of caution, and the onus is on the proponent to show that ecological risk thresholds are not exceeded.
EBM Is Collaborative: Collaborative processes are broadly participatory; respect the diverse values, traditions, and aspirations of local communities, and incorporate the best of existing knowledge (traditional, local, and scientific).
People Have a Fair Share of the Benefits from the Ecosystems in Which They Live: In the past, the burdens imposed on the local communities by externally driven activities have been greater than the benefits the communities have received.

Source: Coast Information Team (2004): Ecosystem-based Management Framework.

After over a decade of negotiations, environmental groups, industry, First Nations and the Canadian government have come to an unprecedented agreement discovers Yuill Herbert

The Blockade Between Hope and Destruction

Tue, 21 Jun 2005 21:54:18 +0000

Grassy Narrows, Abitibi Consolidated and the Canadian Governments

Chief Saskatcheway, who was chief when Treaty Three was signed, appears on flags and other designs. Photo: Macdonald Stainsby

Many years before the arrival of the white man to the land of the Anishinabe Nation, there was a prophecy that when the white people arrived, they would bring the destruction of the forests and the land that sustains the Anishinabe people. When Montréal-based Abitibi Consolidated began logging the land in the late 1980s, the sound of the machines was enough to cause great concern for many elders.

Years of massive clearcutting took a serious toll on the Anishinabe population living in Grassy Narrows. In 1996, members of the nation decided that it was time to try and do something about it.

Initially, Abitibi held open houses and public gatherings in the nearby settlement town of Kenora, Ontario. In an attempt to deal with the loss of forests to Abitibi, some concerned Anishinabe people attended the consultations and tried to dialogue with Abitibi. The concerns of Indians living with the land were not addressed. Several more steps marked a slow but inevitable escalation. When Abitibi held shareholder meetings, some Anishinabe set up pickets outside; letters were written; petitions were signed.

These were either ignored or treated as a minor nuisance. Meanwhile, the centuries-old prophecy took on a deadly accuracy.

For many years, logging went on in the Whiskey Jack forest without generating much concern. People knew the loggers were working there. People tending their traplines would often hitch rides on back roads with logging-truck. At the time, the logging was selective and not deeply damaging; the operations did not directly gouge the land.

When Abitibi introduced clearcut logging practices to the area, however, the devastation to the entire ecosystem was immediately apparent. When a forest is clearcut, nothing is left except a few trees deemed not profitable enough to cut by the corporation. Moss, mushrooms and the soil itself are torn up, exposing giant patches of barren land.

"I'm not against logging," says Joe Fobister of the Anishinabe Nation. "I'm against how they're doing it, and who is doing it, making millions of dollars off of our land and leaving us nothing."

A shelter near blockade sites, built by volunteers from support groups in Winnipeg and Toronto. Photo: Macdonald Stainsby

"This land is so wealthy. It's our land, and yet we remain the poorest of the poor."

This view is not a monolithic one. The youth, in pushing for more permanent forms of resistance, carried a simple slogan: No negotiations, no compensation, no more clearcutting.

The reason for the first part of the quote is that a) Abitibi wanted to talk while continuing to work in the Whiskey Jack forest, and b) the negotiations that were being proposed involved corporations such as Abitibi, inherently giving them nation-level legitimacy, something that many Anishinabe from Grassy Narrows reject.

Part of the blame, says Fobister, should be laid at the feet of a corrupt band council that acts on behalf of the settler state of Canada.

"The council and the chief make a good living, and get a very good income. In this very poor community, that's why people join the council. They have no real power, but they are scared to risk their funding," he explains. This dynamic — the creation of a de facto ruling comprador class of Indians to implement colonial expropriation of resources — is an all-too-familiar refrain in Nations that resist the assimilationalist policies of Canada and refuse to give up their land to corporations like Abitibi.

Fobister continues, "They are not there for the good of the people, but simply for an income."

The entire Whiskey Jack forest is part of the homeland of the Anishinabe Nation. As Abitibi's work has progressed, the land has been damaged. To date, slightly more than half of the Whiskey Jack forest has been destroyed.

"When they destroy the land, they are attacking my spirituality," explains Fobister. He describes how deer like the grasses that grow in areas recently clearcut, and deposit copious droppings in the area. These droppings enters the water, which the moose drink, causing a brain disease very similar to mad cow disease. Anishinabe People might eat these moose with potential dire effects.

"I used to be comfortable in the bush, but I'm not anymore," says Fobister. "The bears are acting very strangely and are no longer afraid of people; they don't just run away when they see you."

Meeting with people on the reserve, the greatest threat to the health of the nation becomes apparent: clearcut logging causes massive soil erosion, and this in turn releases a normally non-threatening natural form of mercury. This mercury ends up in the water - the water supply of the reserve - as well as in the animals, fish in particular. The Anishinabe nation depends on the land, eating and harvesting the animals and fish as they have for thousands of years.

"Some people have the shakes. [This one elder], his arm shakes badly when he's trying to do something and he can't stop it. You can also lose your sight [from the mercury]. The ones who trap and fish off the land get it especially," explained Ashopenace. "We take it very seriously when someone loses a trapline [to clearcuts] or when more contamination comes in. We hear that more mercury is supposed to come by soon."

Here, one can witness the poisons draining the life out of the people, one at a time. The Canadian and Ontarian governments have done nothing to address the poisoning and the ecological devastation caused by the clearcutting.

The site of the original blockade, which still stands. Photo: Macdonald Stainsby

Several women from the nation delivered an ultimatum to Abitibi workers inside the Whiskey Jack forest in February 2003. After protests at the Montreal head office of Abitibi did not elicit any response, some members of the community decided to symbolically demonstrate their power to the corporate giant. A plan was launched to blockade the logging roads where Abitibi had access to the forests. Several women from the nation delivered a notice: if you have not evacuated the forest by 5 PM tomorrow, you will be blockaded in and you will not get out.

The workers left.

The Anishinabe youth have been among the strongest voices advocating for the rights of the Nation and the preservation of both the land and their traditional means of using it. They argued persuasively that a one-day symbolic protest and blockade would not be enough to deter Abitibi in any real way. They argued for a complete shut down of the forest roads period, thus bringing an end to logging - at least for the time being.

Ashopenace remarks, "We [the youth] already wanted to do something more, we knew that one day wouldn't be enough. We wanted to do more damage. [Now] we are slowing them down and reducing their profits."

It was only after a year of round-the-clock rotating blockades that Abitibi saw a need to talk to the people who live in Grassy Narrows.

"We fed them and tried to get them to relax, but you could see they were still very nervous to be here," explains Ashopenace.

He describes the corporate representatives' defence of their logging practices: "Abitibi said they are trying to provide economic development for the community." He says, "It was hard to hear the debate because the youth were openly laughing at how ridiculous the arguments were. The argument was that Abitibi doesn't have obligations because the treaty [Treaty 3] was between Canada and Anishinabe and had nothing to do with them." When it comes to responsibility for the poisoning of the community, their food supply, the animals and the land itself, "Abitibi blames a paper mill that comes out of Dryden [approximately 200 kilometers away from Grassy Narrows] and says 'you need to talk with them.'"

The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) has the official responsibility to uphold environmental regulations. While MNR holds jurisdiction, regulations allow for almost all mining, forestry, oil drilling and similar resource extraction work is "assessed" by the very same company that wishes to dig, drill, cut and so on.

In Canada, the fox is in charge of the henhouse.

Chief Saskatcheway, previous to the Indian Act, signed treaty 3 from the traditional, non-hierarchical political system that many nations including the Anishinabe practiced before the imposition of the band council system. It was not interpreted or understood by the nation — who then decided on such matters by consensus - as a surrender of title or land. To this day, the elders maintain that they would not have signed any such treaty.

The legacy of Treaty 3 is still disputed. Yet, not even the Canadian government's own interpretation of the treaty is honored. Members of the Nation are trying to challenge the rights of Ontario, Abitibi or Canada itself to claim the Nation's land for themselves.

Fobister speaks about dealing with Abitibi about this challenge: "They are afraid that if we can control our land, if we can prove it is ours and always has been, that this will mean the same thing elsewhere, that then other nations will follow."

"I told them that that's their problem, not mine," he adds.

The idea of having talks at all with Abitibi— rather than the state of Canada—continues to be problematic. Many nationals point out that even talking to Abitibi at a table that includes both the nations of Anishinabe and Canada confers on a forestry corporation the same status as a nation. The only legitimate talks, say many Anishinabe, would take place between the governments who make laws.

But for the Canadian government, it appears that Nation to Nation talks between the Anishinabe and Canada must be avoided at all costs. If Abitibi were accountable to the law of the land as negotiated between Nations, it would establish the de facto existence of the Anishinabe as a Nation. Judging by the government's across-the-board intransigence in sovereignty negotiations, this would be a worst case scenario for the colonial state. But talks have continued, meetings still get held and money is even accepted in the short term from Abitibi, in exchange for continuation of operations.

"Those who want a deal are operating for today, just to get the money, and not even that much money really," explains Judy Da Silva. "It is the youth and others who blockade that are thinking long term, thinking about the future, about preserving the forest, our traditions with the land and our way of life."

Roberta Keesick makes the case more bluntly.

"The government wants us off the land, they want us to be assimilated," she states. "They don't want us to be who we are."

Ashopenace explains the dynamic.

"With the destruction of the forests, it's our whole way of life and culture that's getting sick." He describes areas in the Whiskey Jack forest that might hold the key to the ancient history of his people.

"[In the Whiskey Jack Forest] there are some historical rock paintings that are thousands of years old. These are in areas we call virgin land. If Abitibi continues doing what they are doing, with their roads, their cutting and so on, we might lose these."

His assessment is severe.

"What Canada is doing is ignoring us when we try to bring attention to how our rights are being violated. The world needs to open their eyes as to how Canada really is."

Many say there are only three options to deal with the social problems and poverty of the Nation. First, people could accept the clearcutting as "economic development", and try to secure temporary work while the land and their connection to it is decimated. Second, they could try to develop eco-tourism as a means of using their knowledge of the land to bring in much needed dollars, but at the risk of commercializing their own history and reducing themselves once again to a secondary role in their own woods and waterways. The third option is for things to remain as they are, with people living subsistence lives with no jobs and little income.

A fourth option defies orthodoxy, but is becoming more appealing as the situation deteriorates with little recourse for those stuck in a colonial system of governance. The people could take control of their lands back from the Canadian state and assert their right to self-determination in accordance with prior treaties and international law on the preservation of National culture. This fourth option involves nothing short of decolonizing the Nation of Anishinabe.

For anyone who visits, it is clear that the process is already underway.

One of the most remarkable changes to come from the last few years of blockades has been the increased self-confidence of the Anishinabe people. By taking matters into their own hands, they have taken back a modicum of control over their own destiny.

The area near where the main blockade was originally established is now a common gathering place for many purposes, whether praying at the sacred fire in the wigwam or to roast wieners on the large open firepit a few feet from the site of the first blockade.

I was sitting by that firepit one night with an eight-year old girl from the Nation, and I asked her a few questions.

"How do you feel about the blockade?"

"I feel good," she answered.

What do you want Abitibi and the government to do?"

"I want them to stop logging."

"What do you think will happen if they don't stop logging?"

"Then my mommy will have to keep on warring," she said.

Then abruptly, she got out of the chair and ran off to play with other kids and her puppy. As the sun set near the blockade, the roar of the machines of Abitibi remained absent from the Anishinabe Whiskey Jack forest for another day. And the sun always rises again.

Macdonald Stainsby discusses the history of the blockades and the struggle for self-determination at Grassy Narrows.

Haida Block Roads, Seize Lumber from Weyerhaeuser

Sat, 02 Apr 2005 01:46:44 +0000

Haida protesters say they have seized an estimated $50 million worth of cut timber from Weyerhaeuser Corp. Around a hundred members of the Haida nation were already blocking roads that access the American corporation's log-sorting yards.

"We hope we can use this money to get hospitals here... and all our schools are in debt because they've been funded like everywhere else in the province," Guujaaw, president of the Council of the Haida Nation, was quoted as saying.

In a communiqué, the demonstrators said that the province of British Columbia has disobeyed a Supreme Court order that requires the Haida nation to be consulted on resource use, pending claims of Aboriginal title over the land in question, and it has given "almost all regulatory authority over to the forest industry." They also say that the provincial government has ignored their local land use planning process, "issuing cutting permits in areas that are needed for purposes other than logging."

"Weyerhaeuser was going in and grabbing whatever they could on their way out the door," Guujaaw was quoted as saying. "We had a contract with them and they broke it."

According to archaelogical evidence, the Haida have inhabited Haida Gwaii (sometimes called the Queen Charlotte Islands) for at least 5,000 years; they claim 10,000 years of history there. The Haida say that their culture and way of life are intrinsically tied to the islands.

"You cannot buy the lifestyle we have with money," Guujaaw has said.

Weyerhaeuser, which is currently transferring its harvesting rights of 3.6 million cubic metres of public land timber to the multinational conglomerate Brascan. Based in Federal Way, Washington, Weyerhaeuser has 55,000 employees in 18 countries and controls 30.5 million acres of Canadian forest. The company's website mentions its "high ethical standards, a century of leadership and team-oriented culture." Weyerhaeuser had USD $19.8 billion in revenues in 2003, almost double the company's take ten years ago.

Toronto-based Brascan had net revenues of $688 million in 2004. Brascan's stock fell 74 cents on the day of the Haida seizure.

» The Dominion: The Struggle for Haida Gwaii

» CBC Vancouver: Haida set up blockades on Queen Charlottes

» CBC Vancouver: Haida protests escalate

» Gwaii Sgaanawaay Siigaa Iijaa: Why is this action taking place?

» CBC Vancouver: Brascan and Weyerhaeuser in $1.2B deal

» Weyerhaeuser Corp.

» Brascan Corp.

Forbidden Film

Thu, 24 Mar 2005 05:57:29 +0000

Multinational corporations and New Brunswick's forests

Illustration by Sylvia Nickerson

About three years ago, Kevin Matthews and a friend rented a 4x4 pickup truck and headed North up a logging road. Matthews has worked with forest communities all over the world, from Chile to Costa Rica to Malaysia, but on this day his aim was to discover the true state of the forests in his home province of New Brunswick. What he found confirmed his worst fears, "Though there are bits of the original and beautiful Acadian Forest that still stand, most of it is in a depleted and ruinous state."

Matthews felt that others needed to see what he had witnessed on New Brunswick's remote logging roads. The result is Forbidden Forest, a documentary directed by Matthews who hopes it will provide a starting point "from which people can begin to regain control of their communities and their resources."

The film opens in Helsinki, which is surprising considering it is a documentary about New Brunswick's forests, but this makes sense once the viewer understands that one third of the province's Crown land is controlled by a Finnish multinational. The movie's heroes - Acadian woodlot owner Jean Guy Comeau, and artist and winemaker Francis Wishart - are in Finland to attend the shareholders meeting of UPM---one of the world's largest paper companies. "Both [characters] are in Finland to demand some accountability for the impact the company is having on the people and the environment of New Brunswick," explains Matthews. And so begins the bizarre tale of the 'little guy,' who seeks accountability in a foreign boardroom for the management of the forests in his own backyard.

Five multinational corporations hold the licenses to all of New Brunswick's Crown land, explains David Coon, Policy Director for the Conservation Council of New Brunswick (CCNB) and a story consultant for Forbidden Forest. Just two of these corporations, the New Brunswick-based Irving Company and the Finnish based UPM-Kymmene, control nearly two thirds of this publicly owned forest. UPM and Irving also process the wood fiber, "When you put them [wood product manufacturing corporations] in charge of managing the forest then it becomes an industrial process like anything else," explains Coon. "The management wants to supply fiber to the mills as cheaply and quickly and simply as possible...regardless of the impacts on employment and local economic development."

The result, according to Coon, is that the forests are not only being cut down at an astonishing rate but have also been "shut down" as a viable way for people to earn a livelihood. "There are far fewer people working in the woods now than there used to be. And those who are working in the woods -operating the machinery - are having a lot of trouble making a reasonable income." As one woodworker in the film puts it, "They're going to cut everything down. The big corporations don't care about us."

"Forbidden Forest shows the global reach and local impact of multinational corporations," says Matthews. "But it also shows how governments are no longer serving the public interest, but rather serving the public up to the corporations. This is part of an ongoing global process of transferring public wealth or assets into private hands."

The fact that the Irving family has a virtual monopoly over the print media in the province, serves to both illustrate and compound the problem of corporate control. "Mainstream media has gotten worse and worse at providing citizens with a window on what's going on," says Coon. As a result, viewers of Forbidden Forest might be surprised to see protests made up almost entirely of middle aged men - hardly the stereotypical tree hugger - demanding fairer working conditions in the woods. They might also be surprised to see clear-cuts devastated by heavy machinery in a province that is reported to have 'some of the best forest management in North America." Then again, maybe they won't be surprised at all.

"I do think that most people know that there is something not right about what is going on out on Crown land." says Matthews. "They may not be able to express it exactly, but I believe they know in their gut there is something wrong."

"People long to hear the truth about what is happening in the world around them," says Matthews. "I think the reason that there has been a growing interest in documentaries is because commercial TV and cinema pump out so much material that is out of touch with reality. Documentaries reflect a reality or truth that is closer to what people live and feel."

Despite the rise in popularity of the documentary, Matthews says that making films like Forbidden Forest is harder than ever, "Since the growth of the 'commercial' broadcast industry it has become harder to make movies or tell stories about the issues that I might find more important to tell, as opposed to making TV content for the sake of the greatest commercial return," explains Matthews who says most documentaries, with the exception of recent films like Fahrenheit 9/11 and Supersize Me are not big money makers. "This year, for example, the National Film Board (NFB), a public institution, has had its budget cut again. Yet, I don't think that Forbidden Forest would ever have been produced without the basic and significant support of the NFB."

Ironically, Matthews fears that it is because of films like Forbidden Forest which rely on government funding, that the NFB continues to have its budget cut, "When you think about the capitalists/industrialists having more influence then ever in Ottawa, who would want someone making movies that exposed the truth about how the public wealth is being transferred to private hands?"

Hillary Lindsay talks to Director Kevin Matthews about his latest documentary, Forbidden Forest