View topic - Canada's Boreal Forest accord is dead

Ft, please don't twist what I said. Of course any organization would be and should be concerned about the cost of meeting regulations - all regulations, environmental and otherwise. It would be irresponsible not to be since (in the case of forest companies) their mandate is to make a profit.

Regardless, I nominate RHaslam's post as the best one in the thread.

The forest industry is so far from perfect its ridiculous. The environmental regulations are a joke too. How is clear cutting environmentally friendly? Its not, and it does not provide long term job creation...its a form of making a real quick dollar. I would hope that those in the forest industry realize this...they should. After all what are there children and grandchildren going to do for work 20, 50, 100 years down the road. If I'm wrong and clear cutting is environmentally friendly please by all means show the evidence but from my understanding it is not at all.

Anyone look at the development in the centre of Lac Manicougan recently? Large sections of old growth forest clear cutting. If the forest industry wants more support, situations like this need to be accounted for IMHO. One of the most unique landmarks in Quebec that can be seen from space and clear cutting right in the middle of it...sad.

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"It's healthy to be dirty" - Lars Monsen

Sam, nothing is perfect. Human population continues to burst forth geometrically, and demand for product continues as well. How do we reach a balance between demand and ecology? It ain't easy. Many of my favorite spots have been cut, and it has p#ssed me off to no end. However, I like to work and make money, and that's the major industry in my area, so I have to reach some kind of internal compromise.

The theory behind much of the cutting in Northern Ontario is to emulate forest fires. There is active forest fire suppression in N. Ontario, and if there were not, large areas of forest would burn every year, particularly "old growth" areas, although where i live, it is difficult to find truly old growth, as those stands tend to burn after a century or two.

So there are fairly large areas cut, but they space them apart in random areas, or at least, that's the theory.

When I first arrived in this area, about 25 years ago, there were lots of areas that had just been cut. Many of those areas have now grown back, and support abundant wildlife, in fact, those are usually the areas that I hunt.

Your claim that the environmental values of the forest industry are ridiculous could be tempered by comparing them to other industries. In the forest industry, cut areas are replanted, access roads are routinely decommissioned after cuts, and the public (like canoeists) can have an impact on the plan if they wish to become involved. Compare that to the mining industry and the hydro dam industry. There is no grounds for changing opinion in either of those industries, and the Mining Act enables full scale destruction, with no avenue for protest. I have seen some god aweful things done by mining companies up here that never would have been allowed in an FMP.

So it's this, that, and a hundred other things. As long as we have to keep wiping our arses, trees are going to fall. As I have mentioned before, it's the respectful dialogue between individuals or groups with the MNR and logging companies that will work toward saving canoe routes.

I agree with Rob! Over the past 7-8 years, I have personally lobbied for improved protection of canoe routes and their land-based components (i.e., portages, campsites, access points, etc.) on Crown lands where forestry activities occur. The success of my efforts to date is undoubtedly due to adopting an approach of ‘collaboration’ and not one of ‘confrontation’.

Here in Northwestern Ontario, forestry planners are genuinely eager to improve their data base of ‘values’ information including canoe routes. It has been my experience that calm, deliberate negotiations with the MNR and logging companies invariably result in updated ‘values maps’ as well as improved protective ‘Area of Concern’ (AOC) prescriptions.

Portage protection is a case in point. More than half the province’s forest management plans (FMPs) now contain a dedicated AOC that prescribes a no-cut reserve on each side of the trail, often backed by a modified harvest zone of equal dimension. The average width of these reserves is 30 metres on each side of the trail. Other protective measures include no operational roads, landings or aggregate extraction within the AOC as well as a restriction on skidding across the trail. Further, the width of the right-of-way (ROW) of a single primary or secondary road crossing is often reduced to 10-15 meters; the crossing is perpendicular to the trail; and, road grade levels and trail approaches to the road are constructed so as not to inhibit safe use of a portage.

These negotiations are time-consuming and on-going as FMPs are renewed and reviewed every 10 years. Currently, there is no guarantee that any improvements negotiated for protection of a particular value will be carried forward into the next successive plan. It is my sincere hope that, sometime down the road, a set of standards and guidelines will be developed that will apply universally to all FMPs. Meanwhile, those of us concerned with protecting and preserving our province's canoeing heritage will continue to monitor and participate in FMP public consultation periods as they are announced on the Environmental Bill of Rights (EBR) Registry. I urge all interested CCR members to join in this effort.

I have no problem with logging per se--we all depend on it. The problem I have with it is when they move into new areas and cut areas that have never been cut before. If the industry is really based on a renewable resource, they should be able to harvest on the land-base they have been using for the past century--and prosper.

There are elements of the northern forest that don't come back after logging--like woodland caribou.

More comments from Peter Foster in the Financial Post a couple of days ago.


http://opinion.financialpost.com/2013/1 ... agreement/

Man, reading this guy is like having an intimate talk with a person who has bad breath.

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“What is the good of having a nice house without a decent planet to put it on?” - Thoreau

Perhaps, but even some truths smell bad.

Ontario Nature had a recent article on the issue.
http://www.vdocshop.com/doc/on-nature-m ... 091101/#16

I find it easier to accept their point of view.

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“What is the good of having a nice house without a decent planet to put it on?” - Thoreau

What's this about flying pigs... the text will not appear, no matter what browser I use. Maybe someone could copy and paste, please help us poor illiterate hicks.

I've seen geese and ducks flying recently, no pigs. It's rough out here in the sticks... very, very, VERY rough... horribly rough. And winter's coming.

There are plenty of shotguns out here blasting away at any and all flying objects, including unidentified. Maybe that's the reason... thank Gawd canoes can't fly.

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The Ontario Nature article seems to be in a format that can't be cut and pasted...

I can read it, but can't paste it for you. Can only send a link, like Erhard did.

I'm not very tech savvy...

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I tried also copy/paste - but they set protection. ON would be wise to forego that copyright consideration for articles like this if they want to get their word out.

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“What is the good of having a nice house without a decent planet to put it on?” - Thoreau

Thanks anyway! I'll try and read it on another computer in town.

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I'll see if this works:




Peter Foster: The boreal flying pigs agreement: 02/10/2013

Those responsible for negotiating and extending the 2010 Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement (CBFA) are on a charm offensive, claiming that the agreement has been a great success, and should be a template for similar agreements in industries such as oil and gas.
No word if they are also pushing a Canadian Flying Pig Agreement (CFPA).

Under the CBFA, members of the Forest Products Association of Canada, FPAC, were forced into bed with a group of radical anti-development environmental NGOs — including the Suzuki Foundation, Greenpeace and ForestEthics — to negotiate development of one of the largest forests in the world.

Avrim Lazar, the former bureaucrat who headed the association when the deal was signed, is doing the media rounds explaining how boffo the CBFA has been. Also on the promotion circuit are Bruce “Slow Death by Rubber Duck” Lourie, a renowned chemophobe and environmental alarmist, and Aran O’Carroll, the CBFA’s interim executive director. Mr. Lourie, as president of the Ivey Foundation, helped “broker” the CBFA, along with the giant U.S.-based Pew Charitable Trusts, the ironic legacy of the Pew family that pioneered commercial development of Canada’s oil sands.

The charm offensive landed at The Globe and Mail recently, where it met with great enthusiasm and prompted the Globe‘s editorial board to hail the boreal agreement as a “great achievement” without once mentioning that there are more than a few flies in the boreal forest PR beauty cream. Or should that be pig lipstick?

Not only has the CBFA achieved little or nothing in the past three years — a fact acknowledged by an unreleased internal audit — it set a disastrous example of corporate appeasement. The forest association’s corporate members signed up mainly in return for the ENGOs promising to call off their Do Not Buy campaigns, which featured disinformation and intimidation of customers.

Subsequently, the ENGOs have viciously attacked any corporate signatory who refused to fold to their demands. The company that has attracted the most flak — and demonstrated the backbone that appears sorely lacking among other corporate members of FPAC — is Resolute Forest Products.

Earlier this year, Montreal-based Resolute sued Greenpeace — which had withdrawn from the CBFA citing its lack of progress — for “defamation, malicious falsehood and intentional interference with economic relations.”

Last week, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice threw out an attempt by Greenpeace to derail the economic interference claim. Justice F.B. Fitzpatrick not only ordered Greenpeace to pay the legal costs, he ordered the ENGO to file its statement of defence within thirty days. Greenpeace has so far been writhing to avoid doing so, claiming that it was being “bullied,” or that Resolute was trying to silence “public participation.”

Meanwhile, San Francisco-based ForestEthics last week organized a conference call of Resolute’s customers to attack Resolute (ForestEthics also recently sued the Harper government over Ottawa’s plans to streamline the process of environmental review under Bill C-38).

Ahead of the call, Resolute CEO Richard Garneau sent a letter pointing out that ForestEthics actions undermined both the letter and spirit of the CBFA. He laid out the company’s extensive environmental initiatives, but also noted that further restrictions in already well-protected areas threatened jobs, communities and aboriginal interests. He wrote that Resolute remained committed to trying to make the CBFA work, but noted that ForestEthics’ tactics hardly seemed conducive to such a goal.

The conference call was headed by ForestEthics’ executive director Todd Paglia, who has in the past made no secret that generating “negative press” to damage corporate brands is a key tactic in achieving power over business. Apparently the conference call was less than successful, marked by few callers and long silences.

PR push on litigated forest initiative lands at Globe and Mail, which hails agreement as a ‘great achievement’

Perhaps the most intriguing part of Mr. Garneau’s letter noted that Resolute would be monitoring the call and would “respond appropriately to any falsehoods or inaccuracies regarding our actions.”

Resolute’s case against Greenpeace means that cannot be taken as an idle threat. Although this week’s piracy charges against Greenpeace in Russia appear more dramatic, the Resolute lawsuit may be more significant. ENGOs might think nothing of serving up a few martyrs to the Gulag, but attacking their bank accounts would really get their attention. If Resolute wins a substantial settlement — it is suing Greenpeace for up to $7-million — ENGOs might begin to think a little more carefully about their campaign claims.

Nevertheless, that CBFA charm offensive appears to be bearing some fruit. On Tuesday, the Globe and Mail carried an editorial titled “Fair amid the trees.” It reported Mr. Lazar claiming that the agreement’s two sides were on the same page when it came to objective “science.” In fact, the ongoing shenanigans of Greenpeace, ForestEthics et al. render such a claim ridiculous. More ridiculous was the suggestion in other reports from the charm front that the CBFA might represent some kind of example for other industries. After all, you know how reasonable ENGOs have been on the oil sands.

One detail that the Globe editorial neglected to mention was that, in 2011, it embroiled itself in the CBFA by joining something called the Boreal Business Forum, which was touted as a group of big paper customers who would hold the forest industries feet to the CBFA fire. It thus became a potential patsy for radical environmentalism. Not so surprising therefore that the Globe editorial failed to note either the Greenpeace lawsuit or the ForestEthics conference call.

The larger question is why a self-selected group of environmental radicals, who have never been elected or granted a “social licence,” should be dictating Canadian forestry policy, or indeed any form of policy.

Wow...that is some vitriol. The writer accuses the environmental groups of defamation, while he himself characterizes them with slurs like " renowned chemophobe and environmental alarmist" and choosing words like "writhing" to describe Greenpeace's reaction to the legal decision.

He says the forestry companies were forced to sign the Boreal Forest Accord---sorry, "forced into bed with a group of radical anti-development environmental NGOs."

This is what passes for an op-ed piece these days?

The writer made a few good points, but the contempt with which he writes about the environmental NGOs doesn't garner any sympathy for his case against them.

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