Tag Archives: Politics

by | November 18, 2009 · 9:01 pm

My Dinner with the Prime Minister

Wed, 11 Oct 2006

As always, it was a last-minute date. The Prime Minister likes to be spontaneous when he shows up in Vancouver. And when he’s here, he’s very shy and prefers to avoid crowds. I got the call only the day before.

Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada. Oh, those eyes! Those lips!

Nevertheless, I went to meet him. I had the same kind of relationship with former PM Jean Chretien – he would stay at a high-priced hotel downtown, and I would ride the bus in to give him a little message from the heart. But it didn’t work out with Jean, his staff always interfered, and I felt I was never really able to reach him.

With Stephen, I hoped it would be different. Dinner was set for the Floata Restaurant in Chinatown. Stephen was meeting with Chinese businessmen on the subject of freeing up trade restrictions between Canada and the People’s Republic. A lovely, intimate setting – not some huge anonymous ballroom filled with party hacks. Maybe I’ll get to practice my Cantonese, I thought.

I rode the bus down to Chinatown, but when I arrived at the Floata Restaurant, the entrance was blocked by a crew of enthusiastic young folks in white t-shirts and name tags. Security men in black suits and sunglasses lurked in the dim lounge, muttering into radios. I went around to the parking entrance.

That entrance was blocked by the Stephen Harper Welcoming Committee, a rowdy bunch of troublemakers from No One Is Illegal, the Anti-Poverty Committee, and the Association of Chinese-Canadians for Equality and Solidarity.

The crowd of about 75 had flowed out into the street and around a red SUV stopped at the light. The SUV driver immediately flipped out, screaming and honking his horn. A reporter took a picture. The door popped open and the driver lunged out, grabbing the reporter by the neck and trying to take him down. Other folks in the crowd pulled the bellowing driver off the reporter and manhandled him back into the SUV, where he continued to honk and holler. A couple police officers who had witnessed the scuffle strolled over and suggested the crowd let the driver go through, which they did. The reporter – a young man named Eric, writing for the Ming Pao daily newspaper – wasn’t hurt, but his glasses were broken.

A few minutes later, the police were herding people off the street by forming a line and pushing. Some refused to be herded and pushed back. The crowd thronged around the entrance, onto the sidewalk, back onto the street. Things were tense. Stephen isn’t going to like this, I thought.

As it turned out, Stephen arrived in his usual motorcade of black cars with black tinted windows – but he dodged into the alley and ducked into a side entrance to the restaurant. I tried to follow, but the door slammed shut. Heartbroken, I pounded on the glass, calling his name. Calling him names. The activists had a bullhorn and some rousing chants, so I joined in.

Later, nursing my disappointment, I learned that only the day before Stephen had announced sweeping cuts to social programs, many of them already decimated by Jean’s cuts and attrition. Women’s programs, literacy programs and more. If only I could talk to him, I mused out loud.

“Don’t bother,” said a scruffy black-clad anti-poverty activist. “He doesn’t care what you think.”

So true. So sad.

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by | · 8:26 pm

Iskut Hunters Take Aim at Corporate Mining

September 2005: Representatives from the Wet’suweetin and Gitxsan First Nations drum in support of the Tahltan Elders who went to jail in order to protest the Sacred Headwaters. (Photo by James Dennis 3rd)

Today brings the latest installment in the long-running battle between the Tahltan Nation of Northern British Columbia and mining corporations intent on the large-scale, toxic extraction of gold and copper in their traditional territory. What’s at stake here includes the traditional hunting and fishing grounds on which these indigenous people still rely to feed their families.

Despite a court injunction against the natives, the road blockade was on again this week, and police arrested great-grandmother Lillian Moyer of the Iskut Band of the Tahltan Nation for blocking the road and refusing to allow the mining equipment to enter in defiance of the court order

Today’s reports come to us from the Iskut Band press release, the Vancouver Province, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The last piece, by Joel Connelly, includes some sharp and refreshing analysis of the scorched earth politics of BC’s mining industry.

News Release: Grandmother arrested at Iskut blockade
Monday September 11, 2006 12:40 PM

Iskut, B.C. (September 10, 2006) Lillian Moyer, a 67-year-old grandmother, was arrested yesterday at a First Nations road blockade near the Village of Iskut in northern B.C. For two months, the blockade has been preventing Vancouver mining company bcMetals from conducting exploration for a copper-gold mine in the Todagin Plateau area south of Dease Lake.

Community members allege that following the arrest, bcMetals heavy equipment leaked oil into trout-bearing Coyote Creek. They intend to hold the company accountable for the spill under Canadas Fisheries Act.

“Todays oil spill is our worst nightmare coming true,” said Rhoda Quock, a spokesperson with the Iskut elders group Klabona Keepers. “It shows what happens to our lands when development is rammed through without proper
consultation.”

Lillian Moyer, who lives in Telegraph Creek, chose to be arrested on behalf of the Iskut people after RCMP informed blockaders that if arrested, they would be denied access to their fall hunting grounds.

“I am being arrested today for the people of Iskut, for the people of Telegraph Creek, and especially for our grandchildren,” Moyer told supporters. This is from my heart. I believe my ancestors are speaking through me.”

Over 100 people were present at the blockade, including hereditary leaders of the Gitxsan and Wetsuweten First Nations who traveled to Iskut to show their support.

“We are here to support the Tahltan because the rivers that flow from here connect our people, and what happens in these headwaters affect everyone,” said hereditary Wetsuweten leader Alphonse Gagnon.

The Todagin Plateau is a traditional-use area of the Iskut people and home to one of the worlds largest populations of stone sheep. Last fall, nine elders and six others were arrested at the same location for blocking Fortune Minerals access to the Sacred Headwaters the shared birthplace of the Skeena, Nass and Stikine-Iskut Rivers.*

New northern mine worries native

Great-grandmother arrested for joining blockade to stop ‘threat’
Ethan Baron
The Province
Monday, September 11, 2006

A native great-grandmother has been arrested in a bid to stop B.C.‘s first new metal mine in 10 years.

BCMetals Corp. believes the Red Chris mine in northern B.C. contains almost a million tonnes of copper and 1.2 million ounces of gold.

But Tahltan elder Lillian Moyer, 67, who was arrested Saturday, says the proposed open-pit operation south of Dease Lake would violate sacred ground, threaten traditional hunting land and ruin fisheries.

“The land means so much to our people,” Moyer said yesterday. “We don’t want to see any development up there because it is sacred land. I am doing what I can, with great feelings in my heart, to stick up for our rights and for the land, for the future generations of young children.”

Members of the Tahltan set up a road blockade June 16 to keep BCMetals from driving heavy equipment through a fish-spawning creek. On Sept. 1, the company’s application in B.C. Supreme Court for an injunction to remove the protesters was granted.

Moyer said she visited the blockade Friday night and learned that anyone arrested for violating the injunction would be prohibited from entering traditional hunting grounds on the Todagin Plateau, the site of the planned mine.

“I was listening to all this and I said, ‘This doesn’t sound right. Why are we being threatened about our own traditional land that we want to protect?’”

Natives spend a month a year camped on the plateau, hunting, Moyer said.

BCMetals president and CEO Ian Smith has said that “the Red Chris mine has received all necessary environmental approvals from federal and provincial authorities.”

On July 4, the company said it had temporarily suspended movement of equipment to explore the Red Chris site because trout were spawning at a creek crossing on the access road.

On Saturday, when equipment crossed the creek after RCMP arrested Moyer, oil spilled into the creek.

“[This] oil spill is our worst nightmare coming true,” said Rhoda Quock, chief of the Iskut band, part of the Tahltan Nation. “It shows what happens to our lands when development is rammed through.”

BCMetals said the spill amounted to less than a half-litre of grease and other hydrocarbons, which washed off the drilling rig and escaped catchment booms.

The Iskut also worry that toxic copper dust will blow from the mine to their community 18 kilometres away, and that leachate from waste ore will contaminate drinking water and fish-bearing streams.

BCMetals expects the mine will produce 50,000 tonnes of copper and 75,000 ounces of gold annually for the first five years. At current prices, that’s $440 million in copper and $51 million in gold.

ebaron@png.canwest.com

© The Vancouver Province 2006

Native hunters up north take aim at corporate greed
Friday, August 11, 2006
By JOEL CONNELLY

ISKUT, B.C. — Like their boomer counterparts across the border in Alaska, British Columbia’s politicians dream big dreams of industrial development, but end up spending taxpayers’ dollars on bridges to nowhere.

A $3 million bridge across the Stikine River was built in the late 1970s for B.C. Rail, even though track laying stopped more than 80 miles away.

Simultaneously, another government agency — B.C. Hydro — was planning a dam that would have put the bridge 300 feet under water.

The severity of the land has turned back the boosters, leaving this wild, gorgeous country with a non-intrusive economy — wilderness tourism and natives’ subsistence hunting and fishing.

“The story of the Stikine has essentially been one of false hopes and would-be developments … of railway lines not quite constructed; grand telegraph proposals that failed … gold mines that petered out; copper and coal deposits that defied development, and on and on,” Alaska Geographic magazine observed in the early 1980s.

Twenty-five years later, gold and copper prices are up and a global economy demands “resources” to keep expanding.

But native peoples, who inhabit the 20,000-square-mile Stikine drainage, worry that sacred places will be used and abused, and that multinational companies will “extract” wealth and then walk away.

“The health of the people and health of the land are directly connected. … Everything that we eat comes from here,” said Gerald Amos, chairman of the Nanakila Institute in Kitimat.

Marie Louie, leader of the Iskut Band, notes that several great rivers rise in close proximity among nearby mountains and meadow-covered plateaus.

“If pollution from development goes into one river, it goes into all of the rivers,” Louie said.

On the American side of the border, do we have a dog in this fight?

Yes! Three B.C. river systems where major mining development is proposed — the Stikine, Taku, and Unuk — cross the border into Alaska. All have major salmon runs.

Can subsistence hunters bring down a charging multinational company? Or form a united front against corporate tactics of divide and conquer?

It does happen. In the 1950s, Dr. Edward Teller (“Father of the H-Bomb”) championed a scheme to use nuclear weapons to carve out a harbor in Arctic Alaska. Successful resistance to “Project Chariot” united native villages.

In British Columbia, native leaders in ceremonial robes blocked logging trucks on Lyell Island in the Queen Charlottes. The protest helped create Canada’s Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve.

Haida natives later went to court and won a greater voice in how Weyerhaeuser logs its lands.

The great MacKenzie Valley of the Northwest Territories was slated for a natural-gas pipeline in the 1970s. Native villages took their case to a government inquiry headed by B.C. Supreme Court Justice Thomas Berger.

Berger’s scathing report blocked the pipeline. The project is likely to go ahead, three decades later, with far more direct involvement by the valley’s aboriginal residents.

Yet, the airplane flight back down to Vancouver shows the pains of a resource economy.

At sunset, you can look down and see thousands of drowned trees sticking out of the Ootsa Lake reservoir. Ootsa is a natural lake, dammed and vastly enlarged in the 1950s. Its waters were redirected through the Coast Range to power the giant aluminum smelter at Kitimat.

The lands to be flooded were not logged. Thousands of moose, elk and woodland caribou drowned in the debris-filled reservoir. Native subsistence hunters were packed off to farms bought by the government. The result: rampant alcoholism.

At Brittania Beach, en route from Vancouver to Whistler, is a mine that once produced more copper ore than any other site in the British commonwealth.

Anaconda pulled out in November 1974, making no effort to clean up the mine and its chemical wastes.

It left behind the largest source of metal pollution in North America. A $30 million water treatment plant opened in April of this year, more than 35 years after closure of the mine.

It has made strides in environmental management, but the mining industry remains a bossy, reactionary force in British Columbia. Mining is the province’s third-ranking industry, behind forestry and tourism.

It throws its weight around. A pro-business government under Premier Gordon Campbell took office in 2001. The mining lobby began a drive to reduce by more than 90 percent the popular, newly created South Chilcotin Provincial Park, north of Whistler.

The miners backed off only when warned that environmental protests would torpedo Vancouver’s bid for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Vancouver newspapers love to depict B.C. environmentalists as strident and unreasonable, while putting industry’s plans in the friendliest focus.

With natives, however, the sneering stops.

They’ve been here 300 years, living off a land that has defeated boomers’ big dreams. They stand their ground, once even driving off Greenpeace anti-hunting activists who flew up from Vancouver.

Used to pushing people and governments around, mining companies may be compelled to walk humbly on the land. It’ll be a character-building lesson.

P-I columnist Joel Connelly can be reached at 206-448-8160 or joelconnelly@seattlepi.com.

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by | · 7:02 pm

Clayoquot Sound Opened for Logging

Logging in Clayoquot Sound, circa 1993
Logging in Clayoquot Sound, circa 1993

The deal that ended mass protests in Clayoquot Sound was fatally flawed. Now the Big Greens are calling foul.
Wed, 2 Aug 2006

In the mid-1990’s. almost a thousand people were arrested for blocking logging roads leading to untouched rainforest on the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. What started as a grassroots campaign later escalated to a markets campaign by Greenpeace and ForestEthics targeting buyers of BC wood. The province and the logging companies were forced to the negotiating table with First Nations and environmentalists. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was drafted as a compromise – to protect a small part of Clayoquot Sound in exchange for an end to the protests.

Friends of Clayoquot Sound (FOCS) – the folks who organized the grassroots civil disobedience campaign – didn’t sign the agreement. They condemned it for allowing logging in most of the remaining pristine valleys of the Sound. The criticisism was well-founded: the MoU was a compromise in the worst sense of the word. For seven years, FOCS has been exposing fresh clearcuts in this eco-tourism paradise.

This week the Big Greens are back on the scene, and Tzeporah Berman, now a director of ForestEthics, is “choking back tears” at the prospect of more logging in Clayoquot. But Berman and others were surely aware that Clayoquot was not protected even as they declared victory in 1999.

Mark Hume reports in the Globe and Mail:

Clayoquot opened to logging
Furious environmental groups threaten resumption of B.C’s ‘war of the woods’

VANCOUVER — More than 90,000 hectares of Clayoquot Sound — an icon of British Columbia’s wilderness and site of the largest environmental protest in Canadian history — has been opened to logging.

The decision, by a planning body known as the Clayoquot Sound Central Region Board, has met with angry denunciations from environmental groups who are warning the “war in the woods” that rocked B.C. during the early 1990s could be on again.

“This is unbelievable,” Adriane Carr, leader of the B.C. Green Party, said yesterday. “To me it’s tantamount to a declaration of war. . . . People all over the world believe that the forests in Clayoquot Sound are protected. They will not stand quietly by as chainsaws rip through the heart of Clayoquot Sound.”

It was after the fury of the past environmental protests that the government set up boards to review logging across the province and devise land-use plans. There has been limited logging in the Clayoquot Sound area in recent years, but major activity has been held in abeyance while the central region board pondered land-use options in a vast area.

Rights to log in the area are held by two companies, Interfor [International Forest Products] and the aboriginal-run [partnership] Iisaak Forest Resources. The logging companies now have to present detailed forest stewardship plans to the central region board before any cutting or road building takes place.

Clayoquot Sound, which covers 350,000 hectares of Crown land on the west coast of Vancouver Island, is a United Nations Biosphere Reserve. But development is restricted only in a core area comprising one national park, 16 provincial parks and two ecological reserves. Outside that core, development can take place in buffer or transition areas as long as it meets scientific guidelines.

The new logging is supposed to meet those standards, but Tzeporah Berman, program director of enivronmental group ForestEthics, said key wilderness areas in the middle of Clayoquot Sound will be lost.

“I never thought I’d say these words: Clayoquot Sound is going to be logged. The pristine valleys are now open to having roads blasted into them,” she said, choking back tears.

She said the decision could trigger blockades. “I hope it’s not going to come to that. But this is our worst nightmare.”

During the summer of 1993, Ms. Berman was a key organizer in a protest that drew 12,000 people (850 of whom were arrested) to a logging-road blockade in Clayoquot Sound. With the Australian band Midnight Oil dropping in for a supporting performance, staged in a clear-cut zone known as the black hole, the event became a catalyst for an international movement to save the richly forested area.

The region, which contains the largest intact old-growth rain forest left on Vancouver Island, is one of B.C.‘s major tourism attractions because of its ancient trees, salmon rivers and scenic ocean beaches.

The Clayoquot protest of 1993 was sparked by a provincial government decision to protect some areas by legislation, while opening 62 per cent of the land to logging. Environmentalists demanded that the whole area be saved, and soon thousands of protesters were flooding in to set up camp and use their bodies to block logging crews.

In a search for peace in the woods, the B.C. government later handed the issue to an international panel of scientists, who were asked to come up with a sustainable plan for logging areas not already set aside as parks. That in turn led to the UN biosphere designation in 2000. But that did not restrict industrial activity in a 58,000-hectare buffer zone and a 180,000-hectare transition area.

Jim Lornie, provincial co-chair of the Clayoquot Sound Central Region Board, said a total logging ban was never contemplated by his group.

In a decision last week, the board agreed to open eight major watersheds to logging, including areas environmental groups have long claimed are irreplaceable, such as Pretty Girl Lake, Ursus Valley, Upper Kennedy River, Clayoquot River and Fortune Channel.

Mr. Lornie said the board is seeking a balance between economic activity and environmental protection. “You really have to factor in the interests of first nations here. . . . At some point down the road they are going to want to put treaties in place and they are going to want to have some form of an economy, whatever the scale of it is, to support their people,” said.

It is expected that logging in the area would largely be done by Iisaak Forest Resources.

Francis Frank, President of the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council — which represents 14 tribes on Vancouver Island, including five that are members of the Clayoquot board — said all logging would have to meet scientific guidelines.

But Mr. Frank agreed the issue could lead to blockades and to divisions within the native community.

“You face the possibility of road action again. . . . That’s coming across loud and clear that if Iisaak was to proceed and get into some of these pristine areas that they shouldn’t be surprised that the environmentalists are out on the logging roads.”

Mr. Frank said that in 1993, aboriginals largely supported the blockades. Would that happen again, even if the loggers were natives this time?

“I’m sure [environmental protesters] would have a level of support within first-nation communities. Now what degree or level, I don’t know, but I’m certain there will be some.”

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by | · 6:43 pm

“No Threat” to Spotted Owls in Canada?

Northern Spotted Owl nestlings
Northern Spotted Owl nestlings

Despite petitions from environmental groups, the federal Environment Minister won’t step in to save the owl
Sun, 27 Aug 2006

Canadian Environment Minister Rona Ambrose says there is “no imminent threat” of extinction for spotted owls, while experts report the estimated number of remaining owls has fallen from 22 to 17.

Ambrose was responding to an appeal by conservation groups to invoke an emergency provision of the federal Species at Risk Act (SARA) and immediately protect owl habitat in British Columbia. But instead, she shrugged it off. “There is no imminent threat to the survival or recovery of the Northern Spotted Owl at this time,” Ambrose said in a press release August 16.

Environmentalists reacted with dismay and bewilderment to the announcement that Ottawa would take no action to protect the owl.

Gwen Barlee, policy director for the Western Canada Wilderness Committee, asked, “How can the Minister claim that northern spotted owls are not threatened when more and more owls disappear each year?”

“Minister Ambrose has set such a low standard for the Species at Risk Act in terms of its protections for endangered species that the law has been rendered meaningless,” said Devon Page, a staff lawyer with Sierra Legal Defence Fund.

Instead of taking action, Ambrose was content to praise the “commitment from British Columbia to preserve and increase the population of Northern Spotted Owls.”

The Environment Minister’s press release states:

The Government of British Columbia has announced an action plan that includes halting timber harvesting activities in areas of the interior of the province currently occupied by the remaining Owls.

The “action plan” Ambrose refers to appears to be a decision in April to suspend logging in newly-designated owl habitat areas. Conservationists point out, however, that the areas have not yet received any permanent, legislated protection. Given BC’s record of making vague promises and then reneging, environmentalists say they are skeptical.

Currently, what the province calls spotted owl conservation guidelines actually mandate more logging of owl habitat. In designated areas:

67 per cent of forested habitat suitable for spotted owls (i.e. old growth forest) must be retained;

Harvesting must not take place on more than 50 per cent of the land base; and

No forest harvesting is permitted within 500 metres of a nest site.

In other words, up to one-third of the owl’s remaining forest habitat can be logged, along with up to one-half of the land base, which includes non-forested areas.

Only three nest sites were documented by spotted owl researchers in BC this year. One nest tree was blown down by wind, killing a nestling, and another may have been lost to clearcuts by Cattermole Timber in July. Cattermole and the province both denied any knowledge of owls nesting on the site. Studies funded by the province are still attempting to locate any surviving owls in the vicinity.

The B.C. government also announced in April it would spend $3.4 million on a five-year spotted owl recovery program that focuses on captive breeding and releases to the wild.

In 2005, researchers found evidence of 22 owls in BC, with six breeding pairs. Further population audits carried out by conservation biologists this year indicate 17 owls are now living in BC’s southern inland rainforest.

In her decision to wash her hands of the owl’s fate, Minister Ambrose referenced the provincial Spotted Owl Recovery Plan, which is still in draft form and open to public comment online until September 25. The plan is not endorsed by any BC environmental groups.

The authors of the report, the Canadian Spotted Owl Recovery Team (CSORT), had this disturbing summary:

The CSORT recognizes that certain recovery measures (e.g., population enhancement measures) are not well tested, and the outcome of such actions is uncertain. The likelihood that the Spotted Owl will recover naturally (without human intervention) to numbers sufficient to down-list the species is considered to be extremely low, and therefore, active human intervention is recommended. Although the CSORT believes that recovery is biologically feasible, we recognize that the recovery of the Spotted Owl faces several significant logistical, societal and economic challenges, and that even if all these challenges are met, there is no guarantee that recovery will occur over the short term.

Still, the CSORT report is cautiously optimistic that the population can eventually recover, pointing to the success of species like the whooping crane and California condor. But Ottawa and Victoria are signaling that while public relations are important, the loss of an entire species – through destroying the ecosystem on which it depends – does not merit taking strong and decisive action.

On August 19, members of the Sierra Club of Canada gathered on Parliament Hill for a ceremony to mourn the impending loss of the spotted owl from Canada.

“How low must the spotted owl population go before the minister admits that extirpation is imminent?” asked Stephen Hazell of the Sierra Club.

“Canada’s whooping crane population collapsed in the early 20th century, bottoming out at 16 birds in 1941. Is it not embarrassing to all Canadians that the federal government is not prepared to fight for the spotted owl, as Canadian and American governments did for the whooping crane in the midst of the Great Depression and the Second World War?”

The Western Canada Wilderness Committee is considering further legal action to protect the owl.

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by | · 6:25 pm

Killing Spotted Owls with Chainsaws

26 Jul 2006
Northern Spotted Owl

Has government-approved logging doomed Canada’s spotted owl?

In the race against time to save Canada’s only population of Northern Spotted Owls, a wilderness biologist reports a disturbing setback.

British Columbia conservationists charge the government is handing out permits to log the last remaining habitat for the spotted owl in Canada. BC’s Timber Sales Program grants licenses for small logging operations, allowing local companies to clearcut where Big Timber fears to tread. The timber sales target the valuable remnants of old-growth forest in southwestern BC – the same forest the owls require to survive.

Decades of logging and development have left fewer than two dozen owls in BC’s fragmented landscape, and only two nests have been documented this year. Earlier this month, researchers found a Cattermole Timber logging operation at one of the nest sites.

“It was a sad sight,” commented Andy Miller, a leading spotted owl biologist with the Western Canada Wilderness Committee. “With all these small areas of felled trees dispersed over the hillside, I can only hope and pray that the company did not cut down the owl’s nest tree.”

“Why would a logging company purposefully fall trees in an area with a documented nest of one of Canada’s most endangered species?” Miller asked.

In early July, Miller got a close look at the mini-clearcuts in a remote area of the Anderson Valley north of Hope, BC. “It appears that this covert logging operation was not completed, and that the loggers quickly abandoned the site for unknown reasons.” Trees were felled but not hauled out, he said.

The old-growth groves in the Anderson Valley are not accessible by road. The logging crew apparently came and went by helicopter.

Cattermole Timber spokesman Ted Holtby and Chilliwack District Forest Supervisor Kerry Grozier deny any wrongdoing, and a provincial official says logging has been suspended pending more surveys to determine if any owls remain in the area. Kevin Jardine at the Species At Risk Coordination Office said Cattermole Timber was asked in April to voluntarily suspend logging in the area, in return for logging rights in other timber stands.[1]

Holtby is angry with the conservation group about what he calls “misinformation.” Holtby said the company is financially pressured by court delays and the costs of preparing the grove for logging, which have already hit $60,000.[2]

“There’s no way to recoup that money and the government isn’t going to cut us a check,” Holtby said.

Experts have predicted Canada’s spotted owl population will be extinct by 2010.[3] The loss of a nest site this month stacks the odds against new chicks hatching next year and in the future.

The clearcuts at Anderson Creek may prove to be the last step on the path to extinction for Canada’s spotted owls.

Cattermole Timber has a history of government-approved logging in spotted owl habitat. In 2004, the company cleared an old-growth grove where spotted owls were documented near Chilliwack, BC, over the vigorous protests of environmentalists. The district’s Forest Development Plan has already approved more clearcuts at the Anderson Valley and Chilliwack sites.

Endangered species have no protection under BC law, and the federal Species at Risk Act only applies to federal land, not provincial forests. WCWC and four other groups, led by Sierra Legal Defense Fund, are currently pursuing a judicial review in the Federal Court of Canada, asking the Environment Minister to intervene and protect the spotted owl. But it is a faint hope; unless Ottawa invokes the emergency provision of the Act, there is no way to compel the province to save the owl’s habitat.

In fact, provincial officials have tried to spin the clearcuts as somehow beneficial for the owls.

Cindy Stern of the South Island Forest District of the BC Ministry of Forests was responsible for the 2001 decision to allow Cattermole to log in spotted owl habitat. In that decision, and in a subsequent CBC Radio interview defending it, Stern stated the logging might actually enhance the habitat of the owl, and “thinning” the forest could boost the numbers of flying squirrels, the owl’s favorite prey. Further, she said, by logging the owl’s habitat, the province could gather valuable data on the environmental impacts of such logging.

Stern’s reasoning contradicts reality. Spotted owls rely exclusively on forests over 125 years old, and cannot adapt to younger forests, where they are out-competed by other species. Studies^[4]^ on the environmental impacts of logging in owl habitat demonstrate – even with selective harvesting – that habitat loss equals population loss. Conversely, the owls are an indicator species for healthy forests; the loss of spotted owls in southwest BC marks the loss of interior old-growth ecosystems in the region.

After Stern approved the logging plan, WCWC launched a court action to prevent Cattermole Timber from logging the Anderson Creek grove. The BC Supreme Court granted a temporary injunction putting the timber harvest on hold, but in August 2002 the case was dismissed. Justice Shabbits stated in his decision that BC’s forestry laws do not protect the spotted owl from extinction. According to Shabbits’ ruling, “it is currently a matter of speculation or argument whether timber harvesting might improve or enhance owl habitat.”

The ruling disregarded the conclusions of the Ministry’s spotted owl recovery team, which recommended logging be suspended in owl habitat so the population could recover.[5]

Experts question why the province refuses to accept the conclusion of its own scientists, and why it instead chose to fund a logging consortium’s effort to discredit the report. In 2003, the Ministry of the Environment handed out $247,000 to the Fraser Timber Supply Area Cooperative Association to “review” the science panel’s data. The province later shelved the report along with the possibility of habitat protection for the owl.[6]

While logging continues in the old-growth forest, the province has announced a new recovery plan that relies on unscientific experiments rather than habitat protection. Spotted owls have never bred in captivity, but BC proposes to capture owls and attempt to get them to mate in a cage. This plan is likely to fail, just as a similar owl capture program failed three years ago.

In the winter of 2002, government biologists snatched a baby owl from the wild and kept her in a cage with a good food supply until spring. In 2003, she was released in the forest near a single male so the two could mate and raise a brood.

It didn’t work. The baby owl, named Hope, survived the winter but died shortly after release. Reportedly, the single male already had a mate, and the two drove the young owl out of the old-growth forest. Without hunting skills and adequate cover, the owl starved to death.

Conservation groups have condemned the government’s spotted owl recovery plan as unworkable. Devon Page, staff lawyer for Sierra Legal Defence Fund, called it “managing for extinction.”

“If the B.C. government truly intended to save the owl, it would protect enough habitat for recovery of the species,” Page said. “You’d have to protect all the remaining old growth.”

Barlee added, “We are watching the species go extinct right before our eyes, due to government inaction and the greed of some of BC’s logging companies.”

1 ‘Spotted Owl Flap Halts Logging Plan,’ Hope Standard, July 20, 2006.

2 Ibid.

3 Western Canada Wilderness Committee, In Defence of Canada’s Spotted Owl, December 2005, p.8.

4 Blackburn, I. R., 1991. “The distribution, habitat selection and status of the Northern Spotted Owl in southwestern British Columbia, 1991.” (Unpublished report, BC Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks, Wildlife Branch, Surrey, BC.)

also Franklin, A. B., K. P. Burnham, G. C. White, R. G. Anthony, E. D. Forsman, C. Schwarz, J. D. Nichols and J. Hines, 1999. “Range-wide status and trend in Northern Spotted Owl populations.” (Unpublished Report. Colorado State University and Oregon State University, Fort Collins, CO.)

also Hanson, E., D. Hays, L. Hicks, L. Young and J. Buchanan, 1993. “Spotted owl habitat in Washington.” (Washington Forest Practices Board. Washington.)

also Hodum, P. and S. Harrison, 1997. “Ecological Assessment of British Columbia Spotted Owl Management Plan” (California: University of California.)

5 Blackburn, I. R. et al, 2002. “Population Assessment of the Spotted Owl in British Columbia, 1997 – 2001.” (Vancouver, Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection.)

6 In Defence of Canada’s Spotted Owl, p. 11.

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by | · 6:15 pm

Interview with the Earth Liberation Front

vail-arson

Vail arson, 1998

From the Green Monkey archive: ELF press officer explains why eco-sabotage hits the nerve

 

Back in 2003, the Earth Liberation Front Press Office (ELFPO) announced that an anonymous press officer had stepped up to replace Craig Rosebraugh of Portland, OR. The announcement said the ELFPO would provide interviews with media by email. I contacted the press office to ask about the group’s philosophy and practice of direct action and sabotage.

Why do people commit eco-sabotage? Especially “extreme” examples like the arson at Vail and torching SUVs?

Earth Liberation Front Press Office: We believe that people are driven towards direct action as a response to the feeling that more traditional forms of activism can’t work without a component of economic sabotage.

Direct action serves a double purpose of both costing target businesses and agencies economically as well as being dramatic enough to garner public attention to an issue – it is these twin results that continue to make illegal actions popular with a segment of those resisting the dominating aspects of industrial society.

Is this kind of direct action effective? What does it accomplish?

Effectiveness is something that is not easily measured. There have certainly been some examples of direct effectiveness in terms of costing businesses for the price of their actions (such as the rise in insurance costs for SUV dealers in the United States as a result of a wave of vandalism acts and fires) – however effectiveness primarily has to be gauged over the long-term.

The recent anti-sprawl fires in the US are an example of how actions can be both economically effective (in terms of costing developers extra money in security costs), but also effective because the whole discussion around urban sprawl was opened up in mainstream news as a direct result of these fires. An issue that the Sierra Club has been hammering at getting into the public consciousness for a decade, and all it takes is a few well-timed development fires and within a week there are editorials on urban sprawl popping up in every major newspaper across the United States.

That is effective in terms of achieving the goals stated by the ELF – no question about it – but is it effective in bringing about massive changes to industrial society as whole? Not yet.

Is the ELF revolutionary?

Revolutionary in the sense that the ELF’s goals seem to be to bring about large-scale social and ecological change – yes. There is no question that the ELF is motivated not only by environmental issues, but in their messages over the past decade there have definitely been statements that hint at a broader anti-capitalist analysis and a desire to bring an end to our current societal organization.

It seems every time an action happens, the mainstream enviros are eager to condemn the ELF as “terrorists.” Why the backlash?

The backlash is because mainstream enviros are afraid of being lumped in with “terrorists” and they seem to believe that most of the public is so stupid as to equate the Sierra Club with the ELF. We believe the public interested in environmental issues (or the public at large) can discern between mainstream and illegal action groups.

What’s funny is that the extreme actions of the ELF actually capture media and public interest in a way that mainstream enviros don’t – which in the end gives a lot of space and media time to the above-ground enviro groups to discuss their perspective on a given issues (such as sprawl or SUV use).

We believe that the mainstream enviros wouldn’t get nearly the airtime they do without the extreme animal and enviro groups carrying out illegal actions. However, while this may be true, we don’t believe the mainstream enviros will ever officially be on side since they are reliant on large amounts of funding from not only the general public but often also corporations trying to “green” their image. In no way can those groups ally with radicals who break the law, their funders would not like it.

I know some get a secret thrill from hearing about particularly dramatic actions. Why is that? Do you think more people support the ELF than we’re led to believe?

We get lots of “love letters” for the ELF every week which tells us that there’s greater public support out then the media would have us believe. We think that ELF actions are popular with people because they are expressions of resistance in a society that is frustrated, controlled, and ultimately stunted. To see a group act outside of the social training is secretly thrilling to everyone who wishes they too could break free just a little bit and go after the industrial mechanisms that keep us enslaved.

There is also a strong psychological component to the use of fire as a tactic – the ultimate anti-social act is to burn down that which society prizes(buildings, vehicles etc) – to reduce that to ashes is the ultimate “Fuck You” and on some level we respond to that very strongly.

The ELF is now on the FBI’s domestic terrorism list. Has this caused problems for people who talk openly about the ELF in the US?

Activists vocally supporting the ELF in the US have definitely had a lot of problems over the past few years with the FBI going around and generally harassing them with raids, interrogations and the threats of Grand Juries.

The last above ground press officer for the ELF was raided 3 times in two years, and even the Canadian ALF Press Officer was raided a year and half ago by the RCMP on behalf of the US Government. The FBI is generally frustrated by their low rates of successful prosecution in ELF and other direct action sabotage cases which means that they will go after anyone above ground who is vocal and supportive.

In Portland, OR, Jeff “Free” Luers was sentenced to 22 years for burning SUVs, more than if he’d committed rape or manslaughter. How has the threat of harsh punishment affected the amount of ELF sabotage?

We don’t think it has. Jeff was sentenced 3 years ago, and since that time we have seen an increase in the number of actions and the amount of damage caused. The largest eco-sabotage action in US history was carried out in August in San Diego costing $50 million in damages and 2003 as a whole was an incredibly costly year in terms of ELF damages – so there is no evidence that harsher punishments are deterring eco-sabotage.

But most who commit these major crimes get away with it. Why is that?

Meticulous planning and attention to detail. Not getting caught is a matter of planning an action over a long-period of time so as not to run into any surprises during the action, and leaving no dna or other forensic evidence behind that could track the police back to the person who committed the action. An important adjunct to this of course is the rule of secrecy at all costs. The few people who have been arrested over the past few years generally tend to be young (under 21) and to a number, every one of them had made the mistake of talking to someone they shouldn’t have (a girlfriend, school friends etc). who either turned them in or caved under FBI interrogation.

The people carrying out the larger-scale actions are likely more experienced in planning and carrying out covert activities which means they leave few if no clues behind (at least according to FBI reports) which would tie them as individuals to the action at any point.

Sometimes people ask how they can “join” the ELF. What advice would you give to folks who want to be more active?

No one can join an existing ELF cell, since they operate anonymously and aren’t contactable – but those who want to join the ELF need only to carry out actions following the ELF guidelines, and claim those as ELF actions in a public way (through graffiti at the site or a communique to the Press Office, or some other means).

We would recommend that those wanting to carry out any illegal direct action be aware of the length of time and complexity of detail that planning will take, that practicing with incendiary devices in a remote area is recommended before trying to use one in any action, and that it is a good idea to start small and over time (through experience) build up to larger scale actions.

In addition to that we suggest only working with people who you know very well, and being solid in all security measures (such as not talking outside of the group). Resist.ca has good information on security for activists that should be read and taken to heart by anyone proposing to break the law.

Where can we get more information about the ELF?

Earthliberationfront.com
Earth first! Journal

These are the sources we contribute to regularly as the press office.

Interview by email, March 2003, for Green Monkey Radio. The Earth Liberation Front Press Office has since stopped making public statements, anonymous or otherwise.

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by | · 6:04 pm

Green Scare Target Snitches on Friend

Wed, 19 Jul 2006

Three arrested on informant’s evidence before alleged eco-sabotage occurred.

In January, three people in their twenties were arrested in California for allegedly planning to sabotage a power station, cell-phone tower, and a US Forest Service facility.

A press release from U.S. Attorney McGregor Scott states Zachary Jenson, 20, of Monroe, WA, pleaded guilty Tuesday to one count of conspiracy and agreed to testify against his friend and alleged co-conspirator, Eric McDavid, age 28. Jenson will be sentenced October 3rd, and may be freed on bail Friday.

Lauren Weiner, 23, made the same deal in May. She is now free pending her sentencing hearing August 8.

The FBI accused the three of planning the sabotage in the name of the Earth Liberation Front, an underground network that targets developers, logging companies, and government agencies that destroy wilderness and wildlife habitat.

Associated Press reports:

Three days before their arrests, the three allegedly scouted the Nimbus Dam and nearby fish hatchery on the American River near Sacramento, and the Forest Service’s Institute of Forest Genetics near Placerville.

They didn’t know an undercover FBI informant had infiltrated the group. The FBI secretly rented a cabin for the group in Dutch Flat, outside Auburn, and wired the building for audio and video surveillance.

Jenson and Weiner have named McDavid as the supposed ringleader.

McDavid remains in custody at the Sacramento County jail, where he has resorted to hunger strikes in order to receive vegan meals. His supporters say he has been held in a Total Separation Unit, meaning that he spends almost all his time alone in a solitary cell.

Earth Liberation Prisoners Support Network, an advocacy group “supporting all who do not compromise in defense of Mother Earth,” lists both McDavid and Jenson on its website, but its policy states “we DO NOT support people that provide information to law enforcement or snitch on allies or co-defendants.” Prisoners who testify against others are dropped from the support list.

A paid FBI infiltrator known as “Anna” is responsible for the bulk of the evidence against Jenson, Weiner and McDavid. She provided the funds to rent a house for the group near Auburn, California, which was wired to record the conversations inside.

The FBI admits “Anna” was involved in gathering evidence on 12 other anarchists. Once it was known an infiltrator was at work, activists compared notes and pinpointed a young woman who joined in a number of public protests and organizing gatherings in 2005, including Bio-Democracy in Philadelphia, an anti-OAS gathering in Miami, the Crimethinc convergence in Indiana, and the Feral Visions gathering near Asheville, NC.

“Anna” is now reported to be living in Iowa with another group of environmental activists.

“She was always asking about ALF actions locally,” an anonymous commenter wrote on Infoshop.org last month.

Other anonymous activists have posted photos of “Anna” taken at public demonstrations in 2005.

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by | · 5:56 pm

Great-Grandmother’s Protests a Danger to Society

Vancouver BC, July 8, 2006 – Vancouver environmentalist Betty Krawczyk, 78, is back in jail pending trial for her protests at Eagleridge Bluffs in West Vancouver. On Friday, July 7, Justice Brown ordered Krawczyk to remain in custody at Surrey Pre-Trial Centre until her next hearing at BC Supreme Court on September 15.

“For her own good, Ms. Krawczyk must be detained to protect the public,” Justice Brown stated. “Entering construction zones endangers Ms. Krawczyk, those accompanying her and the workers.”

Krawczyk was removed from court Thursday and held overnight for her bail hearing Friday afternoon. She appeared in a gray BC Corrections sweatsuit and slippers, her short white hair combed flat. She said the court has no right to hold her without charge. “I’m held in some sort of limbo,” she said. “I feel it’s contrary to my rights as a citizen.”

Justice Brown said she is considering criminal contempt of court charges for Krawczyk’s three attempts to stop construction in a wetlands area in May and June. Dozens of Eagleridge supporters were arrested along with Krawczyk in May after pitching tents in the path of bulldozers, linking arms and refusing to move. The Eagleridge Bluffs area now falls under a court order to prevent protestors from blocking construction to upgrade the Sea-to-Sky Highway.

“The Crown is using this as a way of keeping any sort of publicity away from issues about the way we do business in BC, and about the way the Attorney General instructs the police to arrest people,” Krawczyk told Justice Brown. “I really resent being arrested under the auspices of a corporation that’s destroying a precious bio-system – an American company – under the BC courts.”

Justice Brown then interrupted Krawczyk, saying, “This is not a place for a political speech.”

Krawczyk has four previous convictions for contempt of court. In total, she has served over a year in jail for her efforts to prevent logging in Clayoquot Sound, the Elaho Valley and the Walbran Valley.

During the hearing, the judge scolded Krawczyk for representing herself. “I have repeatedly suggested you get legal advice. I can’t give you legal advice.” But Krawczyk said the only lawyer she would work with was Cameron Ward, who is not available.

Meanwhile, Ned Jacobs of the Coalition to Save Eagleridge Bluffs reports that logging and clearing the trees and brush from the route has temporarily stopped because Bluffs volunteers have found nesting migratory birds in the path of the logging. A 200-metre wide swathe of broken earth and stumps is visible from the highway and from the air, but covers only about half a kilometer of the seven-kilometer route. He writes:

“The protesters are not giving up . . . By locating active nests of protected birds, they have delayed the destruction of the Larsen wetlands. They continue to call for a halt to this dangerous diversion and to the breaking of our Olympic promise.”

But the Coalition’s appeal of the injunction was denied by the court on July 4th, and it now appears construction will continue as soon as the nesting season is over.

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For more info about Eagleridge Bluffs, the wetlands and Kiewit Inc’s plan to blast a new highway over community opposition, visit here: mostlywater.org/node/4147

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