Environmentalists, logging companies agree to work together to save some areas
ROD MICKLEBURGH
Vancouver -- Four major British Columbia logging companies and key environmental groups have forged a landmark truce in their long-running war over the woods.
The unprecedented deal, reached after nearly two years of on-again, off-again talks, is aimed at preserving a huge area of the province known as the Great Bear Rainforest, considered the largest unlogged temperate rainforest in the world.
The agreement is seen as an implicit surrender by B.C. forest companies to the increasing economic clout of environmentalists and their ability to persuade consumers to boycott old-growth timber products.
"These companies recognize that there is a change in the marketplace," Merran Smith of the Sierra Club said yesterday.
"The trend is there and it's growing. Society is no longer willing to play an unwitting part in the destruction of areas with 1,300-year-old Douglas Firs."
Under the accord, participating environmental groups have agreed to halt international protest campaigns against all four companies involved, including the province's top forest firm, Weyerhaeuser Company Ltd., which recently absorbed the previous kingpin, MacMillan-Bloedel Ltd.
In return, the companies have promised not to log in 30 sensitive locations identified by environmentalists within the pristine rainforest.
Over the coming months, the once-implacable foes plan to work together to develop a comprehensive "conservation-based ecosystem" approach to the region's entire seven million hectares running along the north and central B.C. coast.
Besides Weyerhaeuser, the forest companies signing the pact include Western Forest Products, Canadian Forest Products and Fletcher Challenge Canada.
On the environmental side are Greenpeace, the Coastal Rainforest Coalition and Rainforest Action Network, along with the Sierra Club.
The deal does not envision a complete ban on future logging, but any activity is likely to be permitted only after rigid ecological scrutiny.
In the long run, Weyerhaeuser vice-president Linda Coady said, the moratorium could affect as many as 200 logging jobs.
An even larger economic threat is posed to the more than 5,000 jobs relying on all forest activity on the north and central coast, she said.
"We think the way the [environmental campaign] is going, all of those jobs could be lost. If we allow this controversy to continue, market access for coastal B.C. forest products is at risk."
Bill Dumont, chief forester at Western Forest Products, agreed.
"You have to look at what the future employment issues are if we don't deal with this matter now."
The Great Bear Rainforest is a remote wilderness of temperate rainforest, fjords, inlets, islands and glacial mountains.
It is home to five species of wild Pacific salmon, grizzly bears, timber wolves and the rare white Kermode or so-called Spirit bear.
With its emotive title and appealing white bears, the area was becoming more and more known outside Canada's borders as a prime ecological battleground.
"It is a very, very rare ecosystem, the largest intact rainforest in the word, and we are the stewards of what's left," said Greenpeace spokeswoman Catherine Stewart. "So it takes on an even greater global significance."
"This agreement doesn't mean we intend to turn it all into a park, but the forest companies need to recognize that they are going to have to change," Ms. Stewart said.
Some of the largest wood product buyers in the world, including Home Depot and Ikea, are already boycotting forest products that do not have an environmental seal of approval.
"This sort of deal is something that couldn't have been imagined five years ago, even one year ago," said Ms. Smith of the Sierra Club. "But the companies are now recognizing the need for public relations and that they cannot remain immune from the impact of our fight for the environment."
Both sides said they hope the eventual blueprint for the Great Bear Rainforest will preserve as many jobs as possible.
However, one leading forest company remains adamant against joining in.
International Forest Products Ltd., which has the largest share of logging rights in the rainforest, withdrew from the process in May to pursue its own solutions.
Chief Interfor forester Ric Slaco said the company is willing to risk being targeted by environmental groups.
"The bigger issue is Canada's ability to harvest its own forests," Mr. Slaco said. "The campaigns being waged right now are not really about Interfor or other companies.
"They're about Canada's forests, and whether we should be cutting them."
He pointed out that protestors still object to any logging at Clayoquot Sound on Vancouver Island.
Now that they have an agreement with four companies, the environmental groups vowed renewed war against Interfor.
British Columbia Bureau
(with a report from Wendy Stueck in Vancouver)
Saturday, July 29, 2000
The Globe and Mail
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