[IPSM] The Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement Reconsidered

[Macdonald Stainsby]

Follow this link for a map that outlines the agreement:
http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/3450
<http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/3450>

The Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement Reconsidered:
ENGOs sign over right to criticize, companies continue to log caribou habitat

by Dawn Paley


VANCOUVER-Last week's announcement of the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement
(CBFA) was celebrated by environmental groups as a historic deal that
could save a significant amount of sensitive woodland caribou habitat.

An early criticism of the deal was that Indigenous governments and
organizations were left out of the creation of the agreement. The public
was also left in the dark while the CBFA was negotiated in secret between
nine environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) and 21 forestry
companies.

The 71-page agreement has yet to be released on the CBFA website. The
Vancouver Media Co-op obtained a leaked copy shortly after the deal was
announced.

Greenpeace and the other ENGOs involved in the agreement have chosen their
words carefully. Greenpeace has called the deal an "unprecedented
accord...covering more than 72 million hectares of public forests, an area
twice the size of Germany." The agreement includes what the proponents are
calling a series of interim measures to protect caribou habitat while
various levels of government take action to create protected areas for
caribou.

Further investigation reveals that this agreement aims to silence all
criticism of logging practices in the boreal forest in return for less
than two years of diverting harvesting and road building from 72,205
hectares of woodland caribou habitat into other areas of the boreal
forest.

The 21 logging companies involved in the deal are grouped together as the
Forest Products Association of Canada (FPAC). Together, FPAC member firms
hold tenures for over 72 million hectares of boreal forest, stretching
north from the Northwest Territories down through northeastern British
Columbia and continuing east all the way to Newfoundland. Included in
these tenures are 29,336,953 hectares of caribou range lands, according to
the report.

Between April 1, 2009 and March 31, 2012, FPAC companies had scheduled to
harvest and build roads on 756,666 hectares inside caribou range lands.
That means according to existing industry plans, the vast majority of
caribou range lands were not slated to be harvested by the spring of 2012,
when the current agreement expires.

Far from protecting caribou lands in their entirety, the outcome of the
CBFA reduces the FPAC affiliate cut in caribou range lands from 756,666 to
684,461 hectares until spring 2012. This means 72,205 hectares of
harvesting and road building will be "deferred" to "areas outside of
caribou range." In other words, there is no change in the amount of
harvesting, only in the locations where harvesting takes place.

While the agreement technically "covers" a forest twice the size of
Germany, the amount of caribou range that will not be cut before 2012 as a
result of the agreement is only slightly larger than the City of Toronto.

The deal still allows 684,461 hectares to be cut in caribou habitat. This,
despite the fact that an expert committee of the Canadian Wildlife Service
recently recommended that virtually all industrial activity within
woodland caribou range be suspended. In agreeing to the CBFA, the nine
ENGOs involved are actively supporting the logging of an area larger than
the entire province of Prince Edward Island within caribou habitat between
now and 2012.

According to section 14.F of the deal, "FPAC members will publicly state
that between April 1 2009 and March 31, 2012 there will be no harvesting
or road building in approximately 28,651,492 hectares of caribou range in
their tenures (or over 97.6 per cent of the caribou habitat in managed
forest)."

By reducing the overall number of hectares of caribou range they refer to,
logging companies and ENGOs can claim a near total halt on logging in
caribou range lands, even though they'll still log 684,461 hectares,
almost 10 times the area they're claiming to have saved.

Finally, the "three year" deal actually started more than a year ago, on
April 1, 2009: industry promises for harvesting deferrals expire April 1,
2012.

But the numbers game is far from the only Orwellian aspect of the Canadian
Boreal Forest Agreement.

Until April 1, 2012, nine ENGOs have signed on to work together with FPAC
companies in "developing and advocating for policies and investments that
improve the competitiveness of the Canadian forest sector, create a
climate of greater investment certainty, while at the same time have a
neutral to positive impact on the sector's ecological performance."

In addition, these ENGOs have agreed to express a "continuum" of support
for FPAC members, ranging from "recognizing that [sic] the leadership
represented by the commitment of FPAC Members to develop and implement the
CBFA" to "demonstrating support for products from the boreal operations of
FPAC members."

To ensure that the days of Greenpeace dropping banners from
Abitibi-Bowater's HQ are long forgotten, the agreement stipulates that
ENGOs will take back whatever bad things they may have said about FPAC
member companies in the past.

This mandatory change in tone by environmental groups takes a couple of
forms.

According to Section 6.3.D.ii, "Where an FPAC Member demonstrates an
impediment to selling forest products to a specific customer from the
boreal as a result of past or current advocacy work or communications,
ENGOs will communicate with that customer to confirm they are receiving
all joint communications related to progress in implementing the CFBA and
that this should be taken into consideration in making procurement
decisions."

The agreement also stipulates that ENGOs will "review and update" their
websites to "remove or update any information superseded by the CFBA." For
example, should Canfor find a photo or story about their activities in the
boreal forest on the ForestEthics website objectionable, "immediate steps
will be taken to revise that material."

The agreement also means that if an environmental group which is not a
signatory of the deal should happen to tell someone from, say, the David
Suzuki Foundation about plans to denounce one of the companies involved in
the CBFA, the person from the Suzuki Foundation must warn FPAC member
companies immediately.

ENGOs and FPAC will then jointly plan how to respond, which includes
actively working together to "have such a third party appropriately modify
its position and/or public statements." This legalese means that the ENGOs
and FPAC might jointly threaten to sue or sue the third party. In the
past, industry has undertaken such SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against
Public Participation) suits, but it is precedent-setting that ENGOs have
now become willing participants in striking down criticism of forest
practices across Canada.

In return for swapping 72,205 hectares of harvesting out of the boreal
forest and maintaining "voluntary deferrals" for another two years, the
CBFA transforms the nine ENGOs involved into a promotional service,
protection racket and intelligence gathering service for twenty one
companies that are actively logging woodland caribou habitat within the
boreal forest.

Dawn Paley is a Vancouver-based journalist and a member of the Vancouver
Media Co-op.




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Macdonald Stainsby
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