End of the Rainbow for Rainbow Warriors

Aboriginal Chiefs Denounce Anti-Forestry Campaign

The following account is from my submission, on behalf of the Forest Alliance of BC, before the Canadian government’s parliamentary committee on Natural Resources.

Vancouver BC May 13-14, 1999 The Forest Alliance of BC is an industry-sponsored citizens committee that is working to improve the environmental performance of industry and to improve public understanding of sustainable forestry. We know that the real challenge is to find the right balance between the environmental and economic priorities for our forest. This is not a black-and-white issue. It is an issue that requires a synthesis of environmental, social, and economic values, what we have come to know as sustainability.

There are many able presenters here to give you the economic, social and ecological perspectives on forests and forestry in British Columbia and Canada. In particular it is clearly evident that British Columbia is a world leader in the creation of new parks and wilderness areas, the improvement of forest practices, and the protection of biodiversity.

I will elaborate on these themes, but first I would like to give you a personal story, one that is both uplifting and saddening, one that makes it strikingly clear that the extreme boycott campaign is entirely unworthy of our consideration.

I was born and raised in the land of the Kwakwaka’wakw (Kwakiutl) and grew up on Quatsino Indian Reserve Number One in Winter Harbour, Vancouver Island, which they knew as Klayina. I have a home there today. In 1971, as a member of the first Greenpeace voyage to protest US hydrogen bomb testing in Alaska, I was made an honorary member of the Kwakwaka’wakw Nation in the long-house at Numglis (Alert Bay), and we were given the right to use the hereditary crest of the double-headed sea-monster, Sisiutl, to strengthen our campaigns to save the Earth. The famous artist Richard Hunt gave us his depiction of Sisiutl which we used in our literature and on our ship, the Rainbow Warrior. I served for 15 years as a leader of Greenpeace campaigns and I am proud of what we accomplished. Eventually I left Greenpeace and became involved in the movement to achieve sustainability in my home province of British Columbia. I became an advocate of the Round Table, consensus-based, community-oriented approach to resolving the complex issues around land-use conflicts and the effort to find a balance between economic and environmental priorities.

Last year I was awarded this ceremonial eagle feather by Chief Stan Dixon of the Sechelt Nation for my work to promote sustainability and consensus. Chief Stan Dixon negotiated the first self-government agreement for aboriginal communities in British Columbia and led the way for the first Treaty settlement under the BC Treaty Commission process. My sorrow comes from the recent events surrounding Greenpeace and other groups who have destroyed the spirit of this hard-won First Nations support. They have veered from the path of truthfulness and have betrayed their original principles.

The story is too long and the details too numerous to give a full account here. I can only provide the conclusion, and while I certainly do not speak for the First Nations, I do have a good knowledge of the history of the relationship between First Nations and the environmental movement.

The early campaigns to improve forest practices and to increase protected areas were well intentioned and resulted in strong support across the political spectrum. As a result British Columbia can boast of having the most aggressive and comprehensive program for wilderness protection and improved forest practices in North America. British Columbians, including First Nations, have been deeply involved in finding solutions and working together. Greenpeace and their allies have broken with this collaboration and have chosen instead to be spoilers, seeking dissent and division and, until recently, refusing to participate in the democratically-based Land and Resource Management Plans. When they finally joined the process it was only due to the industry agreeing to all their demands and now we here from Katherine Stewart, head of Greenpeace Vancouver, that they have no intention of reaching an agreement.

This attitude has resulted in an outright rejection of the Greenpeace-style chain-gang and boycott approach to the forestry issue. Both major political parties, the business community, the labour movement, the mayors of all the coastal communities, and the elected chiefs of the coastal aboriginal communities have gone on record against the hurtful and deceitful tactics that have been used to fabricate the boycott movement against BC forest products.

It is perhaps understandable that business and labour would oppose any campaign that threatens jobs and the economy. But the fact that the elected aboriginal leaders have also decided to make strong statements against the boycott campaign is testament to the unworthy behaviour that has characterized the actions of Greenpeace and their associates.

1997 saw the creation of two documents that left no doubt about the feelings of the coastal people, both aboriginal and non-aboriginal. The First Nations Protocol on the Environment, Central Coast of British Columbia, Canada was signed by the elected chiefs of the Kitasoo of Klemtu, the Oweekeno of Rivers Inlet, the Nuxalk First Nation of Bella Coola and the Gwa’Sala-Nakwaxda’xw of Port Hardy. The Protocol specifically cancels and forbids environmental groups from using “any crests, totems, dances, songs, or other symbols of our First Nation’s culture for the purposes of representing out First Nation’s support.” Thus the group that proudly called itself the Warriors of the Rainbow and named their flagship the Rainbow Warrior and adorned it with the Sisiutl crest, has now had that right stripped away. Later in 1997 the Chief Councillors of the Nuxalk and the Ehattesaht joined with the mayors of the 11 largest coastal communities and the chairs of the Central Coast and Mt. Waddington Regional Districts in signing the Communities Resolution. The resolution condemns the “unfair, unwarranted, and unwelcome attacks on the credibility of the people of this province and the communities in which they live.” And asks that the people spreading “international activist misinformation cease and desist their hurtful campaign.” It is particularly hurtful to me to see the organization I helped create and spent 15 years leading, to have squandered the good will that we built up with the aboriginal communities. The tactic that led to the rejection of the Greenpeace approach is simple. Greenpeace and their allies in the Sierra Club, the Forest Action Network and the Sierra legal Defense Fund entered the villages of the aboriginal people and identified dissident minorities which they then propped up and claimed they had the aboriginal communities support. The Internet sites of Forest Action Network and Greenpeace tell the world that the aboriginal people support their anti-forestry boycott campaign when in fact they have only a small minority on their side while the majority, through their elected councils, has condemned their actions. No one could express this condemnation more eloquently than Arline Wilson, Chief Councillor for the Heiltsuk Tribal Council in Waglisla (Bella Bella). In an open letter dated November 9,1998 to Greenpeace, the Sierra Club of BC, the Forest Action Network, and the Sierra Legal Defense Fund, she wrote on behalf of the 12 member elected council that “The ignorance displayed towards us as a people . . . is appalling. The subversive and manipulative tactics each of your organizations are carrying out within our communities is unequivocally without honour.” She added that if any members of these groups wished to come into the Heiltsuk community they must first “declare their intentions in writing” and even then “it will be up to the Heiltsuk Tribal Council to decide if your presence will be allowed.”

It is now clear that the boycott/confrontation approach is no longer constructive and that we must move forward through consensus and negotiation. Please allow me to touch on some critical points where agreement may be reached and where the Federal government may show leadership.

It is alleged that 10% of BC species are “endangered with extinction”. This is a complete distortion. It is true that about 10% of BC species are on the Provincial Tracking List which only means there is interest in their status. In fact, from a global perspective, only one species in BC is on the endangered species list and that is the Vancouver Island Marmot. Let us focus our attention on the species that are truly endangered.

It is true that 140 stocks of the 9,600 known stocks of salmon are lost. It is also true that only three of these are outside the area disturbed by urbanization, agriculture and dam building. Over 50% of all the extinct stocks are in Greater Vancouver, where the rivers are now in pipes.

The Forest Alliance of BC supports the effort to protect endangered species, where it can be shown that species are truly endangered and why they are endangered. We were opposed to the original Bill C-65 which would have given Sierra Legal Defense Fund lawyers jobs for life filing lawsuits against every person and company engaged in resource extraction for human survival.

We believe there are three fundamental principles that must be met by any Endangered Species legislation.

Equity. All Canadians should bear an equal cost of any program to address endangered species. All the endangered species are in the country, not in the cities, because in the cities they have all been killed. The city people, who want to protect endangered species in the country, must pay an equal amount to protect them. Incentive-based. People should be rewarded for having endangered species in their environment, not punished for it. In the US the Endangered Species Act causes property owners to kill endangered species and to destroy habitat which is suitable for them. Surely we can do better than this in Canada by learning from the mistakes in the US. Participation. Even if all Canadians share in the cost, the country people will be the most effected in terms of their lifestyle. It is therefore imperative that these people be involved at the very beginning in any process to address endangered species. The Forest Alliance supports certification as a way to provide independent verification of compliance with sustainable forestry principles. There is a lot of politics around this issue. Why is it that Greenpeace and the Sierra Club say they support the FSC and yet they are opposed to both J.D. Irving’s achievement of FSC certification and Western Forest Products application for FSC certification? We are generally in favour of all the certification initiatives but we are wary of the political manipulation of this program by groups who are using certification to stop forestry rather than trying to improve forestry.

Much has been said about MacMillan Bloedel and their program to end clearcutting and to adopt variable retention harvesting. Now Timberwest and Interfor have also announced plans to adopt this system. The Forest Alliance supports these efforts as it has always been our belief that alternative harvesting systems should be employed where they can be shown to be ecologically appropriate.

I would like to draw your attention to the academic work and the document produced by the Centre for Applied Conservation Biology at the University of BC. Led by Dr. Fred Bunnell, they have produced the document “An Ecological Rationale for Changing Forest Management on MacMillan Bloedel’s Forest Tenure”.

First I would like to point out that this is not some diatribe against clearcutting. It is, in fact, the most advanced document advocating a program that allows both the conservation of biodiversity and the harvest of timber. Indeed, all of the member companies of the Forest Alliance are moving towards forest practices that incorporate the principles contained in this important document. I would be pleased to elaborate during question period.

My final point has to do with the potential threat of the boycott campaign. The Forest Alliance has adopted as it primary mission the task of building a bridge between our communities and our customers. We are sponsoring community forums, the first one in Campbell River this weekend, to develop strategies for the future. We have met with IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Levi-Strauss, Nike, Liz Claiborne, Starbucks, and many other companies and have participated in the Business for Social Responsibility Forum in San Francisco. We can not succeed in this on our own.

The Federal Government must recognize that the forest issue is now a national priority. Never mind the misinformation campaigns of Greenpeace, we are now facing an international public opinion that wants us to stop cutting trees. In Quebec the popular poet and musician, Richard Desjardins, has produced a powerful anti-forestry film. The movement against our largest industry will only grow in strength if we do not increase our efforts to defend ourselves.

I am convinced that we will soon be faced with the combined force of the World Resources Institute (directors include William Ruckelshaus, Maurice Strong and Stephan Schmidheiny, the World Trade Organization and their new environmental division and the World Bank. How can 3.5 million British Columbians or even 30 million Canadians stand up to the hundreds of millions of customers who buy our forest products if we don’t rise to the occasion and defend ourselves?

I would like to thank you for this opportunity to speak to you.