[IPSM] Negotiated Surrender: Outcomes for the Nuxalk and the Rainforest

[Macdonald Stainsby]

Negotiated Surrender:
Outcomes for the Nuxalk and the Rainforest


from "Offsetting Resistance: The effects of foundation funding from the 
Great Bear Rainforest to the Athabasca River", a special report by Dru 
Oja Jay and Macdonald Stainsby.

Released September, 2009.

http://www.mediacoop.ca/blog/macdonald/1973

The Great Bear Rainforest agreement has been promoted as an 
environmental success story, but critics of the process tell a different 
story. They note that, negotiating in secret, the Rainforest Solutions 
Project (made up for ForestEthics, Sierra Club BC, Greenpeace, and at 
the time, the Rainforest Action Network) originally accepted a deal that 
protected less than half of the 44-50 per cent recommended by 
scientists. One experienced observer says it should have been possible 
to achieve 40 per cent protection based on the recommendation. It was 
only when First Nations–excluded from negotiations–raised objections 
based on land use plans that the fully protected area was increased by 
about 2.1 million hectares.

Valhalla Wilderness Society Director Anne Sherrod says that the lack of 
public input is a crucial concession. “Both in the Great Bear Rainforest 
and in the mountain caribou recovery plan, the private collaborative 
partnership between government, industry, First Nations and ForestEthics 
and its coalitions has gone on for years,” says Sherrod. “We have seen 
these partnerships result in issues of huge importance regarding public 
land and resources being taken out of public view for years; 
participation by confidentiality agreement in the mountain caribou plan 
speaks for itself.”

Independent activist Ingmar Lee was campaigning in Germany to extend the 
boycott of BC forest products in 2003. Those he was trying to influence 
told him they had received notice of a deal that had already been worked 
out for the GBR. Lee explains, “This deal had never been publicly 
announced. It was sort of like an inside, advance notice deal that had 
been sent out to industry and everything like that, well ahead of the 
first official announcement that they had achieved this ‘great victory’ 
in the Great Bear Rainforest.” At that point, the only numbers available 
were scientists’ recommendations that 44-50 per cent of the forest be 
completely protected.

By 2006, the area to be fully protected had dropped to 21.2 per cent as 
advanced by the now ForestEthics-dominated RSP. The new figure had no 
scientific backing as a benchmark for preserving the intact ecosystem of 
the Central Coast; the David Suzuki Foundation did not endorse the 
proposal. A new “Ecosystem-Based Management” (EBM) plan was required to 
be “phased in” by 2009.

While policymakers haggle over definitions, logging has sped up, 
unopposed by blockades or disruptions.

The Rainforest Action Network (RAN) disassociated itself from the Great 
Bear Rainforest deal after it was announced. It no longer promotes the 
deal as a “victory”.

“‘[Commenters] who stick up for the plan really need to stop saying that 
people opposed to it wanted it all to be protected,” says Sherrod. “A 
17-member scientific panel composed of industry, government, and enviro 
scientists, recommended 44-50% full protection. When I started out as an 
environmentalist, you could not find ONE scientist that would dare 
recommend that. With 17 scientists saying it, the RSP had a straight 
shot at getting something like 40%. Their protocol agreement with the 
other groups had set 44-60% as the goal. Instead, in the private deal 
with industry, they settled for 21.2% full protection and 11.8% partial 
protection. It was the First Nations’ land use plans that pushed the 
full protection up to 28%, plus about 5% protected from logging but not 
from mining.”

“The Valhalla Wilderness Society accepted that level of protection at 
that time because the government, First Nations and RSP partners 
promised that a good Ecosystem-based Management plan would regulate 
logging in an ecologically responsible way,” says Sherrod. “But that too 
was developed in private confabs between government, First Nations and 
the RSP. It emerged in a form that was grossly inadequate and totally 
non-binding on logging companies. Believe me, we have learned why 
activists of many kinds worked hard in the past for open public process. 
Backroom deals can never be trusted; if the intent behind them is good, 
there won’t be a need to keep things secret from the public and the 
broader environmental movement.”

The deal, some say, has been a disaster for the ecosystem of some of the 
most important temperate rainforests left on the planet.

According to journalist and activist Zoe Blunt, the implications of the 
deal go beyond logging.

“In 2006, the final agreement was announced with fanfare by a provincial 
government eager to paint itself Green after years of cutting park 
budgets and opening wilderness areas to development and logging. 
However, the Great Bear Rainforest agreement only commits to a 
“conservancy” designation for 32 per cent of the land – part of which is 
open for mining and all of which may be open to roads, hydroelectric 
projects, tourism and other uses.

“The parties pledged to base the agreement on the best independent 
science available,” Blunt continues, “and the province requisitioned a 
scientific review of the central and north coast flora and fauna to make 
recommendations about habitat protection. In 2005, the Coast Information 
Team found that a minimum of 44 to 50 per cent of the land area would 
have to be set aside to save ecosystems and wildlife. The decision to 
protect only 32 per cent may end up sacrificing the survival of the 
spirit bear.”

According to Ingmar Lee, an area far more vast than 70% of the GBR may 
have been sacrificed.

The RSP’s “deals are secret, they’ve got confidentiality agreements and 
that’s their modus operandi. But suddenly Sierra Club [BC] disappeared 
from all of their Vancouver Island campaigns.... Suddenly they just 
walked on it. They abandoned the Quatsino who had gotten all excited 
that they were going to get some of their territory protected and 
[Sierra Club BC] just abandoned it. What the hell happened?... It was 
clear to me they had sacrificed Vancouver Island in order to get mileage 
on the Great Bear Rainforest. Subsequently my suspicions were confirmed 
by [the Rainforest Action Network]. RAN admitted... It was on their 
website for awhile that they found it really regrettable that Vancouver 
Island had to be sacrificed to the Great Bear Rainforest deal. So you 
must understand that the pathetic 30% protection that this magnificent, 
intact tract of primeval temperate rainforest was only part of the 
sacrifice.”

“One of the worst and most disgusting aspects of the whole Great Bear 
Rainforest deal was just how many times it has been strung along like 
these Fake Enviros, ForestEthics being the worst of them [...] they have 
been just groveling for [BC Premier Gordon Campbell’s] signature over 
the years and Gordo strung it along until like a month before the [May 
2009 provincial] election and then finally endorsed it.”

After Campbell’s signature put the Great Bear Rainforest deal to paper, 
a press conference and photo op was held with (among others) Gordon 
Campbell alongside Tzeporah Berman. Berman has since limited her role 
with FE and now directs PowerUP, a foundation-funded group advocating 
controversial run-of-the-river private hydro projects in British Columbia.

Because the EBM was not defined for years, companies were allowed to 
log, using the practice of “highgrading.”

Highgrading means to selectively take the very best trees from a 
forested area, leaving the rest in the hope that it will recover if left 
to its own devices after the healthiest trees have been cut. “Consider 
the years that the RSP accepted for the companies’ logging before the 
EBM went into effect; The result has been the highgrading of prime 
coastal temperate rainforest,” explained Sherrod.

She concludes that no environmental group should be allowed to negotiate 
behind closed doors with industry or government.

“Lastly, and this is overall what I think is the largest damage of these 
negotiations: No real environmental group needs to, or should, make 
agreements conceding vast areas of forest to be logged. Part of the 
shuck of this process is the pretense that environmental groups are 
forced to sign on the dotted line to get improvements in environmental 
protection. Pure hogwash. When we stand together in united resistance to 
environmental abuses we will gain real power to protect the environment, 
and we won’t have to sell out our ideals to do it. These are 
greenwashing deals. I am speaking out about this because there is 
evidence that the collaborative agreement industry may be moving to the 
tar sands. I want everyone to know that issues where people are dying of 
cancer from serious pollution is no place for this kind of thing. Open 
public process is your best friend in situations like this. Insist on it.”