Two in the Bush
Will eco-nomics save the north? Is it meant to?

HighGrader Magazine March/April 1999
by Brit Griffin
The anti-bear hunt alliance certainly isn't the first environmental campaign to make the vague promise of better economic times once the locals have surrendered. Rare is the land-use or resource-battle that does not include the number crunching of eco-nomics. The numbers certainly are impressive. But they come with a catch. The promise of a better future is predicated on rural communities first giving up tangible economic benefits logging, mining or forms of tourism that don't appeal to the higher green brows (hunting, snowmobile use or motor boats). Call it economic development in reverse.
The promises of a future boom in eco-tourism or value-added, green industries have become the sugar chaser to a bitter and often dubious elixir: ditch the logging skidder and feed your children on mushroom picking. Tell the fall hunters to take their money and beat it because in a few years the local economy will be swamped with animal photographers.
But do the numbers add up? Judge for yourself:

82 million guitars clash
Did you know that for every 1000 m3 of wood produced, there are only 37 logging and 2.4 pulp jobs created? According to Toronto-based environmental group Wildlands League, that same amount of wood could create 95,238 jobs for guitar-making craftsmen. We're not talking Fender here but those upscale personal guitars like Oskar Graff. Ninety-five thousand!
Now given the fact that (according to Wildlands League Fact Sheet #7) primary logging creates 34,500 jobs in Ontario it should stand to reason that if we extrapolate this into fine guitar making jobs we could create spaces for 82,142,775 craftsman.
Never mind wondering about who will buy the wares of 82 million guitar makers. Or where the guitar makers will get the wood without the loggers and the millers to get it ready for them. Or for that matter, how the forests of Ontario will fare with 82 million flat-top makers out to mow them down.

Canoe A-Go-Go
According to Wildlands League Fact Sheet #10 canoeing in Ontario brings in anywhere from $320 - $689 per hectare while logging only brings in $210 a hectare.
Such a figure will no doubt surprise folks in Dryden, Iroquios Falls, Espanola or any other mill town. Just think of how much better off they'll be if they shut the mills and go into the paddle business.
This $320-689 doesn't represent actual dollars, however. It is based on people's "willingness to pay." That doesn't mean they will pay, it merely puts in dollar terms the piece of mind people have knowing that they could go canoeing.
Says the Wildlands League: "Even though `willingness to pay' is not easily translated into actual dollars, it does suggest that people in Ontario as elsewhere place a high value on the spiritual and recreational qualities of nature areas."
No similar dollar figure is given for people's willingness to pay for, say, pine floors, toilet paper or newsprint.

A Place on Park Avenue
Many northern communities have worried about losing their landbase and livelihood during park creation. Not a problem. Take Quetico Park in Northwestern Ontario for example according to the authors of the Outspan Study, the "personal benefits" created by having the park comes in at a whooping $4.5 million.
Buried in the text is the fact that $3.3 million of this windfall doesn't come in hard dollars. It comes in the personal benefit we all get just knowing the park is there.
As well, the study adds another $210,000 to the mix as a health care saving. The theory being that if you go to the park, you're getting healthier and thus will be less of a burden on the health care system.

The New Math
Monte Hummel of the auspicious World Wildlife Foundation apparently believes the eco-tourism boom is already here. According to the transcripts of the Standing Committee on the new Fish and Wildlife Act, Hummel urged a ban on the spring bear hunt. He maintained that the dollar loss from the hunt could easily be compensated by other forms of tourism. The transcripts have Mr. Hummel stating that 26,000 people were employed in tourism in Northern Ontario. This, he told the Standing Committee, represented 73% of the north's employment. Not quite. Try 6.8%.
HighGrader phoned the WWF office to see if perhaps Mr. Hummel had been misquoted. Four phone calls and one written faxed request later we were still in the dark.

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