Wag the Log
Lands for Life stirs battle over protected areas
HighGrader Magazine July/August 1998
by Brit Griffin
It's a bondooggle. When the Tories announced the Lands for Life initiative, they promised to cut bureaucracy, increase parks and protected areas and bring "peace in our time" to Ontario's wilderness. Despite warnings that the land base was too large and the issues too complex to be handled in the tight time line, the Tories hit the forest floor running and divided 40 million hectares of Ontario's Crown land between three "roundtables" of stakeholders. These roundtables Boreal East, Boreal West and Great Lakes-St. Lawrence were charged with carving up the pie for a variety of interests, from forestry, mining and hunting to wilderness and tourism.
The Ontario government could have learned something from the land planning process undertaken in British Columbia. In B.C. the land was divided into manageable regions of one or two million hectares. Numerous biologists, foresters and bureaucrats were hired to augment the planning. As well, the participants were given healthy deadlines. But the Ontario government wants everything neatly wrapped up within a year. This is after three years of devastating cuts to the Ministry of Natural Resources. Roundtable members complain that they are being forced to rely on outmoded and unreliable data.
Now as the process careens towards a hard and fast deadline, the wheels are coming off the bus and the stakeholders are turning the stakes on each other. Public meetings have been getting raucous and the language more hard-line. Northerners suspect they are being sold down the river by a government trying to win green votes in the south.
Environmentalists, on the other hand, say the process has been `hijacked' by industrial interests. Tim Gray of Wildlands League, a member of the Partnership for Public Lands (a coalition of environmental groups), accuses the forestry industry of lying and intimidation.
It appears that John Snobolen, Minister of Natural Resources, badly misread the uneasy truce between environmentalists and northern communities. When he placed the issue of wilderness squarely on the table and demanded that all problems be settled on a tight time-line, he set the Furies buzzing. The Tories "we'll sell whatever to whoever" approach to public trust, has done little to ease the suspicion between the various parties. All are suspecting the others of being involved in backroom deals.
Once again the debate is hardening around the issue of how much land needs protection and what kind of protection is good enough. About the only thing the various parties can agree on is that Lands for Life may set relations on the forest floor back several years.

The Numbers Racket
The Partnership for Public Lands is issuing dire warnings that Lands for Life is the last chance for wilderness. They claim that industry now has access to 94% of the existing landbase and that unless more land is protection, all remaining "wild" forests will be logged within 20 years.
Many in the north dismiss these numbers. They say the percentage that is open to logging is closer to 65%. As well, 15 - 20% of the productive forest is set aside to protect a number of values such as moose habitat, wetlands or heritage sites. When the Crown Forest Sustainability Act is fully implemented, forest companies will be obliged to set aside even more areas. On top of this, large chunks of land might be given over to the tourist operators as parts of their "zones of influence."
And what about the claim that all the unprotected forests are due for a buzz cut? Martin Litchfield, General Manager of Forest Resources at E.B. Eddy in Espanola responds, "If we did that we'd be out of business".
But still, much of the battle is over percentages. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF), a Partnership member, had said that 12% should be set aside as part of their on-going `Endangered Spaces' agenda. Under the Partnership, though, this has since crept up to 15 - 20%.
Out in British Columbia, an environmental coalition pushed for the province to achieve the 12% protected areas by the year 2000. Now that the province is within sight of this goal, some members of the coalition (the Western Canada Wilderness Committee) are saying that anything less than 40% will be a sell-out. It is this continually moving yardstick that has made mining and forestry people suspicious of getting involved in the percentage game.
Kevin Kavanagh of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) says he can't understand why the other side (mining and logging) is drawing a hard line. "We've tried to understand why we can't sit down and negotiate more intelligently. We've read it in the press that some in the forestry industry are saying they need every tree on every acre, and some in the mining community saying they have to have access to 100% of the landbase. They aren't interested in negotiating."
Despite this conciliatory talk, the Partnership for Public Lands has pulled their staff member from the Great Lakes- St. Lawrence (GLSL) in protest over the state of negotiations.
The problem with the percentages game is that it recognizes only a very narrow vision of what constitutes protected. Environmentalists, for instance, do not count massive tracts of Algonquin Park as protected because logging operations are allowed. The 25,000 hectares set aside under the Cochrane Remote Wilderness Strategy isn't counted either. This region is closed to logging but has allowed prospecting.
Mike Leahy isn't impressed. He represents prospectors on the Boreal East Roundtable. He points out that there are very high odds against any exploration work resulting into a developing mine. If a mine came one line it would take at most 50 acres.
Leahy says that he has worked hard to negotiate but that negotiations have to be a give and take process. As long as the environmentalists reserve the right to decide what constitues protection, there can be no give and take.
"The mining industry had a meeting with the Partnership and (Wildlands League) Tim Gray's posture was that 15 - 20% of the land base had to be set aside. That was his bottom line. He didn't seem to be willing to look at alternative prescriptions. No logging, no mining, no hydro, period. Otherwise it does not qualify at all as a protected area."
Martin Litchfield, General Manager of Forest Resources for E.B. Eddy in Espanola, says his company has taken the initiative to protect lands within their own forest regions. He feels the environmentalists aren't giving credit where credit is due.
"We have the Spanish River special area and there is no harvesting in there. It was specially set aside by E.B. Eddy to try and respect the view shed and water quality of the Spanish River system. There is no harvesting 200 m other either side of the river. That adds up to 7,000 hectares. So what we've said is yes, we will work with you on parks but you work with us on these protected areas."
Tim Gray dismisses their offer. "They are committed to completing it (the parks system) as long as it allows for logging and mining. And they want all the existing parks opened up."
Martin Litchfield says this isn't the case at all. He says if logging and parks can co-exist, like they do in Algonquin Park, then fine. If not, that's fine too. "Obviously there are a number of parks that are not conducive to any type of logging."

Depopulate the North
Over the last decade Northern Ontario has seen a steady loss of badly needed mining jobs. With increasing pressure to pull land out of prospecting or logging operations, the viability of many northern communities is on the table. Mike Leahy says the backlash in the north is understandable.
"I don't see anywhere where the government of Ontario has declared a policy of de-populating Northern Ontario. We've lost 12,500 jobs in Northern Ontario in the last year. The timber supply will be further reduced by the full implementation of the Crown Forest Sustainabilty Act. There will be a shortfall in the medium-term and they think we should withdraw even more land. The population of Northern Ontario is understandably alarmed."
Tackling the issue of job loss has been an prominent part of Wildlands League's publicity campaigns. They blame technological change for the loss of northern jobs. It's a serious problem, but hardly unique to the forest industry. Almost every workplace in the country has been transformed by technology. They also point to alternative uses of the forests, but the economic rewards of mushroom picking or collecting herbs hardly seem a credible alternative to a functioning mill.
Kevin Kavanagh (WWF) says the future belongs to the tourists. He points to Cape Breton, inundated with German tourists, as an example. Besides, says Kavanagh, "...the status-quo is a dead-end road anyway. Is that better for the communities of Northern Ontario? I would argue not. It's frustrating that we are not getting more in-depth discussion going on about other options."
The experience of British Columbia calls into question the ability of eco-tourism to deliver the goods. When the B.C. government responded to an environmental campaign to create a park reserve on the Queen Charlotte Islands, two small communities disappeared altogether and the town of Sandspit was decimated.
The B.C government was hoping that the tourist trade would grow by 25% each year to the South Moresby and Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve, creating a few hundred jobs in ten years. That just hasn't happened. According to B.C. forestry consultant Patrick Armstrong, the local economy paid a heavy price.
"The economic base there was forestry and there was a big economic contribution to that community from the forestry operations on South Moresby that virtually ceased to exist once the park reserve was created. Today Sandspit is a very pale shadow of its former self. It was always a small community, some 1000 people, but now its probably now around two or three hundred. It's pretty depressing and rundown."

Beat One Protect the Other
The WWF suggests that the forestry industry could make up for the loss of some land by practicing "intensive" forestry on the other land. But E.B. Eddy's Martin Litchfield says they have been trying to move away from that practice which has been traditionally unpopular with environmental groups.
"The international standards for certification as a sustainable forest encourages us to minimize plantation forestry. We've been encouraged through various government guidelines that promote natural ecosystems to try and bring in a softer blend of forestry that would have a greater variety of species and less intrusion into the forest. But now we are hearing, no, go the other way. And it's the same groups that hit us both times."
If forestry companies did push for more intensive forestry, they would certainly take flak. Tim Gray believes that the real hidden agenda of industry is to bring in intensive forestry and increased land tenure. He charges that Lands for Life isn't about the creation of parks, it's about `clearing the decks' to make way for the transfer of Crown lands from the public sector into the hands of the logging companies. According to Gray, the logging companies should be coming to the Roundtables to talk about intensive forestry and tenure. Instead they "...prefer to be able to stand back and beat up on protected areas and do a quiet deal with the Ministry out of the public eye."
Increased tenure isn't on the table, explains Litchfield, because many companies are satisfied with the present tenure arrangement. "You have to project sustainability 160 years into the future. Your forest management plans have to show where you are going to be, by a five-year period, for the next 20 years. If you do a good job on your plan then after five years another five years is added so you always have a 20 year projected wood supply. The question is do you need any more than 20? That's tenure based on performance. Quite frankly I don't think I need anymore than that. I don't need absolute rights on that timber for 100 years or 150 years."

Litchfield says that in order to make conflict resolution more feasible and effective, some new thinking is needed when it comes to land-use disputes. He suggests both sides adopt the "baseball arbitration" method.
"The current system forces people to be polarized," explains Litchfield, "Let's say you want a one kilometer reserve around your cottage and I as a logging company want a 100m reserve around your cottage. Your first bargaining position is you don't want anything within five kilometers, knowing that you won't get your five and I won't get my 100m. The District Manager will back off to something in between. The tendency is to pick something in the middle and neither side wins. But the baseball arbitration says you give your best, realistic solution, no negotiation, no compromise. And the arbitrator has to pick one or the other. Which one is closest to fair value. It forces people to try and look at the other person's view and decide what would be fair to both."
David Ramsay, MPP for Temiskaming (covered by both the Boreal East and the Great Lakes St. Lawrence regions) agrees that it is time for some new thinking about protecting wilderness. He says the approach that imposes areas of total protection creates only zoos and deserts.
"It tells northerners that you are not responsible enough to properly manage your own back yard. It says we suspect that you would exploit your own backyard to the detriment of the environment. It is a continuation of a paternalistic attitude that governments have had over the years in various matters but in particular with its dealings with Northern Ontario."
Ramsay says there are other more realistic approaches to protecting wilderness such as the floating reserve system that has been implemented in Saskatchewan. He says this approach is more in tune with the dynamic natural cycles in a forest and can accommodate everyone from the hunter to the recreational canoeist.
If recommendations emerging from the Boreal West Roundtable are any indication, Roundtable members have worked hard to find creative compromises. They have tried out the concept of various stewardship reserves. Already, however, the recommendations are being denounced in some quarters as a sell-out.
The battle lines are hardening. The complex issues surrounding Lands for Life are being reduced to increasingly black or white scenarios as the main players take the struggle into the public sphere. What it means for the future of land negotiations in Ontario can only be guessed.

Box Insert
Collateral Damage
Mill town takes hit in wilderness war
By Brit Griffin
The prospect of undergoing more land negotiations under Lands for Life doesn't sit well in the community of Elk Lake. At one time this logging and mining town boasted a population of 10,000. Today's population hovers in at around 550. Residents in this mill-based town feel they have gone the extra mile in wilderness negotiations and have still been burnt.
For over 20 years, Elk Lake has suffered fall out from the struggle over Temagami (about 90 km. away as the crow flies). In 1973, the area's land base was put in limbo by a native land claim. The Temagami Land Caution froze development and mining interests in the region for two decades. Then as a response to pressure in Temagami, the Lady Evelyn-Smoothwater Park was created. Some of Elk Lake's oldest forest plantations fell within the park's boundaries.
Elk Lake Reeve Terry Fiset doesn't dispute the creation of the park but says it had a definite impact. "Planning on a 20 year forecast for the boreal forest it is quite straightforward. You cut 1/70th per year and plant 1/70th per year of your management area. But when someone takes a big chunk out of it for a park or protected area, your math sort of goes out the window. We're left with having just lost a quarter of our pie."
Throughout this period, regional players had to go through a number of contentious land-planning initiatives as each new provincial government tried to settle the land battle in the Temagami-Elk Lake region.
Fiset explains how the community tried to move beyond 20 years of conflict. "We went through the stage of crying and complaining about things, I guess as everyone does, and we were spending a fortune on land-use issues and not even maintaining the status quo. So we decided to become more proactive."
In 1991, the community applied, and was chosen, as one of four pilot projects to manage a community forest. With a municipal levy of only $137,000 (not including school tax) the Township invested $30,000 a year into getting the community forestry initiative off the ground. Explains Fiset, "We were already spending $18,000-25,000 a year just fighting issues so we thought we might as well put a little more in and see if we could get a little return."
Last year the Community Forest did almost $2 million worth of work with a payroll of some $100,000 every two weeks. This is providing the community with badly needed employment opportunities in silviculture. As part of the long-term vision, the community had set out to construct an Eco-Resource Centre for on-going training and education in forestry issues.
With its emphasis on local control, economic diversification and retraining initiatives, the Community Forest brought together a wide variety of interests, from industry types to trappers, tourist operators and environmentalists. It is the kind of project that one would have expected to be a model for new forestry relations. Indeed, in an attempt to resolve some of the contentious issues related to the Elk Lake Forest Management Plan, the Community Forest hit upon the idea of sponsoring a weekend session with environmental groups.
"There were concessions all along the line," maintains Fiset, "and they (environmentalists) were as much a part of the process as the anglers and hunters or our local residents. Everyone had a say. We reached what we thought was a pretty good compromise, we went over and above in the identification of culture and heritage values, which we paid for, and we did as good a job as could be done in bringing up the Forest Resource Inventory. We agreed to a voluntary moratorium on the logging of Red and White Pine until we could negotiate some strategies. We went well beyond the usual public consultation and conflict resolution process."
Last year, however, some of the groups that participated in the process - Wildlands League and Friends of Temagami - initiated court action against the Ministry of Natural Resources for not completing it's Crown Forest Sustainability manual on time. Units that had proceeded without the manual, including the Elk Lake Community Forest, were seriously effected by the legal action.
"After doing all the things we did to show them we can do things different and do things right," says Fiset," we get slammed with a court case because the MNR didn't have the manual done in time. We went the extra mile, we paid for it all. None of those groups put in five cents."
Tim Gray speaks for the Wildlands League. "I sympathize with them having to re-do plans that were done illegally but what can we do? The logging operations were illegal so what alternatives did we have?"
Fiset says the "illegality" was more of a case of the MNR not having dotted the i's and crossed the t's. But it still leaves Elk Lake holding the bag. "In the court ruling the judge said it was too bad that the ruling could have fallout for the forest industry. Well, thanks for your condolences."
Still Gray doesn't look upon it as personal. "We aren't trying to make individual foresters lives difficult but we have a government here that is running roughshod over public process, laws and enforcement. If we sat back and let the government get away with it we wouldn't be doing our job. And you know who will be on the hook if these plans cannot be done because the resources haven't been provided by next February? It will be the Minister who is in contempt of court, not Elk Lake Community Forest or individual foresters."
Whether John Snobolen will be losing sleep over the court challenge is debatable. What is clear, however, is the effect the court ruling has on Elk Lake. Re-writing the plan in itself is a time-consuming and expensive venture ($250,000- $300,000). And if the plan isn't ready by the February deadline, there will be no harvesting on the Elk Lake Unit. The mill could be shut down.
On top of this a new park plan could effectively cut the community off from all resources just 10 miles to the south. A wilderness classification in the park would further impact by cutting off the town's tourist trade from badly needed snowmobile traffic in the winter.
Under Lands for Life, the Elk Lake Management Unit could lose another 27,000 hectares. On a landbase that has an annual allowable cut of 3075 hectares, this adds up to alot of timber.
Fiset doesn't think he's being unreasonable when he says that Elk Lake has already done its share. He says Lands for Life should be applied equally across the province. "Knock down everything from Dundas to Bloor, between Bay and Yonge. Knock it all down. Bring in some dirt. The Elk Lake Community Forest will supply the trees and we'll come down and plant them so people can see something grow other than cement."
Recently the Community Forest returned a $1.3 million dollar grant from the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund for their proposed Eco-Resource Centre. The centre would have served as a centre for teaching new forestry practises. Fiset admits sending back the money will definitely hurt but says Elk Lake just doesn't have enough people to fight on all fronts and carry through the fundraising needed to build the centre.
Terry Fiset is a fighter but he'd rather be getting on with the business of living. "They make it sound like it's a free-for-all going on in the forest and the only way to save it is to protect it. From who? Us? Come take a look at the changes, even in the last five years. This is our home, this is our community, we don't want to screw it up. We've been doing this for three generations and we'd like to see a fourth generation doing it."

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