[Shadow_Group] "Somewhere out there, a night bird cries."

[shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca]

In the Boreal Forest, A Developing Storm

By DeNeen L. Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 12, 2004; Page D01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A58360-2004Dec11?language=printer<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A58360-2004Dec11?language=printer>

POPLAR RIVER -- The elders used to say that one should not make a sound when 
crossing the water here, lest one awaken the thunderbird who lives just up 
there, up there.

Up where?

Up there, says Victor Bruce, an elder of the Poplar River First Nation. He 
is pointing above the trees in this boreal forest, where migrating songbirds 
sing, and fleeting herds of woodland caribou, silent gray ghosts of the 
boreal, hide.

Bruce says he believes in the thunderbird in the same way he believes that 
the river is alive and rocks can move, that trees cry when they are cut and 
the earth cannot be owned. And all the while the thunderbird watches, 
waiting to descend when it is disturbed, then swooping down, creating 
thunder and lightning in its wrath, troubling the waters. For thousands of 
years the Poplar River First Nation, an Ojibway Indian tribe in Manitoba, 
crossed this water quietly, ever so quietly, not a sound, paddles slipped 
into the water as if they were slicing clouds. Quietly the people moved from 
one shore to the next, from one plane to the other, from one generation to 
the next.

Quietly.

Disturbing the thunderbird meant trouble for us all.

Bruce is wondering why others don't believe -- can't believe that building a 
road into this forest opens the path to its destruction, that cutting down 
the trees to make pulp into toilet paper seems wasteful. Why companies with 
their bottom lines and consumers with their insatiable needs don't think of 
the trees as having voices and the animals living in them as having souls.

Why don't they believe in the thunderbird?

"It's our guardian, something that watches over you all the time," Bruce is 
saying. "It's always something that's keeping an eye on you. The old-timers, 
the ancestors, they used to tell us to respect all the animals and respect 
the birds. The thunderbird always is flying high. He's always watching 
everything on Earth. He's someplace in the sky."

  From a muddy bank of a healing camp on an island on the tribe's 
traditional territory on the eastern shore of Lake Winnipeg, Bruce, 72, 
looks upon the water and he is quiet. The water is quiet too. Surrounding it 
is a green forest; the sky is gray. The water is clean. The place is 
surreal. He is in the thick of this place, considered the last frontier of 
the wilderness in North America. It covers half of Canada's land.

The forest, named after Boreas, the Greek god of the north wind, is 
threatened by encroaching development. Scientists call the boreal one of the 
Earth's "lungs"; the other is the Amazon rain forest. Together they "breathe 
out" oxygen while absorbing millions of tons of carbon dioxide, the 
greenhouse gas thought to contribute to global warming. The forest is 
coveted by those who want to cut trees, build hydropower dams, mine and 
develop it, seeking gas and oil.

The Poplar River First Nation, a community based about 400 miles north of 
Winnipeg, is trying to stop that. Not long ago, loggers came here with 
promises of building an all-weather road in a place that is now only 
accessible year-round by air. The road would open the door for others to 
come in. Poplar River elders said no. Developers promised them jobs. The 
elders said no. Developers promised them economic prosperity, a new way of 
life, and the elders said no. The elders had seen what happened to the 
community of the Pimicikamak Cree, north of Lake Winnipeg, not so far from 
here. So the elders in Poplar River said no. First Nation tribes have a 
significant voice in development projects in their traditional territories.

"The reason why we protect this land is, in other communities the forest is 
wiped out already. Now they have nothing," says Bruce. He is now sitting in 
a huge tepee at the healing camp, a retreat where there is no water running 
in pipes, no electricity, no artificial heat. The faint scent of burning 
sage, used to cleanse people of their impurities, lingers in the tent. A 
fire smolders in the center of the tent. Someone has discovered moose 
droppings near the camp site and has brought them near the fire to be 
examined. The perfect droppings indicate the moose on this island are 
healthy and there is still hope.

The Pimicikamak Cree watched a utility come and build a dam for 
hydroelectricity but then, they say, shorelines washed away and forest was 
swallowed by rising water that polluted the lakes and rivers. Now, they say, 
they drink polluted water.

Bruce continues, "Now they have nothing to go to. The companies wanted to 
give us an all-weather road. But if we have that road, the same thing will 
happen here."

He, like most aboriginal elders, professes: "The land, we don't own it. We 
look out for it. The elders have stated the creator has given us life. 
Without our land, our people will die. We get everything from this land. But 
we don't destroy it. If we let them build an all-weather road, they will 
destroy it. After they clear it out, what will we have? Why should we say, 
'Okay, you can come around and cut pulp?' "
Pulp Reality

Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense 
Council, says that the boreal forest is "North America's greatest 
conservation opportunity."

Most of the world's original forests have been logged and developed. About 
80 percent of the Canadian boreal forest is still uncut by roads. Most of 
its 1.3 billion acres is predominantly owned by the government and inhabited 
by tribes who call themselves First Nation. They live in and rely on the 
forests for their food, their livelihoods and their spiritual connection to 
the world.

Last month in Thailand, the World Conservation Congress, recognizing the 
international importance of the boreal forests, called upon Canada and 
Russia, the two countries with more than 80 percent of the world's 
undeveloped forests in the Northern Hemisphere, to protect them and involve 
indigenous communities in any development decisions.

Then the NRDC and Greenpeace Canada announced a campaign to target 
Kimberly-Clark, the world's largest producer of toilet paper. The groups 
accuse the company of relying on fiber from ancient forests to make its 
toilet paper, tissue and paper towels.

"North America, home to only 7 percent of the world's population, consumes 
nearly half of the world's tissue paper products," Casey-Lefkowitz says.

Each year, she says, North Americans use 50 pounds of tissue paper per 
person, and the United States uses about 7.4 million tons of tissue paper. 
The group is calling upon Kimberly-Clark to include more recycled materials 
"so that ancient boreal forests need not be cut to be flushed down the toilet."

Kimberly-Clark spokesman Dave Dickson says the company has strict policies 
that emphasize economic, environmental and social sustainability in its 
harvesting of wood. "Our policy prohibits the use of any wood from virgin 
rain forests or significant old-growth forests, including Canada's boreal 
forest. We offer products that use recycled fiber."

He acknowledges that some of the products Kimberly-Clark produces are made 
from pulp that comes from boreal trees. "Yes, we use virgin pulp from the 
boreal forest in Canada. We do from some areas, yes, but not from 
ecologically significant old-growth areas." He says pulp is made of leftover 
sawdust and woodchip waste from the milling process and is used to make 
products such as Kleenex tissue.

Kimberly-Clark has about 55 percent of the facial tissue market in the 
United States.
Tempting Offers

Sophia Rabliauskas, a member of the Poplar River First Nation, says elders 
remind the community that land is more important than money.

"Like other aboriginal communities, we struggle with poverty, we struggle 
with unemployment, we struggle with health issues we've never seen before," 
she says. "Sometimes, it's tempting. They [companies] will say there is 
money in it, economic development. But the elders say be careful. Living in 
poverty, living in high unemployment, it's tempting. But we've seen the 
damage and destruction to the land in communities just north of here.

"Developers rarely talk about the human destruction left behind -- all kinds 
of diseases, illness, diabetes, children with asthma and respiratory problems."

Rabliauskas walks around the tepee, closer to the banks of the lake.

"It has happened in the past. Developers came in and destroyed land. It 
hasn't improved the community at all. I think we have to ask for help. We 
are a small group of people. Sometimes, it's overwhelming going up against 
major developers who have money. We will do what we can to protect the land. 
We will do anything."

Ernest C. Bruce, manager of the Poplar River nation and nephew of Victor 
Bruce, says the band is constantly being hit with proposals for development, 
tourism, ideas from the south to turn the land into money.

"We are afraid of the damage. One community allowed eco-tourism and the 
Americans came in and didn't respect the land. They hunted the moose and 
took the heads for trophies and left the bodies. That's against nature," 
Ernest Bruce says.

Other companies, he says, come in and brought with them cigarettes and 
alcohol and offers of jobs. "Like there was a paper mill company that came 
in and met with the community and promised employment in exchange for 
clear-cutting and promised a road. Manitoba Hydro promised employment. We've 
always said no to them."

Even though the community needs jobs. Only 15 percent of the 1,000 people or 
more in the Poplar River community work. The rest live on fixed income and 
social insurance.

"Some people get excited about the promise for jobs," Bruce says. "But the 
elders express concern. 'Are we willing to sacrifice for something 
short-term?' Money is only something you can hold, spend and it's gone. But 
the land will be here."
The Divinity of the Wild

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a senior attorney with the NRDC, has come to this 
camp to help save the boreal.

"The wilderness connects us with generations," he says. "We experience the 
divine most forcefully when we are in the wilderness. All the Koran's 
prophets were shepherds who came out of the deserts. The central epiphany in 
the tradition of mankind has occurred in the wilderness. Mohammed wrestled 
the camel. Moses had to go to the wilderness to get the Commandments. Christ 
had to go into the wilderness to discover divinity. In every religious 
tradition, they all instruct us to study nature, to learn God's message."

The fire in the middle of the camp is burning. The elders are listening. The 
sage is simmering.

"When we destroy the last areas of wilderness, we cut ourselves off from the 
source of identity," says Kennedy. "When we destroy those things, it is the 
equivalent of tearing the last pages out of the Bible. We better hold some 
places in reserve to show our children."

J.P. Gladu, an aboriginal outreach coordinator for the Canadian Boreal 
Initiative, is on this trip, too. He is explaining that last year a 
coalition of energy and forest companies joined First Nation tribes and 
environmental groups in an agreement to preserve at least 50 percent of the 
boreal. The other half would be developed in an environmentally sustainable 
method, carefully.

"Big corporations are pretty powerful. The current model is to get bigger," 
Gladu says. "But economically, the world needs resources. Unless people's 
minds shift, it won't stop. People consume. People consume. Until we change 
that, I don't think it will stop.

Gladu says that for some, the union of environmentalists, First Nation and 
corporations is dangerous.

"It's like the story of the scorpion and the fox. The scorpion and fox need 
each other to get to the other side of the river," Gladu says. "The fox 
says, 'I'm not going to give you a ride. You will sting me.'

"The scorpion says, 'Why would I sting you? We will both drown.'

"The fox gives him a ride and halfway across, the scorpion stings the fox.

"The fox says, 'Why did you do that?'

"The scorpion says, 'It's in my nature.' "

Ernest C. Bruce is standing by the lake. The water is lapping. The trees are 
swaying. Night is coming. The hill over there, Bruce is saying, is Thunder 
Mountain. "They say that is where the thunderbird lives. When in the past 
people traveled through the land, they traveled silently. If they woke the 
Thunderbird, there would be thunderstorms and lightning."

Somewhere out there, a night bird cries.

© 2004 The Washington Post Company



-- 
Macdonald Stainsby
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green<http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green>
In the contradiction lies the hope
--Bertholt Brecht.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.resist.ca/pipermail/shadowgroup-l/attachments/20041213/1c54a34f/attachment.html>