Greetings:
Below is an extract from my recently completed review essay dealing with a
book on foresters and forestry in Nova Scotia. I think that what this book
is asserting about environmentalism and environmentalists is important for
a much wider readership than forest activists in Nova Scotia. It also
concerns those who care deeply about what should be our relationship as
humans with the natural world of which we are a small, but not
insignificant part. The full review essay makes up about 8,500 words with
footnotes, and is on our web site: http://home.ca.inter.net/~greenweb/
The text below is taken from sections of the essay entitled "Introduction",
"Defining the middle ground", "My own forest vision", and "Conclusion."
Other sections of the essay, not given, are subtitled "Dissenting
limitations", "Interesting information", "Anti-environmentalism", and
"Additional questions." I hope readers who are particularly interested will
look at the full text on the web site.
Best and for the Earth,
David Orton
*********
Nova Scotia Forestry and Anti-Environmentalism
A review essay by David Orton, co-ordinator of the Green Web
_Against the Grain: Foresters and Politics in Nova Scotia_
L. Anders Sandberg and Peter Clancy, UBC Press, 2000
335 pages, paperback, ISBN: 0-7748-0766-0.
"The views of the dissenting foresters in this volume... are not only
radically
different from the dominant grain in Nova Scotia forest politics, but
they also
deviate from the extreme views expressed by industrial and environmentalist
interests generally. Collectively, their ideas amount to a conservationist
ideology centered on social equity and ecological concerns." (1)
"The narratives here suggest that there is among foresters a rich
tradition of
dissent. The profession has been ill served by neglecting or even
suppressing
this fact. In the current debate of Absolute morals between industrial and
environmental advocates (cut it all versus preserve it all), this
tradition is well
worth exploring for constructive alternatives in between. (2)
Introduction
I first saw a copy of _Against the Grain_ at a book display by the
University of British Columbia Press on the campus of Dalhousie
University in Halifax, in June of 2003. The two authors are academics,
Anders Sandberg (York University, but who formerly taught at St.
Mary's University in N.S.) and Peter Clancy (St. Francis Xavier
University in N.S.). The existence of this book was quite unknown
to me, although the forests of Nova Scotia and forestry are a
consuming interest of mine. (I had earlier reviewed the 1992 book
of essays edited by Anders Sandberg, _Trouble in the Woods:
Forest Policy and Social Conflict in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick_.)
(3) After reading _Against the Grain_, I decided that it needed to be
critically reviewed. In this way I could help bring it to the attention of
others who share my forest interests. The two quotations which
introduce my review essay are meant to give a defining flavour for
this publication.
Seven foresters are discussed in _Against the Grain_, covering "the
interwar, postwar, and contemporary generations", (4) and each have
separate chapters. The foresters discussed, with one exception, have
thirty or more pages allocated to each of them. Sandberg and Clancy are
claiming through their book that these foresters "might have generated (or
might yet generate) a more environmentally sound and socially equitable
kind of forestry." (5) The authors further claim that these foresters were
"against the grain" of past and current industrial and government
orthodoxies in Nova Scotia. The foresters are discussed in the following
order: Otto Schierbeck (1881-1941); John Bigelow (1906-1997); Lloyd
Hawboldt (died 1997); Donald Eldridge (died 1995); David Dwyer (born 1929);
Richard Lord; and Mary Guptill (born 1955). (6) The book is heavily footnoted.
Six of the foresters listed were interviewed by the authors several times.
Nova Scotia is rather different from a Canadian land "ownership"
perspective,
in that there is a high degree of "private" ownership in the province. As this
book points out, individual and non-industrial owners "own over fifty per cent
of Nova Scotia's forest resource." (7) The Crown (public) lands in the
province
are mainly committed through long-term renewable leases to the pulp mills
(Stora-Enso and Scott - inherited by Kimberly Clark). (8) To increase the
supply of wood for pulp or for saw logs, which sell to an ever-expanding
market, therefore meant addressing such individual and non-industrial
owners, in an attempt to get them to embrace the industrial forestry
paradigm of values. This has been a government policy initiative since
about 1977, with the infusion of funding for federal-provincial forestry
agreements. These agreements were ended in 1993 by the federal
government, perhaps part of the overall retrenchment of public sector
financing by the Canadian state.
When forestry orients to a world market, there can never be enough wood
supply. Yet there is little discussion in this book of how an expansionary,
class-based industrial capitalism shapes industrial forestry in Nova Scotia.
Defining the middle ground
In a 1998 publication _Sustainability - the Challenge: people, power and
the environment_, (9) Anders Sandberg, one of the two editors of this book of
essays, compares Canadian and Swedish societies with a focus on forestry.
(Peter Clancy also contributed to this book by Canadian and Swedish
academics). Sandberg co-authored an article "Rearticulating the Environment:
Towards a Pluralistic Vision of Natural Resource Use", where "middle ground"
is theoretically outlined. It is this so-called middle ground theoretical
position which also situates _Against the Grain_:
"Sustainability thus refers to a condition that exists in the proverbial
middleground between utilitarianism and biocentrism, and individualist
and collectivist values. The challenge of sustainability is to consider
social and environmental aspects as intricately linked." (10)
Regarding the above article by Sandberg we see that for him:
- There is a view of the forests or Nature in general as a "resource",
that is as taken-for-granted for human use, as the title indicates.
- The phrase "rearticulating the environment" in the title implies a
post-modernist orientation that social or cultural definitions determine
material reality.
- There is an academic assumption, that the linkage of social and
environmental factors has escaped environmental forestry critics.
- There is an assumption that philosophically and ecologically one can
merge or harmonize utilitarianism and biocentrism. This is opposed to
Aldo Leopold's (himself a forester but also a pre deep ecology, deep
ecologist) view that the biotic community must be the ultimate moral and
ethical authority.
From an activist perspective, those who frequently counsel a "middle
ground"or "sitting down together" or "round table" position on the
corporate/government side of an issue, usually have the actual power in
an environmental situation. (Some misguided mainstream
environmentalists think that sitting down with industry or government is
getting a foot in the door and something to be sought after.) They have a
personal stake in the ongoing ecological and social destruction of
industrial capitalist society. A "middle ground between the 'extremes'"
position, is often seen as necessary to advance a corporate/government PR
perspective, as a concession to a demand for public input. The authors of
_Against the Grain_, want to appropriate environmentalism, while denying
its legitimacy as being "extreme". They are fundamentally committed towards
a commercial forestry, whether for saw logs or for pulp. Sandberg and
Clancy share essentially the existing human-centered world view of
industrial forestry towards the forests of Nova Scotia but want a better
deal for workers and the communities which are directly impacted. If the
foresters discussed are "dissenters", their dissenting is basically a
concern that forest EXPLOITATION for their own species be viable in the
long term.
The forestry profession, and really all aspects of the industrial forestry
enterprise, are reinventing themselves and selling an image of "caring"
professionals at the forefront of ecological change. The 2002 mainstream
environmental document _Forest Accounts: Reporting on the state of Nova
Scotia's forests_, (11) reports that clearcutting is used 99% of the time and
that the area being clearcut has doubled in ten years. Foresters regularly
invoke the mantra of "site specific" forestry but, for their industrial or
government paymasters, one clear cut size fits all. This book fits into this
misleading general trend of industrial forestry reinventing itself, by air
brushing this sample of foresters and presenting them as role models.
...
My own forest vision
This book review essay has been a difficult one for me to write, because
of the issues raised in the text, my own personal involvement, and wanting
to be fair to the authors and accurately represent their position, even if
there
is much I disagree with. I am writing from what these two authors would
undoubtedly consider a 'biased' environmental perspective. I am
someone who has been actively involved in forestry discussions in Nova
Scotia and engaged in forestry-related struggles, trying to raise a
non-human centered and social justice perspective on the forests and
forestry, since moving to this province from British Columbia in 1979. This
means material in this book which covers from the 80s on, also covers a
period which has consumed a part of my life. (55) Industrial forestry is
personal for me and my family. We live in rural Pictou County, on an old
hill farm of about 130 acres which has reverted to woods, but we are
surrounded by clear cuts and the detritus and sounds of industrial
forestry. When the wind blows the wrong way, and with certain atmospheric
conditions, we can smell the sulphur from the local kraft pulp mill near
New Glasgow.
Since the mid 80s, the theoretical bioequity perspective with which I am
philosophically associated, has come to be known as "left biocentrism", a
Left anti-industrial and anti-capitalist tendency within deep ecology.
Prior to embracing deep ecology, I had outlined what an ecological
perspective would mean for Nova Scotia forestry. This was summarized in an
extensively documented 1983 presentation, "Pulpwood Forestry In Nova
Scotia", to the Royal Commission on Forestry, later reprinted by Saint
Mary's University under the title "Pulpwood Forestry in Nova Scotia and the
Environmental Question." (56) My presentation differs greatly from the
presentations by the Department of Lands and Forests itself and those by
two of the foresters mentioned above (Richard Lord and Mary Guptill):
"The ecological perspective rejects man's supposed domination over nature.
This domination is referred to as the homocentric or anthropocentric
viewpoint which sees the environment primarily in relationship to how it
'benefits' human beings...Such a viewpoint is fully compatible with the
different but existing forms of political economy, e.g. in the United
States
of America and the Soviet Union...
In contrast to anthropocentrism is the ecological perspective, where it is
seen as necessary that people be managed so as to live within the
constraints of the ecological system of which they are a part. Our
existence
has to be ecologically as well as socially sustainable. The forest then
is a
living ecosystem of which we are a part and is not to be seen mainly as a
source of low cost wood fibre for the pulp and paper industry." (57)
A recent article by me "Some Conservation Guidelines for the Acadian
Forest", (58) but endorsed by other radical ecocentric forest environmental
activists, has further developed the above Ecological Perspective. The
article in part points out that, "We need to bring back the sense that
animals and plants, along with rocks, oceans, streams and mountains,
and not just humans, have spiritual and ethical standing." The Guidelines
"oppose the current absolutist concept of 'private property' in woodlands
for industrial or individual landowners, as well as rejecting overall the
viewpoint that the Earth is human property." The article calls "for phasing
out the industrial forestry model in the Maritimes, in favour of low
impact, locally focussed, value-added, worker-intensive, full-canopy-
retention selection forestry, etc. This period of change to an ecologically
appropriate forestry, for the workers involved, needs to be
compassionately supported by the state." As social justice is a vital part
of left biocentrism, an appropriate social policy for those employed in
forestry or the communities supported by such a forestry, has to be part
of any deep ecology inspired alternative.
Whether with the foresters discussed in this book, or with those woods'
workers in more fundamental opposition to the industrial model at some
level (as found among some in the Nova Scotia Woodlot Owners' and
Operators' Association), it is taken for granted that forests a) should be
managed or "restored"; and b) forests can be managed in an ecologically
sensitive way. Yet I always find the economic interest is paramount and
other interests are tacked on and very secondary in the overall scheme of
things. Any "alternative" forestry Woodlot Owners Field Day clearly shows
the dominance of economic interests, although this type of relatively "low
impact" forestry is far preferable to the carnage of the pulp and paper
industry.
I believe woods should be "unmanaged" and, in a long term view, that
this is the best for our fellow non-human community members, who need
the forests as a home. If we are going to take some wood out of the forest,
then all the ecological functions of the forest should be
maintained. So this is not an anti-logging position. But it is anti-logging
in the context of not accepting the unceasing growth demands and
population pressures of present industrial society, which become reflected
in logging practices and their intensity. It is anti-logging in regard to how
logging is carried out at the present time, whether industrial, or
"alternative" - those associated with the "certification" schemes of the
Forest Stewardship Council and others, who fill a "green" market demand
but leave the basic industrial forestry model untouched.
Generally, today in forestry, "improvement" or "restoration" means
economic interests are primary, but there can be some ecological
concessions. A deep ecology inspired forestry would mean that non-economic
interests are primary. To "improve" or "restore" the forest, also implies
that we know what we are doing ecologically, and this is far from the
actual situation. At best, we are patching up. Of course humans need to
start on this. But once we have destroyed some functioning ecosystem, we
have often lost something that cannot be replaced.
Conclusion
I recommend _Against the Grain: Foresters and Politics in Nova Scotia_,
to those who are interested in forestry politics in Nova Scotia; and, more
importantly, to those interested in the major ongoing environmental issue in
this province, the destruction of the Acadian forest and how to change this.
There is interesting information in this book for the forestry activist,
because of the inside access of the authors to various foresters, or to the
historical records of such foresters, who worked within and had to
implement or contend with various forestry policies in Nova Scotia. My
recommendation to read this book occurs, even though I disagree with and
reject the "middle ground" orientation of the authors; reject the vulgar
and ignorant parody given of forest environmental positions in N.S. in this
book, which ultimately has to be seen as reactionary (see the description
of "ideological" environmentalists) (59); and reject the overall eulogistic
evaluation of the foresters discussed by the authors, as summarized in the
two quotations which introduce this review essay. This book highly
exaggerates the importance of the foresters discussed and, apparently, can
only do this by ignoring or misrepresenting the extensive contributions by
environmentalists to forest discussions in Nova Scotia.
It is necessary also to ask, what does it mean for "dissenting" scholars,
and for radical forestry scholarship more generally, if university-based
researchers publicly ally themselves essentially against the environmental
movement with a "middle ground" theoretical position and climb on the
anti-environmentalist bandwagon? This is not just choosing a middle ground
position between culture and nature as claimed. (60) In their penchant for
slagging environmentalists, they lean far more to a cultural post-modern
"social construction of reality" side, and away from a view that Nature has
a material existence in its own right, irrespective of how it is viewed by
culture. We see in this book an acceptance of the culturally justified
exploitation of the forests in Canada by industrial forestry. Is this all
part of the price for "access" to those who work in the forest industry as
professional foresters or others, so that articles and books can be
written? Is the view in _Against the Grain_, at its core, a
university-based elitist put down of the many hundreds of Nova Scotians
who since the late 70s, educated themselves to fight against the policies
of industrial forestry and to change the public debate in the province?
This book shows, however otherwise insightful, with its sustained attack
on environmentalism and environmental activists working on forestry
issues in Nova Scotia, Anders Sandberg and Peter Clancy have "crossed
over" and are firmly grounded within industrial forestry.
January, 2004
End Notes:
...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Visit the Green Web Home Page at:
http://home.ca.inter.net/~greenweb/
Our e-mail address is now <[log in to unmask]>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|
