Note: This is the written-up version of the notes for a lecture on
forestry, given on November 4, 1998 to a class of about 70 students for
a course called "Natural Resource Management", organized by the
Department of Geography, at Mount Allison University. The instructor for
this course was Dr. Doug Ramsey.

I would like to thank the class and your prof. Doug Ramsey for inviting
me to talk to you today. I hope it will be worth- while. For me, talking
to you helps to focus my thinking.

I will start by giving an outline of what I want to talk about:

* Part One is a critique of "Resourcism".

* Part Two gives the basic thesis for my talk, which is that forestry
clashes concern fundamental conflicts of values. These value conflicts
concern two basic questions:
- How we will relate to the natural world.
- How we will organize human societies.
In this section of my talk I also outline what is the role of the
environmentally conscious and define this as:
- To defend what is left of the natural world and to become involved.
- To see the necessity for a new philosophy and set of values.

* Part Three discusses human-centeredness as seen in the language of
industrial forestry, and gives examples of what this conceptual
enclosure means for looking at forests. I conclude this part of the talk
by showing how social evolution from hunter/gatherer societies has led
to a narrowing of human discourse in relating to the natural world.

* Part Four gives some examples of alternative forestry sources of
information and an overview of industrial forestry in Canada.

* Part Five is the conclusion and shows how the forestry situation in
Canada is getting worse and why. I finish with the reading of a poem,
"Break the Law".

INTRODUCTION: Your class is called "Natural Resource Management". This
language embodies a philosophical perspective, an intrinsic part of
industrial capitalist society, which sees nature as a "resource". This
perspective has been called "Resourcism".

What this language says to anyone slightly informed, is that nature is
considered a "resource" for human use which can be "managed". These are
very arrogant assumptions. Implied is a human-centered universe and the
taken-for-granted dominance of the human species. It is within this
framework that students at this university and across the country work
for their degrees.

A Canadian philosopher/university teacher who has written on
"Resourcism" is John Livingston. He is the intellectual mentor for David
Suzuki. Two of Livingston's books, which I would like to bring to your
attention are _The Fallacy of Wildlife Conservation_ (1981) and his most
recent book _Rogue Primate_. We, of course are the 'rogue primates'.

In industrial forestry, wildlife - unless it can be shot, trapped or
fished - is without value. Wildlife, to have value, has to be turned
into a "commodity". This is how Livingston defines resource in _Wildlife
Conservation_:
I no longer believe that there is, in practice, such a
thing as a 'renewable' resource. Once a thing is
perceived as having some utility - any utility - and is
thus perceived as a "resource," its depletion is only a
matter of time. (P. 43)

Livingston argues in _Wildlife Conservation_ that there can be no
reasons, that is rational arguments, for wildlife preservation. If
conservationists give such reasons, then they accept the logic of
industrial society - that is, that nature is there to serve humans. For
Livingston, wildlife has to be valued and defended for its own sake. It
is our experience of interacting with wildlife which shows this. This
experience is a personal affair and not capable of rational defence.

The Western cosmology has no place for the defence of wildlife if it
gets in the way of industrial progress. Hence all rational arguments to
defend and protect wildlife are doomed to failure. Such arguments, says
Livingston, have been the standard and hence futile fare of the
conservation movement.

Natural resource management says that wildlife has no intrinsic interest
and is a commodity or resource for human exploitation. In Nova Scotia
there is a very cosy relationship between the NS Wildlife Association
(what some of us call the 'Deadlife Association') and the NS Department
of Natural Resources. This government department is supposedly charged
with overseeing the forest industry.

MY BASIC THESIS: Forestry clashes like those at the Christmas Mountains
in New Brunswick, Nova Nada in Nova Scotia, or Clayoquot Sound out on
the West Coast of Vancouver Island, are clashes over basic values. They
are clashes over how humans will relate to or use the forests.
Industrial capitalist society commodifies nature. Trees and wildlife are
considered resources to be turned into commodities and sold in the
marketplace. This society also commodifies people. For corporations
there is a Department of Human Resources. For interacting with nature,
we have a Department of Natural Resources.

In these forestry clashes, there are two basic questions at issue:

1. How will our societies relate to the natural world? Are we going to
stay with the industrial view, that nature is a resource, and stay with
a human-centered ethics, also called anthropocentrism?

2. The second basic question is how are we going to organize human
societies? Will it continue to be endless economic growth and
consumerism as the meaning of life? Are we going to continue accepting
that humans can "own" nature, that is, the living world and all other
species? Are we going to continue supporting concepts like so-called
'sustainable development' in a finite world? Continue accepting that
there are no limits to growth?

The kind of forestry we have reflects societal values. A sustainable
forestry requires a sustainable society.

What then is the alternative or course of action for the environmentally
conscious today? There are two necessarily integrated paths for what
needs to be done:

a. First, to defend what is left of the natural world and take part in
actual struggles. Put your body and mind on the line. Remember Clayoquot
Sound, where there were about 1,000 arrests?

Two current examples of young people putting themselves on the line, are
given in the current issue of the _Earth First! Journal_, which I have
brought along with me to show you. David Nathan Chain (Gypsy) was a
young forest activist trying to protect the redwoods in California. He
was killed by a tree cut by a Pacific Lumber logger, on September 17,
1998. In the same state, Julia Butterfly has been sitting in a redwood
tree since December 10th, 1997 to protest the destruction of these
ancient trees. She calls her tree "Luna" and has used her tree platform,
with the aid of support staff, to conduct many media interviews about
the fate of the redwoods.

b. Second, to see the necessity for a new set of non-industrial societal
values, that is, a new Earth-centered philosophy. Do not get onboard
industrial society, which is what university is mainly about. Educate
yourself for opposition. This would mean coming to adopt positions
advocating:
- anti-industrialism, anti-economic growth, anti-consumerism, and living
more simply;
- a new relationship to nature, where all species have their own
intrinsic value respected, and not determined by humans;
- that the Earth belongs to no one and that "ownership" of land is a
social fiction.

There is an internet 'left bio' discussion group, where the above values
and positions are being discussed. The group is based on support for the
Left Biocentrism Primer.

HUMAN-CENTEREDNESS IN THE LANGUAGE OF INDUSTRIAL FORESTRY:
The following are some examples of this language with a contextual
discussion and explanation.

- "Pests" or "Infestation": This is usually a bloom or blossoming of
insects created by industrial forestry itself. This kind of forestry in
the Maritimes region, narrows the species basis of the Acadian forest.
This is because the pulp and paper industry, which fundamentally shapes
industrial forestry and hence the forests of the region, only wants a
few tree species for its mills. In Nova Scotia there are about 30
indigenous tree species which make up the Acadian forest type. (There
are also introduced species.) The pulp and paper industry puts a premium
on five or six softwood species. There are for example, no replanting
programs for hardwoods. Preferred softwood species for pulp and paper
production are also, for example, food for the spruce budworm. In order
of preference, the budworm feeds on balsam fir, white spruce, red
spruce, and black spruce.

Ninety percent (90%) of commercial forest cutting is clear cutting. This
type of cutting, which has a commercial advantage, is defended by the
forest industry as a biological necessity. Yet when, for example,
spruce/fir forests are clear cut, if naturally regenerated, such trees
tend to grow back to balsam fir. This tree species is the prime food of
the budworm.

In industrial forestry, there is no place for insects or wild fires
which are part of the ecology of the Acadian forest, because every tree
is spoken for. So an "infestation" of insect "pests", means the
application of chemical or biological poisons to "sustain" the
commercially desired tree species.

- Even-aged plantation equals a "forest": Plantations usually contain
one or two softwood tree species. Such plantations create a concentrated
food supply for insects or disease. There is always one more bug and
hence the necessity to spray, from an industrial forestry perspective.

- "Chemical thinning or site preparation": This is the application of
herbicide poisons to kill non-pulpwood vegetation. It does not matter
about the requirements of mammals or birds for the destroyed vegetation.

- "Overmature or decadent": This means usually that desired tree species
are getting too old to be used for pulpwood. It does not matter that
birds/insects need old decaying trees, or that trees when they decay,
breakdown to produce forest humus.

- "Weed species": This often means non-pulp species, or any
non-commercially desirable species. Alders are often referred to as a
weed species. Alders, a short-lived early successional tree, are an
atmospheric nitrogen-fixating species.

- "Underutilized species": This means there is no present commercial
market. In Nova Scotia, hardwoods were declared underutilized and they
are now being shipped as woodchips to Japan. Local people in my own area
cannot now buy hardwood for firewood, because of this Japanese market.

- "Fibre" is how living trees are described.

- "Forest management" rests on industrial capitalist assumptions about
the natural world. The ever increasing management of industrial forestry
means more attempts to control the problems which arise. Thus more
spraying. This past summer in Nova Scotia over 150,000 acres were
sprayed with the so-called biological spray Btk (Bacillus thuringiensis
variety kurstaki). This was the largest ever forest spraying program in
NS. Spray planes were over our house about eight times. We took many
photos of these planes and, in aiming the lens, I often thought of the
Bruce Cockburn song, "If I had a rocket launcher."

There is no place for wildlife in industrial forestry except insofar as
it can "adapt" to commercial forestry operations. There is a
fragmentation of habitat by logging roads. Clear- cutting, for example,
in May and June destroys the nests of birds nesting on the ground or in
the trees being cut.

NARROWING OF HUMAN DISCOURSE: Social evolution from hunter/ gatherer
societies has led to a narrowing of human language as regards relating
to the natural world. How did we come to exclude nature and plants and
animals from our consciousness? One person who has written on this is
the historian Calvin Luther Martin. See his 1992 book _The Spirit of the
Earth: Rethinking History and Time_. (His name is a legacy from a
protestant missionary father.) Martin was interested in why, in
hunter/gatherer societies there was a different relationship than we
have today, between humans and the natural world.

His book comes out of the ground-breaking work by Marshall Sahlins,
_Stone Age Economics_, published in 1972. Sahlins saw hunters as "the
original affluent society":
Sahlins finds hunters blessed with abundant leisure, few
wants, and a technology easily adequate to meet those
wants, and well fed, healthy, and full of confidence in
nature's bounty - so long as they kept a few key
principles in mind. (Martin, pp. 142-143)

These few key principles were periodic movement, and restraint in wealth
accumulation and population growth. Martin points out in a great line,
"Destitution resulted from contact with the West; it was not
aboriginal."

In hunter/gatherer societies all of nature is seen as "empowered - is
conscious, intelligent, sensate, and articulate." (P. 10) Thus hunters
have to learn the language of the "other-than-human being" and one way
this is done is through the vision quest. In the vision quest was
achieved the "blending of self and nonself in one's own life." Men
primarily related to animals, says Martin, while women related to plant
beings. He says, in another wonderful line, "Only a fool would imagine
himself as somehow exclusively a human being." (P. 18) So the confidence
and respect in hunter/gatherer societies comes because of a sense of
kinship with plant and animal beings:
The other-than-human persons, vegetable and animal, will
give themselves to me, as long as I refrain from
overexploitation, as long as I treat their flesh and
substance, including their remains, with respect and
avoid all other forms of offense - this is the prevailing
sentiment. Nature conserves me, not I it - this is the
underlying ethic...the mind continues to imagine a
relationship of interpenetration of the human with the
other-than-human person. (P. 20)

The evolution of human society has meant a narrowing of human discourse
because, and this is the insight, the other-than-human persons have been
disfranchised into dumb brutes or unconscious vegetable matter. Human
communication has narrowed, not expanded as animistic spirituality was
replaced by what Martin calls a sky god or gods, e.g. Jesus. With the
sky gods, only humans have souls, which enormously elevates them above
other creatures and even more plants. Only humans can converse with the
sky gods and become ordained to convert the 'heathen' indigenous
peoples.

For hunters and gatherers, we are what we consume. For Martin, it was
the beginning of plant and animal domestication, that is agricultural
society, which ushers in the genesis of our modern domination of nature.
Given this history, it is indeed ironical that just as industrial
forestry has turned Canada's forests into a resource, so has the 1996
_Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples_, turned wildlife
into a resource for indigenous peoples in Canada.

In order to have a different relationship to the natural world, to
interact with the forest with a spiritual respect, and to leave behind
natural resource management, a return to some form of spirituality is
necessary. Point 6 of the "Left Biocentrism Primer" addresses the
question of spirituality:
Left biocentrism holds that individual and collective
spiritual transformation is important to bring about
major social change, and to break with industrial
society. We need inward transformation, so that the
interests of all species override the short-term interest
of the individual, the family, the community, and the
nation.

Deep ecology talks of Self-realization. That is, expanding the sense of
self to include the natural world. So that when the chain saw is cutting
the forest, it is also felt as cutting you. We need to change the basis
of self-identity within industrial society. That is, away from the
consumption/acquisition of consumer goods and the pursuit of self
interest. We need to enter into a new relationship with the natural
world, so that nature is not viewed as a resource.

ALTERNATIVE FORESTRY SOURCES AND OVERVIEW OF INDUSTRIAL FORESTRY: I have
brought along some publications that are critical of industrial
forestry. An alternative forestry publication produced in the Acadian
forest region, but on the other side of the border in New Hampshire, is
_The Northern Forest Forum_. It comes out six times a year, and
sometimes carries articles on forestry issues in New Brunswick and Nova
Scotia.

There are three books I have brought with me:

1. _Clearcut: The Tragedy of Industrial Forestry_, edited by Bill
Devall, was published in 1993. This contains pictures of clearcuts from
every Canadian province and every state in the US, with text to situate
the pictures. It also contains writings by ecoforesters who are
influenced by deep ecology. I will read you part of the 'Dedication' for
this book:
This book is in memory of the plantlife, birds, insects,
animals, and indigenous cultures that have been driven to
extinction by the greed and delusion of human arrogance.
All of us in the Industrial Growth Society must take the
responsibility for this condition and make it our duty to
halt the continuation of economic and social structures
that perpetuate this 'death of birth'...

2- The second book is by Herb Hammond, who is based in BC. His book,
which came out in 1991, is called _Seeing The Forest Among The Trees:
The Case For Wholistic Forest Use_.

3- The third book is by Elizabeth May, _At The Cutting Edge: The Crisis
In Canada's Forests_ It came out in 1998. I want to talk about this
book, and use it to make some points about industrial forestry in
Canada. Let me read you a quotation from May's book about the situation
in NB:
No other province in Canada has so completely brought its
forests into full industrial production. For modern
industrial foresters in New Brunswick, it is a source of
considerable pride that the province's forests are all
accessible by a network of logging roads - fifty thousand
kilometers of logging roads on Crown land alone. No
forested area is farther than one hundred kilometers from
a mill. True wilderness in New Brunswick, outside of
parks, is rarer than a non-Irving gas station. Of all of
New Brunswick's forests, only 1.2 percent of the land
base is within a provincial or national park. And those
forests outside national parks are entirely spoken
for. As Max Cater, head of the New Brunswick Forest
Products Association, put it, "Every tree has a company's
name on it, and a destination." (P. 98)

I think _At the Cutting Edge_ is a good up-to-date source for
understanding contemporary industrial forestry in Canada, province by
province.

I believe the following overall view about industrial forestry in Canada
can be seen after reading May's book:

1. For every Canadian province and territory a political elite decided,
essentially in secret, that a forest industry was needed.

2. The crown (public) land in each province was handed over in long-term
renewable forest leases to the forest industry. (Prince Edward Island,
because of its extensive private land base, would be the only
exception.) Indigenous interests and the general public interest were
not even part of the discussion. Hydro and tax concessions were given to
the new forest industry, which was mainly pulpmill driven, and
publicly-funded roads were built. The provincial and federal forestry
services were then oriented towards serving the interests of this
industry.

3. The pulpmill industry oriented itself to serve a WORLD market. Thus
more and more wood supply was needed. There could never be enough wood.
Overcutting therefore becomes the norm. Ever species and size of tree
eventually gets brought into production. The "oriented strand board
mills" now flooding Canada, also in NB, show one end of this road. These
mills make trees into wood flakes, line them up, and apply glue and
pressure to make oriented strand board or chip board. Any small tree can
be utilized.

4. The result of the above is the creation of wealth for owners of
pulpmills and their politician friends, and the creation of some
relatively high-paying jobs of about 25 dollars per hour for some
workers. But pulpmills also mean the creation of pollution, and sickness
in people directly affected by pulpmill effluent and gas/particulate air
emissions - and often these are native peoples. In addition, pulpmills
mean the creation of ecological destruction, because the forest becomes
oriented towards a single lowest denominator use, which is mainly pulp
production. Forests (and their wildlife) become degraded in this
process. Forests either turned into barrens or, more generally, were
replaced by softwood pulp farms or plantations.

CRITICISM OF MAY: There are however important criticisms of the book
that can be made, from the perspective given in this lecture.

(Not raised at the Mount Allison lecture, was that May has essentially
used in her book, the theme of the 1983 Green Web Bulletin #10,
"Pulpwood Forestry In Nova Scotia", without acknowledgement, and applied
it to every province in Canada. This bulletin, which was originally a
presentation to a public meeting hosted by the NS Royal Commission on
Forestry, was eventually printed under the title "Pulpwood Forestry in
Nova Scotia And The Environmental Question", by the Gorsebrook Research
Institute of Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Special Document no.
1-088327. May also does not even list the Green Web as a contact
organization in NS, although four other organizations are given.
Elizabeth May gives Charlie Restino, as the researcher responsible for
helping with the Nova Scotia data in her book.)

May does not raise in her book whether there can be an ALTERNATIVE
forestry model to that of industrial forestry, given an inherently
expansionary industrial capitalism and the global market place. She has
no alternative ecological or social vision, or a deeper anti-resourcist
environmental ethic, as spoken of by Richard Sylvan and David Bennett in
their 1994 book _The Greening of Ethics_:
Deep positions are characterized by the rejection of the
notion that humans and human projects are the sole items
of value, and further by the rejection of the notion that
humans and human projects are always more valuable than
all other things in the world. (P. 63)

May has always, as in this book, presented the illusion that the
industrial system (she will not use the "capitalist" word) can be made
to work if various changes are carried out. This is why I believe the
capitalist media often carry her views. In her forestry book, she
advocates reducing personal consumption of paper products, but ignores
the industrial capitalist growth engine, which makes a sustainable
ecology and society impossible in the long term. For May, forests are a
resource. Her book is anthropocentric, the budworm is a "forest pest"
(p. 101), etc. There is also a self-glorification of her own role. There
is no critical assessment of her past promotion of sustainable
development; past promotion of Btk forest spraying; and her role in
promoting the out-of-court settlement/capitulation with the pulp and
paper company Stora, rather than fight on in the important 1982 court
battle in Cape Breton over forest herbicide spraying.

Notwithstanding the above criticisms, _At The Cutting Edge_ will be a
helpful book for those who want the basic data for an introductory
picture of industrial forestry for each province in Canada.

CONCLUSION - GETTING WORSE AND WHY: We live on an old hill farm of about
130 acres. Since we moved to where we live in Pictou County in 1984, the
forests around us have been levelled. Along with others, I have
participated in public forestry discussions since coming to live in NS
in 1979, but the only changes have been for the worse. What is happening
around where I live to the forests, is taking place across NS. Every
acre of forest is being brought into industrial production. It is only a
matter of time before any forest land set aside for parks and protected
areas is sought to increase "productivity". Governments have no other
economic model than to give expansionary corporations, oriented to a
world market, their head. I have tried to show in my talk to you here
today, that the prevailing forest ideology of maximum wood production,
is part of a larger developmental industrial ideology. Governments
whether provincial or federal, and industry, have an incestuous
relationship. Any avenues of public participation to do with the forests
or any other "resource" extraction, are essentially a sham. The major
and defining decisions are made behind closed doors.

Not being oriented to natural resource management, would mean retaining
the natural Acadian forest with all its biodiversity. A sustainable
forestry would mean a closed canopy ecoforestry with selection cutting.
Real sustainability must mean peace with the Earth, not a war. We have
to change the contorted belief system of industrial culture.

You students need to become involved. As Ed Abbey, an important
influence on the Earth First! movement put it, "Sentiment without action
is the ruination of the soul." I will finish by reading you a poem
concerning so-called land ownership, by Jim Drescher. It was posted on
the internet discussion group left bio. Jim runs an ecoforestry school
at Windhorse Farm in Nova Scotia. (Used with permission.)

Break the Momentum

"It's my land;
I can do whatever I want with it.
If I want to destroy the forest,
that's my business, not yours.
If I want to strip off the topsoil,
that's my business, not yours.
If I want to liquidate the homes of a thousand animals,
that's my business, not yours.
I own the land;
the law says I can do whatever I want with it."

Who owns a forest that took 10,000 years to develop?
Who owns the soil formed by that forest?
Who owns the plants and animals?
How can you own a tree that was already old in this place
when your grandfather was not yet born?
How can you own the topsoil which has accumulated naturally
for thousands of years from the bodies of untold trillions
of beings.
How can you own the animals
each of whom has been your mother?
What kind of law says you can?
Whose law?
We need legal assistance in this dark age
if we are to avoid total destruction
in the name of the law,
the law that makes legal all manner
of arrogance, greed, and stupidity
if you "own the land."

Perhaps there is a higher law
based on gentleness, intelligence and fearlessness:
Gentleness to find one's natural place
in the community of all other beings;
intelligence to recognize that we can be sustained by nature
only if we minimize our impacts on it;
fearlessness to break the momentum
of anthropocentric law.
Is there the possibility of enlightened society?
Is it legal?
(30 May 94)

November 1998

To contact the Green Web or David Orton, write R.R. #3, Saltsprings,
Pictou County, Nova Scotia, Canada BOK 1PO. E-mail: greenweb@fox.nstn.ca

Green Web Home Page http://fox.nstn.ca/~greenweb/gw-hp.htm