Good post, Jim. Another variant of that Freedom of Invitation, Free/Corporate Press, story currently working it was through a number of different angles on Tyee.

I mean, what the Hell did we do for a free, balanced and objective media before there was Tyee. I mean, the Stone Age Media is still with us, but pre-Tyee it was ALL Stoneage.

Our Brownshirts here are a demonstration of that: We even allow the Stone Age in politics in here. And well we should, as they move towards extinction.

No need for names. :-) They know who they are. :-D

This story isn’t new. Essentially it’s a recasting of eco-econo-politico stage plays that featured in the ‘60s, but with a cast of different directors and different actors. Unfortunattely, they never made it much past the first curtain call then, and today’s billing is bound to become no more than just another tragicomedy.

The story of the Land of Sustainable Economic Development simply doesn’t have a believable script. It’s oxymoronic. It’s like a sexual predator telling the victim not to worry; somehow the condom will make rape less harmful.

"I mean, what the Hell did we do for a free, balanced and objective media before there was Tyee."
wow! now that's outside the box. laugh my ass off. no fool like an old fool dogman.

The GBR story should have been an apology from the referenced enviros for wasting precious time and blocking public consideration of more serious GBR conservation initiatives such developed by Suzuki, Raincoast and Valhalla. They should be apologizing for their idiotic optimism that participation in a strategic PR initiative to greenwash the coastal forest industry could be translated into anything other than further privileges and subsidies for a coddled industry. But there is one positive outcome to these naive enviros quitting the field. Nothing other than the forest industry's perverse addiction to old growth timber will now stand in the way of forcing it to survive entirely on the second growth forests that now owerwhelm the landscape. Old growth forest liquidation and conversion forestry is finished in coastal BC if we can now stop government from subsidizing this perverse industrial addiction. The end of industrial logging of coastal old growth is the end of the privilege of profitable timber value-subtraction. When industry can no longer profit by subtracting value from timber we will see a resurgence in value-added processing and an affirmative market for log and lumber processing opportunities. The real environmentalists wanted to bring this about while there was still some old growth forest left. Maybe its not too late right now.

Touchwood/

Big Industry & Big Enviro Embedded in BC

Ingmar Lee

Special to the Victoria Times Colonist

April 14, 2005

Last week, The Land Conservancy and the Capital Regional District announced that the much-beloved Sooke Potholes had been protected forever in a 156 hectare park. Meanwhile, on that very day, directly across the Sooke River, TimberWest fallers were mowing down 40 hectares of spectacular ancient Douglas fir forest, all the way down to 10 metres away from the most fabulous stretch of Potholes.

Two weeks ago, the Campbell government and American logging giant, Weyerhaeuser announced that 140 hectares was being added to Cathedral Grove park. Not mentioned: most of the acquisition is a logged-out stumpfield, basically a tax-burden wasteland for Weyerhaeuser, now unloaded onto BC tax-payers.

What's wrong with this picture? Southeastern Vancouver Island's ancient fir forest has been 95% exterminated in 150 years of logging. The second pass is even more voracious, with Weyerhaeuser and TimberWest logging 30 year-old trees to supply their scandalous 1,000,000 cubic-metre raw-log exports annually. Deer populations are down 80% in the last decade, salmon runs are at a trickle and Canada's most endangered specie, the Vancouver Island marmot is virtually extinct, while wolves, cougar and Golden eagles take the blame. Does anyone care about Vancouver Island's fir forests?

Well, not our biggest professional environmental institutions, namely Greenpeace, the BC Sierra Club, Forest Ethics and the Rainforest Action Network, known collectively as the Rainforest Solutions Project (RSP). Vancouver Island was abandoned for a behind-closed-doors deal with the logging industry over the 'Great Bear Rainforest' (GBR). In spite of an independent scientific panel conclusion that 40 - 60% of the largest remaining tract of temperate rainforest must be protected, RSP has settled for just 21% of the GBR. RSP members won't criticize Weyerhaeuser, Interfor, Canfor, Norske Skog and Western anywhere else in the province in exchange for the deal. Which explains what is happening to our island.

The logging industry has done their homework and has been reading from Burson-Marstellar-type PR manuals about "How to Co-opt your Pesky Local Enviro-org" and they are following the advice to the letter. The results are astounding. Last year at Weyerhaeuser's AGM, CEO Steve Rogel flashed up the RSP member logos on his power-point, describing them as "Weyerhaeuser's BC Partners." Last week, RSP members stooped to accept a "ForestLeadership Award" at a gala Toronto event key-noted by the notorious logging and fish-farm apologist, Patrick Moore himself. This week, the Conservation Voters of BC, which is advised by senior members of the same groups, endorsed SRM Minister George Abbott, apparently for his services on the GBR file. Anyone watching BC's enviro-scene knows that Abbott is as green as an oil slick.

Compromise-collaborationist environmentalism is taking British Columbia by storm. Big Industry and Big Enviro are firmly embedded. BC's professional enviro's stand by on the sidelines and watch while volunteer grass-roots citizens take action and do the dirty work. Charitable status, agreements with funders and backroom arrangements with industry preclude involvement by BC's environmental institutions in any direct action or civil disobedience. Now they await the final fate of their GBR deal.

Campbell's environmental record is in the toilet, but shovelling money just isn't greening up what's in there. People know that the global ecological catastrophe is driven by his style of government. He badly needs a green announcement. Will Gordon Campbell buy into the Great Bear Rainforest compromise as yet another pathetic pre-election goody? Will he be endorsed by the Conservation Voters of BC?

Meanwhile, demoralized, horrified and heartbroken BC nature lovers look north with admiration to Haida Gwaii, where Guujaw and the Haida Nation, with widespread community support are demonstrating exactly what it takes to expunge our province of the Weyerhaeusers and TimberWests of the world, and their government lackeys. Three cheers to the Haida! Would that we had that kind of leadership.

Ingmar Lee is a Student of Asian and Environmental Studies at UVic. He has planted trees in BC's coastal clearcuts for 21 years.

Backup referrences:

RAN statement on GBR:

http://www.buygoodwood.com/greatbear.html.

RSP GBR website:

http://www.savethegreatbear.org/

Conservation Voters of BC website:

http://www.conservationvoters.ca/31.3

ForestLeadership Awards:

http://www.forestleadership.com/article.php3?id_article=89

I think that some enviros and some preceding comments are forgetting the fact that the Central Coast Land & Resource Management Plan must work for the First Nations.

Regardless of what kind of development takes place, First Nations should see some of the benefits. Up until now, millions of dollars have been gained from the resources of the Central Coast, but little has gone to First Nation communities. The goal of self-governmnet is not possible without that government having a source of revenue-just ask any municipal Mayor and Council.

I also do not think that the philanthropist money from the United States is something to crow about, or use as a negotiating ploy-my understanding is that those dollars have "strings" attached.

As long as society accepts the premise that sustainability includes growth, and that growth will be fuelled by fossils (fuel that is, texas tea .... and that the fossil fuel supply is limitless; we will continue to see degraded ecologies.

Our impact on the land, air and sea will only lessen when we learn our lesson and run out of fossil fuel. Only then will "we" realize that "our" way of life was not sustainable. Of course by then for many it will be too late.

Ask yourself, whatever the plans are-whether to harvest trees or protect them and bring vistors there (i.e. ecotourism)-are the plans based on the assumption that gasoline will be 0.90 cents a litre in 5 years?

freebear

First Nations' interests are exemplified by what has happened in the Naas. Logging the hell out of it. To believe that the indians would be in any way better stewards of the land is asinine. It's all about money. Ecology be damned. Vote Lieberal.

"no one owns their land, they simply borrow it from their grandchildren"

Weyerhauser is the most morally corrupt rapist in North America, and must not be allowed in any more BC forests.

In my mind, for what little it's worth, the singlemost defining characteristic of this government is it's ability to discard concensus-based resource-sharing agreements. I've seen a slew of such agreements LRUPs, recreation accords, and the like, all getting tossed.

I can't tell if it's because the government gets a kick out of screwing people over, or if it's scared to set a precedent where decisions aren't based on an exchange of favours. Or perhaps it's simply that they're afraid to be compared to Mike Harcourt who was quite good at concensus-based progress.

And I have to say, looking to the Times Colonist for your pointers on how to improve environmental practice, is, well, funny.

Sad, but tommymoore has a point. The colour of a person's skin and hair is no guarantee of any particular type of ethic. We do tend at times to paint a patina of romanticism on all things "first nations". Most first nations adults are about eighty to a hundred years away from the original culture. For most of that time they have been harrassed by not always polite urgings to "get a job, ya welfare bum". The residential schools guaranteed generation after generation would in no way be educated and equipped for work as rocket scientists or brain surgeons and for years, even generations , it was against the law of our fair land for "them" to be employed in certain professions, trades, or industries. Most were educated only to be a vast pool of cheap manual labour. Throw in fifty or sixty years of every possible kind of abuse of children, add some incest and substance addiction, and you can hardly claim to be sane if you expect an overnight turn-around and for the survivors of genocide to suddenly become OUR saviours.

As my thirteen year old Moachat grandson would say "Get a grip, eh?"

The Haida have been working steadily since before the Lyell Island blockade to overcome the crippling burden placed on them by the missionaries and government lackeys. Their stand today is not a flash in the pan but a very carefully thought out and well planned politically savvy move. Their analysis is flawless.

And it is downright stupid to expect that all of a sudden every brown-skinned person is going to share that analysis.

Today's adults were trained not only in Residential concentration camps but they were carefully coached by DIA to follow a particular type of political system which has bugger-nothing to do with traditional culture. The present band council set-up is at best flawed, at worst corrupt and it is no accident. Helpful young non-native "consultants" made sure the political setup would be a mess. Our government paid those guys in suits to ensure that mess.

We can all trot out examples of horrendous logging done by native crews, bands, and nations. We have no dearth of horror stories about fish poaching, illegal sales and downright waste.

Too many people yelled "get a job, bum". So they have them, in dying industries where they are the last hired and first fired.

Yeah, probably the Nass is being clearcut in a shoddy manner. About forty years ago most of the Nass was felled and the majority of what was dropped was left on the ground, only the best was high-graded. The logging company forester who was in charge of that was made Minister of Forests by the Social Credit government.

Nobody is going to save our bacon for us. If we want action we have to be willing to take action.

It seems sirjohna has the same problm as his namesake, too much of the bottle.

What amazes me about the whole GBR debate is just how much criticism the Rainforest Solutions Project or enviro coalition gets for its tactics and the work its done. How many people whining in the Lower Mainland have sat through umpteen hours of land-use planning committee meetings? Dull, divisive, consensus based meetings? How many other enviro groups have worked to save THAT much forest and that many number of watersheds (somewhat, thanks to the Liberals stalling) successfully? Consensus agreement among these diverse actors (logging companies, enviros, First Nations, fishers, hunters, miners, other industry, community members, and government) is going to result in a strong agreement but one that has some shortfalls to all groups involved. I would argue too that this agreement for the GBF isn't the end of the story but a beginning on the road to preserving even more of it. For those critical and bitchy about the enviro side of the agreement, get off your butt and sit through your own land-use planning agreements, come to the sparsely populated northwest and devise your own 'agreeable' advocacy tactics, and vote for an agreement that will at least preserve SOME of the coastal forest.