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North to South: A Pacific Northwest Travel Guide
for Forest Activists
British Columbia:
What’s the
difference Between Forests in the US vs. Canada?
The forests north of the US border are not much different than the forests of Washington State. The vast inlets and sounds of coastal British Columbia are of the same ecosystem of Washington’s Puget Sound. The biggest difference is that this northern land is different country. Protocols of our national relations do much to separate the forest activist cultures in this region. Canada is a lesser than to the US in terms of the global commodities market. Tariffs and trade wars, International forest defense groups, along with a land mass bigger than all the US PNW forests put together makes British Columbia a place with a last wild frontier akin to a 3rd world country. Grassroots forest defenders in BC have built strong coalition with activists working to form global forest policy. But US activists on the other hand rarely go outside the US box. US grassroots activists have a preoccupation with there own county, state and federal jurisdictions. Where BC activism is more influenced by provincial and global-oriented activist groups. BC has not conquered its wilds like its 1st world neighbor who has all but tamed its southern share of the PNW. British Columbia North of Vancouver is the joining together of the Rocky Mountain range with the Cascade range. The land is hugfe in comparison to the scale of US lands. BC still has whole river valleys that are entirely intact, entirely ancient wild forest.
Trade War:
Forests get saved in British
Columbia not only in activist circles, but also in lumber market disputes.
While US Republicans want every tree in their own country turned into a stump,
they have publicly objected to the cutting Canada’s forest. BC’s plentiful
supply of old growth wood is a threat to the sale of America’s mostly
low-quality second-growth logs. The Bush Administration’s large import tariffs
imposed on Canada at the onset of the Bush administration continues to
escalate. The huge export duties have not only sparked free trade challenges,
but also irony in the media as it relates to Canada’s support
for the proposed war in Iraq.
It seems US politicians
representing their own timber constituents have become advocates for forest
protection in Canada. They claim weak environmental laws in Canada is
over-subsidizing the industry, they claim it allows their neighbor to dump
lumber on the US market. This trade war would be far more volatile if it
weren’t for the sluggish times of oversupply in the world timber market. The BC
timber industry got through these first years of harsh trade tariffs by giving up on short-term plans to go after
its vast remaining holdings. They have also taken severe measures to downsize
not only the Ministry of Forests, which administers the clearcutting, as well
as downsize their production facilities. All these efficiency kept the industry
solvent, but now Washington DC wants to triple the tariffs.
The work of forest defense, the
establishing of protected parklands, it’s often looked on as an American or US
innovation. But look at a map and study the size of British Columbia in
relation to Washington, California, and Oregon. Such a study makes it clear
that the Pacific Northwest is more vast and untrammeled north of the border. In
the long run British Columbia has far more opportunities to work with. This
much larger landscape of BC still holds intact forests as well as more than a
dozen unentered rivers valleys. In these river bottoms are swaths of forest
surrounded by steep glacial carved granite that rise into glaciers and mountain
peaks. The landscape is a blending of a Himalayan horizon with PNW forests in
the valleys below. In these valleys giant grizzly bear forest ecosystems still
thrive.
Vancouver is the center
for activism in this region and the WCWC Western Canada Wilderness Committee
leads the way in raising awareness. The city of Victoria on Vancouver Island is
another center of activity. There was even a treesit
on the University Campus their recently. Also in the town of Tofino, further
north on Vancouver Island there was a source of local support for saving the Carmanah Valley. There
are forests on Mt.
Elphinstone on the Sunshine Coast where logging has been shut down for two
years and has only begun this Month. The Walbran Valley has been the big
focus area this year and in previous years it was the Elaho Valley.
Across BC there are
just under a dozen hotspots where
local residents and environmentalists have teamed up to claim rights for the
land. Forest preservation was part of the previous administrations re-election
campaign. They ended up losing the election while also taking massive chunks of
territory away from the loggers. Since then the new administration has allowed
the industry to write there own rules without any public process to comment on
the new rules. It’s called the Working
Forest Initiative and it’s no different than the old Railroad grants in the
US. It also of no benefit to the current timber supply glut on the world
market.
The British Columbia
landscape is 92% public land; it is also unseeded territory that belongs to
living tribes of native people who survived the Genocide. Just like forest
activists natives are now blocking roads. Or sometimes it as simple as walking
or living on their tribal land and continuing to return to their land even when
it means Jail. Harsh jail sentences and an overzealous Royal Canadian Mounted
Police make simply even monitoring logging projects a criminal act. In all
these different campaigns native people, a grandma,
various forest defenders in BC they have to do jail time for such simple
misdeeds. The Native people, the different tribes, they are getting stronger in
demanding justice. Native Peoples issues and forest activist issues blend into
each other up here in BC. Because of this there are not only neighborhood
groups out to protect their water supply, there are not only wilderness groups
to preserve river valleys, but there are also indigenous people defending their
territory with issues of international diplomacy between nations. Sometimes
with guns, sometimes through non-violent civil disobedience native people are
taking a stand with road blockades. As activists or as natives our commonality
is that we both are standing up to a monster that wants the usual squashing of
any third world peasantry that gets in the way. So when all seems in its
darkest hour perhaps something will change? Or at least that’s the intention. J