The Ring of Fire Circling BC
A ring of
fire is circling a large part of our province. The fires are a direct result of unabated commercial logging. Huge multinational
companies have, in essence, been given the BC public forests, (native lands) by
different BC governments for free (they pay only a few dollars for the trees which
is why the US accuses BC lumber of being subsidised). I am asked…exactly how are the commercial logging
companies the villains in this?
Because only controlled burning, to rid the
forests of accumulated buildup of forest debris, especially after
clear-cutting, will stop the catastrophic wild fires occurring now. And who opposes controlled burning so vehemently
that controlled burning doesn’t happen?
Why, the multi-national logging companies. Why do they oppose? Because even a controlled burn many very well
take out some of the commercial tree farm trees from time to time. Any controlled burn is a risk to their bottom
line. The province, no matter who is in
power, will not go against the logging companies. Commercial logging needs
maximized profits; politicians need maximized votes and political support.
What stopped
the citizen’s mass environmental protests when people came out in droves years
ago to protect BC forests? What
stopped all those protests? Primarily BC Chief Justice Madam Beverly McLachlin,
as she was then (she is currently Chief Justice of Canada). McLachlin laid down the definitive ruling of
how environmental protesters were to be treated if arrested. They were to be
charged, but not under the Criminal Code as everyone else is charged for a
misdemeanor. Environmental protesters
were to be put into a special category. They would be charged with Contempt of
Court which is a much more serious charge.
But how did this happen? What was
the reasoning behind making protesters guilty of Contempt of Court? They
weren’t protesting the Court, they were protesting commercial logging.
But McLachlin
reasoned that by protesting the injunction (a judge’s order) and refusing to
move, protesters were bringing the justice system into disrepute. She wrote: “The gravamen (the essence) of the offense (of
protesting) of criminal contempt is not actual or threatened injury to persons
or property, other offences deal with those evils. The gravamen of the offence is rather the
open, continuous, and flagrant violation of a Court order.”
But that’s
what a protest is about, to come together with like-minded citizens, in the
freedom to be open, to speak truth to power, to try to attract attention to the destruction
of BC forests and other environmental destructions, and yes, to give voice to
this for as long as possible. We were willing to face arrest, but I don’t blame
anyone for not being willing to be deprived of the protections of the law
itself. Is there a remedy? Yes, more protests. And maybe even a little help from our new
Attorney General, David Eby. The Attorney General could certainly help in
persuading the police and the Crown to treat all citizens equally. As he is the
former president of the BC civil liberties association, I put great faith in
David Eby’s wish to right this egregious wrong.
Clear-Cutting
BC Forests to a Fiery Extinction
Why are BC
Forests going up in smoke and fire? Is
it climate change? A natural phenomena?
Yes and no, but mostly no. It is
primarily bad forest management, originating in the practice of industrial
clear-cut logging. This practice has
been agreed to by all levels of government and
judiciary in BC (and the federal court) in order not to annoy the international
logging companies. Dr. Lori Daniels, Associate Professor in the UBC Faculty of
Forestry, (also runs the Tree Ring lab) in an interview to E-KNOW:
“In the past
60 years, despite warmer temperatures, fires essentially were eliminated from
many forests due to very effective fire suppression,” she said. ”In the absence
of fire, tree density and fuels can build-up, increasing the chance of a severe
fire.” Dr. Daniels believes that by
trying to protect our forests and communities from surface fires that clear the
forests of a buildup of combustible materials, we simply make the possibility
of severe fires, like the ones sweeping our
province at the moment not only
possible, but predictable.
And who is
most adamant about the suppression of any fire, even the ones needed to clear
the forests of flammable materials of dry undergrowth and dead forest
debris? In order to avoid the horrendous
damages as the ones occurring now? Of course,
the industrial logging companies. The needed
surface fires, as First Nations people knew and practiced, were forbidden by the
industrial logging companies as this might cause some loss of trees that would
hinder their bottom line. Dr. Daniels continues: “We made a decision decades
ago that fire had only negative effects on the forest and we valued the forests
for economic reasons…”
Aw, those
economic reasons of the industrial logging companies that now leave our province
a tinderbox! Parks Canada ecologist Donna Crossland of Nova Scotia in speaking
of clear- cutting in relation to forest fires: “Fire does not remove the trunk
wood of living trees, but clear cutting and biomass harvests are removing
nearly everything…so it’s a false claim that clear-cuts approximate natural disturbances…” She adds that clearcutting also contributes
to the depletion of carbon in Nova Scotia soils, and that 60 percent of soils
in that province are nutrient depleted.
When the BC
fires currently raging finally die down, the one good thing that could come
from this is a closer look at how clear-cutting by industrial logging is
killing our forests and severely damaging our province. I haven’t forgotten
Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin. Her rulings on when and how protesters must be
arrested played such an important role in my activist life (and the life of
this province) I can’t believe I misspelled her name in my last posting, for
which I apologize.
