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The following article was featured in a newsletter on the British Columbia Forests Society's website. http://www.forestssociety.com/newsletter.htm#4 Featured Article(s) This section of our newsletter will feature thought-provoking subjects and opinions, to aid with constructive debate about SFM in the province. If you wish to contribute or comment, please contact the editor of ForestWise at: forestwise@shaw.ca.
ForestWise: Youbou is situated on Cowichan Lake on southern Vancouver Island. Old pictures from the Cowichan Valley show logs as big as a house, and today the hillsides have vigorous forests of Douglas Fir. Explain the term ‘TimberLess’ in your society. Wiles: The name ‘TimberLess’ is a deliberate reflection upon our origin. We began as a group of disenchanted sawmill workers who fought to maintain a successful, profitable manufacturing plant in our community of Youbou. We were finally defeated in January 2001 by a combination of BC Government negligence and corporate greed in the guise of TimberWest Forest Corporation. Thus we went from ‘TimberWest’ to ‘TimberLess’. Our name is ironic because as you suggest, Youbou is surrrounded by second-growth timber. Unfortunately much of the landbase here and throughout southeastern Vancouver Island is privately-owned by TimberWest, the largest private forest landowner in western Canada (330,000 ha) and a leading exporter of raw (unprocessed) logs. Their decision to close the mill terminated the jobs of more than 200 employees at a facility that had sustained a local economy for more than 70 years. We find our somewhat incongruous name as advantageous for publicity - instantly recognized and remembered, even by those who might be unaware of our message. I suppose this is what advertisers term ‘brand recognition’. It has often served as an opening to further our conversation about social injustice and policy change in the forest sector. ForestWise: It is interesting that you link social injustice to forest policies. Many people see forest policies as directed only at the health of the forest and the forest sector. However the Montreal Process, an international agreement on conservation and sustainable forest management, highlights social and economic justice for people and communities as an important SFM component. Have we lost sight of the idea that BC’s forests are for the benefit of the communities of British Columbia? Wiles: Surely a healthy forest sector is sustained by a multitude of factors. Pivotal is the underlying ecological health of forests upon which all of our human endeavours rely. Stewardship of the forest landbase and all that it produces is more than just the right thing to do – it is a solemn intergenerational trust. Our political and business leaders have lost sight of this. A successful forest sector must nourish and sustain people. The importance of the socio-economic dimension is critical to communities. Forests are our common wealth and are as vital to our collective well-being as air and water. Healthy communities depend upon the wealth generated by healthy forests – carbon absorption, oxygen creation, water filtration, land stabilization, fibre production, recreation use and even spiritual pacification. Some of these benefits are not widely recognized as contributing to economic wealth, but they do. Have we lost sight of the connection between forests and communities in British Columbia? We would argue that provincial forest policy is essentially blind and bankrupt. Existing forest policy is choreographed by the macro-agenda of big business and imposed upon all of us from the top down. Witness the loss in accountability to communities with the negation of the appurtenancy principle in forest licences – all done without consulting those stakeholders most vulnerable and dependent. This is not a model to sustain resources and people over time. ForestWise: The experience in BC has been that people are very interested and concerned about the question of privatization of our public forestlands. Do you think that the traditional public interest in our forests is being eroded? Wiles: It is perhaps best to answer your question form the standpoint of our own experience. The Youbou sawmill relied on the timber sourced from public forestlands on south Vancouver Island. In the mid-1950’s, the BC government granted Tree Farm Licence 46 (TFL #46) to British Columbia Forest Products. This Crown Licence provided the private company with access to public timber for a term of 25 years, optionally renewable every 5 years in perpetuity. The wisdom of this arrangement was that BCFP (later to become TimberWest) would be assured of a stable, sustainable source of fibre for manufacturing. In turn, the company’s shareholders and bankers could dependably captitalize the necessary industrial infrastructure. For this preferential treatment, it was expected that the company would operate on public lands in accordance with the BC Forest Act and Regulations, pay the prevailing stumpage rates and taxes, and (this is important) adhere to prescribed government social objectives. The latter concept became broadly termed as the ‘social contract’ including specific ‘appurtenancy’ provisions - these were the requirements of a licence that obligated a company, in this case TimberWest, to provide stable employment to local communities. Subsequently, we have witnessed a startling erosion of this social contract. In some cases, government policy has deliberately moved away from appurtenancy, allegedly for reasons having to do with the standardization and harmonization of all provincial TFL contract language. In other cases including ours, the local timber processing requirement was apparently inadvertently ‘lost by a blundering bureaucrat’. In the words of a formal minister, “the Ministry screwed up”. So it is our experience that some forest policy can be altered through a combination of deliberate and accidental change. The first is often misguided and the second in negligent - by both means, the public’s interest is not being served. The net affect is a gradual privatization of the public’s forests. This view is further reinforced by recent government forest policy changes that allow companies to subdivide TFL’s, and freely buy and sell licences with minimal government oversight - TFL#46 was finally sold in May 2004 for 17.9 million dollars. Compounding these freedoms are generous windfall compensation packages awarded to companies for loss of cutting rights on public land. All of this follows government’s decision to allow private forest lands to be removed from TFL’s, a move that liberated over 60,000 ha from TFL #46 in favour of TimberWest. I don’t think that the public has yet to understand all of this. ForestWise: What effects did the closure of the Youbou sawmill have on people? Wiles: As you can probably guess, the economic and social impacts have been profound. Every family has suffered varying degrees of loss. This has been spelled out authoritatively in a recent publication entitled “Fractured Lives: Results of the 2003 Survey of Youbou Sawmill Workers”. YTS in collaboration with the Vancouver Island Public Interest Group (VIPIG) at the University of Victoria, has published the survey analysis and recommendations of Scott Prudham and Rob Penfold, researchers at the University of Toronto. This report gives an overall statistical analysis of how workers’ lives were altered, and recommends specific and general provincial forest policy changes to address those people most aggrieved. The report can be accessed through the TimberLess Society website: www.savebcjobs.com Unfortunately the effects upon workers, their families and their community have been dramatic, and are continuing. (Note: It should be pointed out that the impetus for this survey came in part from a Deputy Minister of Forests letter that erroneously stated that the majority of workers had found alternate employment through an Industrial Adjustment Committee). ForestWise: Forest stewardship is a longterm affair. Is the Youbou TimberLess Society going to continue their interest and efforts in the management of local forests? Wiles: Our society (YTS) is a creative and constructive response to a very negative and destructive experience. Our vision has always been solution-oriented and longterm in scope. Like foresters, woodworkers know the importance of longterm stewardship. By definition, the forest resource is infinitely renewable and logically it follows that the stewardship horizon should therefore be perpetual. In June of 2001, YTS became involved with the forest certification debate in BC, participating with the SFI and FSC formulation of standards. In January of 2002, we issued a BC Forest Policy position paper that publicly advocated for fundamental changes. Then in March of 2002, we participated in the Community Forest forum held in Victoria and subsequently were invited to join the BC Community Forests Association. And since 2001, we have been advocating for a new-model community forest in the Cowichan Valley. In addition to all of this activity, other engagements have included participating at universities, schools and service clubs in an effort to impart our message. The campaign will continue. So in answer to your question, as you can see, we intend to be around for many years to come, and stay closely involved in forest stewardship in the Cowichan Valley. ForestWise: Do you have any final
thoughts to impart? |
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