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.
Introduction
This book
review essay has been difficult for me to write, because of the issues
raised
in the text, my own
personal involvement, and wanting
to be fair to the authors — to accurately represent their position and
the
positions of the seven foresters
discussed. There is much I disagree with; however, there is interesting
forestry information in this book
because of the access the authors had to the working foresters
discussed,
as well as to some of the
documentary records.
I am writing
from what these two authors would undoubtedly consider a ‘biased’
environmental
perspective. As someone actively
engaged in forestry discussions and in forestry-related struggles
in Nova
Scotia, I have tried to raise a
non-humancentered and social justice perspective on the forests and
forestry,
since moving to this province
from British Columbia in 1979. Thus, material in this book from the
1980s on,
also covers a period which has
consumed a part of my life. (1) 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 back
to
woods, but we are surrounded by
clearcuts, and the detritus and sounds of industrial forestry. We have
had to
engage in personal battles to
stop forestry companies using biocides adjacent to where we live. When
the
wind blows the wrong way, and
with certain atmospheric conditions, we can smell the sulphur from the
local
Kimberly-Clark kraft pulp mill.
There are
seven foresters discussed in Against the Grain, covering “the
interwar, postwar, and
contemporary generations”, (2)
and each has a separate chapter. Sandberg and Clancy claim that these
foresters “might have generated
(or might yet generate) a more environmentally sound and socially
equitable
kind of forestry.” (3) The
authors further claim that these foresters were “against the grain” of
past and
current industrial and government
forestry 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 (1929-2004), Richard Lord, and Mary Guptill (born 1955). (4)
The book is heavily footnoted.
Nova Scotia
is rather different from other provinces, from a land ownership
perspective, in that there is a
high degree of “private”
ownership. As this book points out, individual and non-industrial
owners “own over
fifty per cent of Nova Scotia’s
forest resource.” (5) The Crown (public) lands in the province are
mainly
committed through long-term
renewable leases to the pulp mills — Stora-Enso and Scott (now Kimberly
Clark). (6) Therefore, to
increase the supply of wood for pulp or for saw logs selling to an
ever-expanding
world market, meant addressing
such individual and non-industrial owners, in an attempt to get them to
embrace
the industrial forestry paradigm.
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 as part of
the overall retrenchment of public sector financing by the Canadian
state.
For increasing
numbers of rural residents, the impact of industrial capitalist
forestry makes quite clear the
link between ecosystem
destruction and pulp mill pollution, and a declining personal quality
of life. Industrial
profits, relatively high wages
for pulp mill workers and some forestry workers, and increasing
consumption
of
industrial consumer goods by all
of us, have an ecosystem price tag. Or perhaps more theoretically, the
relationship between ecocentrism
and anthropocentrism becomes increasingly clear: industrial forestry can
mean 24-hour logging activity in
one’s neighbourhood; increased activity by ATVs through clearcut and
logging
road access; blowdowns in forests
adjacent to clearcuts; spraying drift from herbicides and insecticides;
marine
and air pollution in the vicinity
of pulp mills; visual pollution; increased background noise as trees
come down
which formerly muffled road noise
and other ‘civilizational’ impacts, etc. Industrial forestry becomes an
important environmental educator.
It also expands political consciousness, as we see how a political
elite
secretly decides that a forest
industry is ‘needed’, then hands over public lands to this industry on
long term
leases, along with hydro and tax
concessions, low stumpage rates, etc. All government services dedicated
ostensibly towards forestry are
programmed to serve pulp and paper mill interests — regardless of
whether
such services, e.g. forest
spraying, conflict with the long-term social interests of the
citizenry, or the basic
ecological interests of the
living forests, with all their non-human animal and plant inhabitants.
My own forest vision
I embraced
deep ecology as a philosophy in 1985, but before this I was treading a
similar path. Deep ecology
is part of the larger green
movement — the first social movement in history to advocate a lower
material standard
of living, from the perspective
of industrial consumerism. Some key deep ecology ideas are: non human-
centeredness — humans do not have
a privileged position in the community of all beings; necessity for a
new
spiritual relationship to Nature
— we come to see the Earth as alive and part of ourselves; industrial
capitalist
society is held responsible for
the contemporary ecological crisis; Nature must remain a Commons and
not be
privatized; one must be actively
involved in defending Nature and fighting Earth destruction; practice
voluntary
simplicity, minimize consumption
and orient bioregionally; and necessity for population reduction,
without
personal coercion.
My own
philosophical bioequity perspective within deep ecology is known as
“left biocentrism” — a Left
anti-industrial and
anti-capitalist tendency, increasingly considered part of “the left
wing” of the deep ecology
movement. Prior to adopting deep
ecology, I had outlined what an ecological perspective would mean for
Nova Scotia forestry. This was
summarized in my 1983 presentation to the Royal Commission on Forestry,
“Pulpwood Forestry In Nova
Scotia (7):
“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.” (8)
In a recent
article “Some Conservation Guidelines for the Acadian Forest”,
(9) endorsed by other
radical ecocentric forest
environmental activists, I further develop this ecological perspective.
The article
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.” There is a call 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.” And, 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: “This period of change to an ecologically
appropriate
forestry, for the workers
involved, needs to be compassionately supported by the state.”
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: (a) forests should be managed or "restored";
and
(b) forests can be managed in an
ecologically sensitive way.
I believe that
in the coming post-industrial, non-fossil fuel-dependent, sustainable
ecocentric society, forests
should be left "unmanaged." In
the long term, this is the best for our fellow non-human community
members,
who need the forests as a home.
When we take wood out of the forest, all its ecological functions have
to be
maintained. This is not an
anti-logging position; but it can be seen as anti-logging in the
context of not accepting
the unceasing growth demands and
population pressures of present industrial society and the orientation
to a
world-wide consumer market, which
then becomes reflected in logging practices and their intensity. For
such a
market there can never be
sufficient wood supply. A sustainable forestry requires that it be
embedded within
a
sustainable society. My position
is anti-logging in regard to how logging is presently carried out,
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).
There can be
no role for clearcutting or forestry poison use (biocides) for forest
workers informed by deep
ecology. The Registered
Professional Foresters Association of Nova Scotia and the Canadian
Institute of
Forestry, Nova Scotia Section
completely endorse forestry herbicide use by industry or government.
(10)
The justification for “some”
clearcutting — that shade intolerant trees require this, will not hold
up if the forest
can experience windthrows
(blowdowns), insect blooms and fire, which can open up spaces for shade
intolerant species, as part of
a restored Acadian forest in post-industrial society. However, this
will
not be
achievable if forests are only
to be viewed as fibre-producing factories for humankind.
A deep
ecology-inspired forestry would mean that non-economic interests are
primary in how we approach
the living forest in a
non-resource manner. The non-human life of the Acadian forest has its
own inherent value,
which is quite independent of how
we as humans see its usefulness. We humans must adapt ourselves to the
forest and not expect that the
forest adapt itself to us. Current forestry practices, whether
industrial
or
“alternative”, ultimately imply
that the forests are there to serve human purpose. Generally,
“improvement” or
what is increasingly being called
in the Maritimes ”restoration of the Acadian forest”, means economic
interests
are still 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. No matter what our degree of wisdom, and our humility
towards the
forest, how can we ever really
know the complex ecological interrelationships? Even with the best of
intentions,
we can only have partial
knowledge of the consequences of our forestry interventions. At best,
we are trying to
patch up. Of course humans need
to start on this. But once we have destroyed some functioning forest
ecosystem, we have often lost
something that cannot be replaced.
People in the
existing industrial capitalist society should be able to earn a modest
and respectful living from the
forest, but the focus should be
on restoration and low impact forestry, and other rethinking forestry
initiatives.
These would be steps on the path
to a deep ecology-inspired forestry in a future truly sustainable
society.
Unmanaged forests in an
ecocentric society mean that we need to manage ourselves as consuming
human beings.
The middle ground
Sandberg and Clancy articulate what they see as a
“middle ground” theoretical and practical position,
between the “extreme views” of
the forest industry and the alleged extreme views of environmentalists.
(11)
They also seem to be arguing that
the seven foresters they analyse in Against the Grain are in
some way an
illustration of such a position.
For the authors this middle ground position is also an example of “moral
pluralism”, a reconciliation of
the interests of humans and animals, and implies an acceptance of both
utilitarian
and intrinsic (biocentric)
values. (12) 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. As Leopold put
it: “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity,
stability, and beauty
of the biotic community. It is
wrong when it tends otherwise.” (13) It is apparent to me that Against
the Grain shares far more assumptions
with industrial forestry than with the environmentalist side of the
debate.
Those who
frequently counsel a “middle ground”, “sitting down together” or “round
table” position on the
corporate/government side of an
issue, usually have the actual power in an environmental situation.
They have a
personal stake in the ongoing
ecological and social destruction carried out under the banner 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, for example using the Aldo Leopold’s forestry “A” and
“B” typology in
their book, (14) while denying
its legitimacy as being "extreme". The authors, as well as the seven
foresters
analysed in Against the Grain,
are fundamentally committed towards a commercial forestry, whether for
saw
logs or for pulp. Sandberg and
Clancy essentially share 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.
Mainstream
forestry environmentalists could perhaps be seen as having a middle
ground position. 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 can be united with more radical environmentalists in
opposing
clearcutting and chemical
spraying, against narrowing the species basis of the Acadian forest to
favour pulp
species and want a variety of
uses for the forests, not just industrial use. However, they break
ranks with their
more radical colleagues by not
openly challenging industrial capitalism: their orientation is
basically
human-
centered, and they do not want
to be portrayed as ‘radicals’; most are willing to take government and
sometimes
corporate grants; they are
prepared to negotiate with corporations and governments and give public
praise when
some minor concession is given;
they try to show that the existing political system can be made to
work; they will
not raise the issue of the
capitalist growth economy, or increasing populations, or private
property relationships,
or the orientation to the
world-wide consumer market, and how these issues impact the practice of
industrial
forestry.
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, (15)
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
clearcut size fits all. Against
the Grain fits into this misleading general trend of industrial
forestry reinventing itself,
by air brushing a sample of
foresters and presenting them as role models.
Limited dissent
All the
foresters discussed by Sandberg and Clancy, with the exception of
Donald Eldridge, are interesting
forestry workers who tried to
bring about some changes in the areas they worked. However, they did not
change the overall priorities of
industrial capitalist forestry in Nova Scotia. Any changes they made,
were made
within this paradigm of values.
Since all these foresters operated within a human-centered frame of
reference,
the changes were usually more on
the social justice or social equity side than the environmental or
ecological side.
SOCIAL EQUITY:
One of the biases of the authors is the assumption that
environmentalists are “simplistic”
and not concerned about social
equity questions. This is really a matter of their writing tone:
somehow
ecology is
supposed to exclude social
justice concerns. The forester David Dwyer, for example, is presented
as an
advocate of “social forestry” as
though these concerns have not been raised by many Nova Scotia
environmentalists: social
forestry we are told, “flows from the recognition that resource use
affects people’s life
prospects, and forest relations
should be designed and applied in this light.” (16)
Anyone engaged
in forestry environmentalism rapidly finds out that in Nova Scotia, as
elsewhere, those who
favour the industrial forestry
status-quo wrap themselves in the mantle of concern for social equity —
jobs for
workers, spin-off employment
benefits, taxation that pays for health care and education, etc.
Environmentalists
try to raise ecological and human
health concerns, which are usually smothered over, but they are not, in
my
experience, unconcerned about
social equity considerations. For example, in the early 1980s in my
presentation to the Royal
Commission on Forestry, done in the name of the Socialist Environmental
Protection
and Occupational Health Group,
I not only advocated various ecological measures, but called for labour-
intensive, not capital-intensive
forestry, and the nationalization of foreign owned timber lands and all
foreign
owned pulp and paper companies
in the province. (17) Today, as a left biocentrist, I understand that
ecocentric justice is much more
inclusive than human justice. For the ecocentric Left, what it means to
be
a
"deeper" Green, is the primacy
of ecocentric consciousness, namely deep ecology, and that social
justice,
while very important, is
secondary to such a consciousness.
Almost all the
forest cutting in the province of Nova Scotia is still done as
clearcutting. Economic rewards for
the mills from clearcutting
always trump ecological or social equity considerations for other Nova
Scotians.
Forest spraying remains a
“management” tool of two out of the three large pulp and paper
companies (Bowater
and Kimberly-Clark). (18) Irving,
which is involved in pulp and paper production with a home base in New
Brunswick, also sprays on its
forest land in Nova Scotia. Forest spraying is also used by the
Department of
Natural Resources (formerly Lands
and Forests), which is supposed to look after the forests for the
public, and
also by some small woodlot
owners. The authors of this book are clearly not against clearcutting
or the use of
poisons as forest biocides. In
the summer of 2004, a Department of Natural Resources spokesperson
justified
a crown lands herbicide spraying
program by saying, “The province has been using the herbicide Vision
for all
but one of the past 20 years.”
(19) It is this provincial department of the Nova Scotia government
which
employed at various times most
of the foresters eulogized in Against the Grain as ecological
and
social role
models.
Sandberg and
Clancy speak of herbicides being a “good thing” for “growing wood fibre
rapidly” on “tree
plantations.” (20) This is pulp
and paper forestry language. The authors support and praise forester
John Bigelow
who had a role in bringing the
Stora-Enso pulp mill to Nova Scotia, because they support such mills.
Mary Guptill
is praised in the text for her ecological consciousness as a venture
group (21) field forester. She
is the only woman discussed in
this book. She is a curious role model because she advocates compromise.
Perhaps this makes her close to
the “middle ground” orientation of the authors:
“I prefer to work with the situation by trying to
find compromises...If you chose sides,
you are quickly labelled for all time, and you cease
to have credibility. The weak lose
in confrontations. The pulp companies have paid
people who fight their battles very
well, while the weak have volunteers who, once
defeated, fall to the wayside.” (22)
In her
presentation to the Royal Commission on Forestry, Guptill justified a
discriminating
use of clearcutting
and biocide use: “...the public
might be more willing to accept the use of clearcutting and herbicides
where they
are needed and where they are
appropriate.” (23) Sandberg and Clancy approvingly note: “Guptill’s
approach
to herbicides was practical: they
constituted one tool among many.” (24) Throughout Nova Scotia the
formerly government-funded
venture groups for small woodlot owners were often fought against by
rural
residents, because of their role
in promoting clearcutting and forest spraying. These venture groups
were tied
into destructive forestry
practices by virtue of government funding requirements. Venture groups
are praised
by Sandberg and Clancy, and by
the foresters David Dwyer, Richard Lord and Mary Guptill.
In discussing
the work of Mary Guptill who, within the federal funding/policy
restrictions she had to work
under, tried to respond to local
ecological conditions, the authors say, “the local forest was improved
and
brought back into productive
use.” (25) Yet can one “improve” a forest and from whose perspective is
“productive use” determined? Is
this from the perspective of a forest plant or animal; from the
perspective of a
pulp mill, or even that of a
human being who wants to practice what is referred to as “low impact”
selection
forestry? In speaking of forest
management plans developed by Guptill, the authors say: “The
implementation
of management plans was to
improve the quality of not only timber but also the wildlife habitat.”
(26)
Richard Lord
is equally praised for his role in organizing small woodlot owners and
Christmas tree growers
“as a gifted social organizer and
strategist.” (27) Yet the role of the Christmas tree growers in
promoting the
use of biocides in Nova Scotia,
where they have played a truly backward role which seriously impacted
rural
residents and the forest ecology,
does not even get a mention in Against the Grain. (28) For
Sandberg and
Clancy, Christmas tree groups are
“progressive voluntary associations.” (29)
Lloyd Hawboldt
is the odd person among the foresters listed in Against the Grain,
in that he was trained
as a forest entomologist, not a
forester. He is the most interesting from an environmental perspective.
He
was
also odd in the above company of
foresters because of his role in publicly speaking out against the
proposed
spruce budworm spraying in the
late 1970s, as acknowledged in several places in Elizabeth May’s 1982
book Budworm Battles. (30) One
can say his was a voice for ecological change on the issue of forestry
biocide use.
The authors arrogantly, and I
believe falsely, claim that this forester “provided the intellectual
foundation
for the
environmental movement that,
succeeded in pressuring the provincial government to implement a spray
ban in
1976.” (31) In 1955, Hawboldt
wrote an important anti-forest spraying document called “Toward
‘Budworm-
Proofing’ the forests of Nova
Scotia.” In it he said: “Spraying to keep trees green until
these can be
harvested is not an acceptable
alternative to forest management.” (32) Normally, forest entomologists
in the
provincial Department of Natural
Resources have been outspoken apologists for every chemical and
biological
forest spraying program carried
out by the forest industry — whether by pulp mill or small forest
owner, or the
Department itself. Hawboldt saw
that insect blooms stem directly from clearcutting, which of course is
prioritized because of its profit
making potential. (33) Hawboldt did however advocate blueberry
production,
with all the use of biocides that
this entails. (34) In the foreword to the 1988 Lands and Forests
publication Forestkeeper, Hawboldt
misleadingly spoke of the forester Wilfrid Creighton, as having “moved
the reputation
of Nova Scotia into the front
ranks of forestry.” (35) This is a whitewash. It should read that Nova
Scotia
was
in the front ranks of forest
destruction. Hawboldt is also misleading and equally eulogistic, when
in the same
foreword he refers to the two
foresters Ralph Johnson (36) and Wilfrid Creighton (37), as having
earned
“the title of father of forestry
in Nova Scotia.” (38) For Hawboldt, as for Johnson and Creighton and
all the
foresters discussed in Against
the Grain, it is unquestioned that all forests on this Earth are
primarily
“woodlots” for human/corporate
use. (39)
From my
perspective, unlike the other foresters discussed in Against the
Grain, Donald Eldridge played
a reactionary role in forestry
in Nova Scotia. He was deputy minister of Lands and Forests and an open
spokesperson for industrial
forestry interests within the government; he was also for some years
the executive
director for the trade
association, the Nova Scotia Forest Products Association, which has
consistently
defended the interests of the
pulp and paper industry and the industrial capitalist forestry
status-quo. Eldridge
displayed open hostility towards
environmentalists and small woodlot owners and their causes. That
Eldridge,
as a hunter and fisherman, had
some sentiment for protecting wildlife habitat in order to ‘produce’
the
game to
be consumed by people like
himself, lauded in this book, is quite minor in the overall scheme of
things, given
his life-long priorities of
facilitating the ascendancy of pulpmill forestry. His inclusion by the
authors shows
that
the concept of “against the
grain” is vacuous, if it can include this pulp and paper spokesperson.
It is also
embarrassing for the work of the
six other foresters, to be grouped with such a person. These six,
looking at
the data presented in the book,
were however not the exemplary role models for social and ecological
change
within forestry which Sandberg
and Clancy claim.
DRESCHER EXCLUDED
FROM THIS BOOK:Against the Grain mysteriously
excludes the one forester,
Jim Drescher, who might be
considered truly as an alternative forester. Jim Drescher is not
even mentioned, yet
he has played an exemplary
teaching role within forestry in Nova Scotia. He is a professionally
trained forester,
a poet and a Buddhist. Sandberg
and Clancy would probably refer to him as a “so-called ecoforester.”
(40)
Drescher’s practical work, in
which education plays a large role, has shown to others how to earn a
living
from the Acadian forest in a
sustainable manner and the necessity to publicly speak out,
along with fellow
environmentalists, for ending the
reign of industrial forestry (not an embraceable cause for this book).
Through
his work, particularly at his
farm/forestry operation — “Windhorse Farm” in Lunenburg County — but
also
through his theoretical writings
and public interventions, he has argued for a Nova Scotia-based
alternative to
the industrial forestry model and
is widely recognized for this. What would probably set Drescher apart
for
the authors of this book, is that
he has allied himself with those who publicly identify themselves as on
the
“environmentalist” side of the
ongoing forestry debate. Drescher has played a similar “alternative
forestry”
teaching role in Nova Scotia to
that of the eco-forester Herb Hammond in British Columbia. The Fall 2003
issue of Canadian Silviculture
contains an article by the Prince Edward Island Forest Improvement
Association, which has this to
say about Drescher’s work in Nova Scotia:
“A van-load of PEI forest owners visited Jim
Drescher of Windhorse Farms
(www.windhorsefarm.org). This is truly a
worthwhile visit to see the best forest in
Nova Scotia and the many values placed on the large
standing and harvested
hemlock. A tour with Jim provides wonderful insight
into the spiritual and
ecological forest processes while providing an
independent income for 7 families
with the harvested and finished wood products.”
The language
used by the foresters and the authors in Against the Grain
illustrates that their world view is
basically human-centered — no
matter how many invocations of the “ecology” word — and, in essence,
anti-ecological. The forest is
viewed from the perspective of how much value humans place on it, and
the
language reflects this. Living
trees are a “resource” for human/corporate use as “wood fibre”, hence
the
uncritical use of the term
“woodlot” throughout this book. This term is human-centered and implies
that the
main purpose of a forest is to
produce timber for human use. “Management” of the forests is assumed and
is considered a good thing, to
“improve” the basic forest not only from a human perspective but from a
perspective of allegedly
enhancing the quality of life of all other forest-dwelling species. The
language of
“infestations” for the spruce
budworm is unquestioned by the authors, and insects which impact forests
commercially are “pests.” Terms
like “mature”, “overmature woodlands”, “merchantable stock” and
“fibre
production” are
uncritically used. All these terms encompass a human-centered
philosophical world view for
the forests and the natural world.
This
discussion of the very limited forestry dissent presented in Against
the Grain shows that it
misrepresents the ecological and
social equity influence of the seven foresters discussed. It also shows
that
the
authors embrace the ethos of
industrial forestry by accepting clearcutting and forest spraying plus
the overall
pulp mill orientation of
industrial forestry, and the human-centered language of this forestry
model.
Anti-environmentalism
Sandberg and
Clancy also minimize and misrepresent the influence of
environmentalists
on forestry debates
within Nova Scotia. The sparse
references in this text to Nova Scotian environmentalists are to
mainstream
people, e.g. Elizabeth May and
Aaron Schneider. They have done good work, but mainly from a human-
centered position and an approach
of acceptance of the existing industrial capitalist system, trying to
make it
work as it interacts with forests
and forestry. There is a section on the “Environmental Challenge” in the
chapter on Donald Eldridge, just
over three pages in a book of over 300 pages, and some brief, mainly
dismissive, mention of
environmentalism in the concluding chapter.
This book
exaggerates the significance of the seven foresters discussed, for what
has been happening in
Nova Scotia, in regard to
theoretical or practical alternatives to industrial forestry and its
taken-for-granted
priorities. It presents these
foresters falsely, as some kind of alternative which can “transcend the
environmentalist/industrial
divide” (41). Yet to my knowledge, none of the foresters discussed have
publicly
tried to mobilize others and
argued for an alternative to the industrial forestry paradigm on
ecological or
social equity grounds. None has
openly opposed the expansionary industrial society which shapes and
conditions the practised
forestry. Whatever dissent these foresters expressed, while appreciated
by critics
of industrial forestry, has been
circumspect and has not placed their jobs as foresters in evident
jeopardy.
In order to
promote the significance of the foresters discussed, it is apparently
necessary to misrepresent
the environmental forestry
critique in Nova Scotia. The book does this in several ways. At its
crudest, it
presents “environmental
advocates” in regard to forestry in an absolutist “preserve it all”
(42) position, which
is untrue generally and in
particular for Nova Scotia. It is the forest industry which normally
wants to maintain
all the woods for industrial
forestry and fights fiercely against “withdrawals” of forest land for
parks or other
protected areas for
non-industrial use.
Against
the Grain characterizes environmentalism falsely as an “immutable
mobile” (43) using the
terminology of the sociologist
Bruno Latour, who defines it as: “uniform, standardized, and unchanging
methods
that can be transferred and
applied to any geographic context.” (44) The foresters discussed are
presented as
advocates of “mutable immobiles”,
considered as good from the authors’ perspective: “highly flexible
methods
restricted to local application
in a specific place.” (45)
While
attacking environmentalism is a general major theme of the book,
Sandberg and Clancy try to
appropriate environmentalism.
They do this by wrapping themselves in “ecology “ language. The authors
fail
to
present that Nova Scotia has had
a range of articulated environmental forestry positions. These vary
from a
variety of mainstream or
“shallow” positions, essentially shaped by an acceptance of the overall
direction of
industrial society and its basic
values, to a minority tendency shaped since the mid 1980s by a radical
deep
ecology consciousness which
rejects industrial capitalist forestry and its basic assumptions. The
authors pride
themselves on articulating “the
subtleties and dissensions within forestry and among foresters
historically.”
(46)
They accuse environmentalists of
being unaware of these subtleties. Yet they themselves fail to see and
articulate such subtleties among
the environmentalists who have fought, and continue to fight,
industrial forestry
in Nova Scotia.
Environmentalists are generally characterized as “extremist”, a
dominant thrust in Against the Grain. They
are vulgarly smeared as ignorant,
“ideological” know-nothings. The conclusion to this book, speaking of
environmentalists, clearly shows
this:
“The critics are ideological to the extent that they
lose touch with practical reality,
neglecting the economic importance of primary forest
production and dismissing the
sophisticated technical foundations of modern forest
maintenance. Furthermore, the
critics see an undifferentiated ‘nature’ as the
wellspring of an alternative forestry
(implying that commercially inspired forestry is
somehow ‘unnatural’), calling for the
preservation of old-growth or virgin forest stands
(with little apparent awareness that
today’s stands are the product of complex
successional processes), and equating
ecological sensitivity with non-economic values
(suggesting that foresters are ignorant
or dismissive of nature in the round).” (47)
Notwithstanding the above comments, the book at one point correctly
notes in a discussion of the pulp and
paper forester Donald Eldridge:
“Environmentalists were responsible for shaping some of the most
important
forest policy questions of the
era.” (48) Sandberg and Clancy also give a definition of
“environmentalism”
which is much closer to deep
ecology (not mentioned in this text), that is, to biocentrism or
ecocentrism, than
to the mainstream forestry
environmentalism typically encountered in Nova Scotia: “This ideology
springs from
a belief in the primacy of nature
as defined against civilization and the repudiation of humans as the
predominant species.” (49)
I believe that
environmental views on forests and forestry in Nova Scotia — that have
ranged from reformist
to radical — have been the
driving force undermining the intellectual hegemony of the industrial
forestry status
quo in the public’s eyes. It is
however true that in the last few years a re-vitalized Nova Scotia
Woodlot
Owners’ And Operators’
Association has significantly contributed to this undermining. The
Association is the
oldest woodlot group in the
province. It now focuses on “low impact” forestry, as shown in the
Field Days
which have been held, and the
featured alternative speakers like eco-forester Jim Drescher at its
Annual
Meetings. What we see is that the
Association has moved to embrace more an ecological path (not without
contradictions and sending out
mixed messages in its promotional material) which, while still
human-centered,
is an important step forward as
the contemporary Mission statement shows: “Truly sustainable forest
management means that all values
of our woodlands - ecological, social, cultural and economic - must be
preserved for future
generations.” (50) It is interesting to compare this with a 1969
statement by the same
Association when the forester
Richard Lord was involved, and when the announced goals were strictly
self-interest and economic. (51)
Overall, I believe the forest workers who have played leadership roles
in the
recent articulated policies of
the woodlot owners are better forestry role models, and more against the
industrial forestry grain, than
the professional foresters discussed and promoted by Sandberg and
Clancy.
The
Association has not yet openly
embraced deep ecology, but some of the language being used reflects a
growing
Earth-centered consciousness.
Many women participate in the Field Days. Recent Field Days have also
featured the Gaia Singers, a
group of about 15 women singing Earth-centered songs as a part of the
activity
program.
The forestry
industry still essentially conditions/directs provincial and federal
government
forestry policies.
Yet the public perception of the
ecological and social destructiveness of industrial forestry has
definitely
changed, as revealed by any
number of opinion polls. This public perception has tilted against the
existing
forest industry practices:
clearcutting; forest spraying; narrowing the species basis of the
Acadian forest for
pulp and lumber interests;
promotion of even-aged softwood forest stands; the destruction of
wildlife and
wildlife habitats; the air and
water pollution from the mills; elimination of jobs in the woods due to
massive
mechanization; monopolization of
Crown lands for industrial interests in long-term leasing arrangements
and
the systematic government/forest
industry sabotage of attempts to use such lands for additional protected
areas in Nova Scotia, etc. Also,
the rise of “forest certification” in the Maritimes through Forest
Stewardship
Council initiatives, inherently
flawed as it is - because, among other things, a sustainable forestry
ultimately
requires a sustainable society -
is another indicator of a public trying to exert leverage on how
industrial
forestry is conducted.
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 the
historical records and to various
foresters who worked within government and industry, and had to
implement or contend with various
forestry policies in Nova Scotia. I recommend it, 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); and reject the overall eulogistic evaluation of the
foresters
discussed by the authors. 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. This book has also forced me to look more closely at the
evolution of
small woodlot owners and their
attitude towards what they see as an appropriate alternative forestry -
low
impact or Acadian “restoration”
forestry.
Reading this
book, it becomes necessary 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. 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? At its
core, Against the Grain
is a university-based elitist put-down of the many hundreds of Nova
Scotians who,
since the late 1970s, educated
themselves to fight against the policies of industrial forestry and to
change the
public debate in the province.
This book shows that with its sustained attack on environmentalism and
environmental activists working
on forestry issues in Nova Scotia, however otherwise insightful, Anders
Sandberg and Peter Clancy have
“crossed over” and are firmly grounded within industrial forestry.
January
2004. Updated and revised October 2004.
David
Orton is the coordinator of the Green Web, an environmental research
and green
philosophy
group in Nova
Scotia.
A
partial
review of this article was published in the January 2004 edition ofthe Environment, Technology and Society Newsletter of the
American Sociological Association, see
http://www.linfield.edu/soan/et/newsletters/NewsletterJan04.pdf
**********************
End Notes
1. See forestry-related writings
on the Green Web Literature list of publications on our web site: http://home.ca.inter.net/~greenweb/
2. Sandberg, L. Anders and
Clancy, Peter. Against the Grain: Foresters and Politics in Nova
Scotia,
(Vancouver, UBC Press, 2000),
p.19.
3. Ibid, p.272.
4. The birth and death
information for the foresters is incomplete. It had to be put together
or deduced from
scattered data in the text or
footnotes and is nowhere systematically presented.
5. Against the Grain,
p.233.
6. Bowater does not now have any
Crown leases. It owns about 243,000 hectares of forested land in
Western Nova Scotia. (The
Chronicle Herald, March 10, 1998.)
7. Orton, David. Pulpwood
Forestry In Nova Scotia And The Environmental Question
(Gorsebrook
Research Institute For Atlantic
Canada Studies, Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, undated).
10. Mac Barkhouse, chairman
Canadian Institute of Forestry (Nova Scotia Section) and Allan Eddy,
president
of the Registered Professional
Foresters Association of Nova Scotia, “Adding facts and fuel to
the herbicide
debate.” (The
Chronicle Herald, September 23, 2004.)
11. Against the Grain,
p.289.
12. Ibid, p.289.
13. Leopold, Aldo. A Sand
County Almanac: With Essays on Conservation from Round River, (New
York, Ballantine Books, 1970),
p.262.
14. Ibid, p.258-261.
15. Forest Accounts:
Reporting on the state of Nova Scotia’s forests, Spring/Summer
2002. Source
materials for this document to be
found in The Nova Scotia Genuine Progress Index Forest Accounts
Volume 1: Indicators of
Ecological, Economic and Social Values of Forest in Nova Scotia, 2001,
by
Sara Wilson and Ronald Colman,
and Volume 2: A Way Forward - Case Studies in Sustainable Forestry,
2001, by Linda Pannozzo and
Minga O’Brien. These are available from www.gpiatlantic.org
16. Against the Grain,
pp. 282-283.
17. Pulpwood Forestry In
Nova Scotia And The Environmental Question, pp. 21-22.
18. I do not know the real
reason(s) why Stora-Enso has stopped spraying. In the past, this pulp
and paper
company, the largest in Nova
Scotia, fought very hard and rough against environmentalists on this
issue. In the
summer of 2004, during an upsurge
in agitation against forest herbicide spraying, Stora-Enso company
spokeswoman Patricia Dietz was
cited in the The Chronicle Herald
(August 31, 2004), where she
noted that her company had
stopped spraying in 1997: "the company has no health or safety concerns
about proper use of herbicides
but stopped because it wanted consistency in its international
operations."
For years, a friend who is a
summer resident in Guysborough County, spent much of his time
unsuccessfully trying to stop the
dumping of herbicides by Stora in the vicinity of his summer cottage.
My friend always maintained that
Stora had a colonial attitude towards Nova Scotia, following forestry
policies in our province which
would not be acceptable in Sweden, where the company was then
headquartered.
19. Statement by Mary Anna
Jollymore, spokesperson for the Department of Natural Resources.
(The
Chronicle Herald, August 26, 2004.)
20. Against the Grain, p. 261.
21. The venture groups were an
organizational form designed to bring small forest owners on board
with the goals of industrial
forestry. They were funded mainly by the federal government, starting in
1977. The government ended this
funding in 1995, and the approximately 18 venture groups then
in the province had to go it
alone or go under. Mary Guptill worked for about ten years for an
Acadian venture group in Digby
County "La Foret Acadienne".
22. Against the Grain, p. 264.
23. Ibid, p. 261.
24. Ibid, p. 260.
25. Ibid, pp. 262-263.
26. Ibid, p. 270.
27. Ibid, p. 201.
28. Green Web Bulletin #3, "Christmas Tree
Cultivation: Open Season on Pesticides",
March 1988 gives a critical
ecological overview of this industry. This Bulletin lists the over 40
biocides recommended for use at
that time by Christmas tree growers.
29. Against the Grain, p. 232.
30. May, Elizabeth. Budworm Battles: The fight to stop the
aerial insecticide spraying
of the forests of Eastern Canada,
(Four East Publications Ltd, 1982). This book is also
quite revealing about May's basic
beliefs and her flair for self-promotion.
31. Against the Grain, p.281.
32. Ibid, p. 131.
33. My own 1987 article, "The Case Against
Forest Spraying with the Bacterial
Insecticide Bt", in Alternatives, Vol. 15, No. 1, also
outlines the industrial forestry
practices which produce
conditions ripe for the budworm. My position against Bt spraying
was in opposition, in the early
1980s, to that of Elizabeth May, the Ecology Action Center
and most mainstream
environmentalists. At that time the mainstream environmentalist
position was that Bt could be
used
"without poisoning the environment." See Budworm
Battles, p.132.
34. See Green Web
Bulletin #1, "Blueberry
Spraying: A Chemical Horror Story"
(November 1988), for a list of
the biocides used at that time in lowbush blueberry
production.
35. Lloyd S. Hawboldt.
"Foreword", p. xi, in Forestkeeping:
A History Of The
Department Of Lands and Forests
In Nova Scotia 1926-1969, by Dr. Wilfrid
Creighton, (Halifax, Department
of Lands and Forests, 1988).
36. Johnson, Ralph S. Forests of Nova Scotia: A History,
(Halifax, Department
of Lands and Forests, 1986).
37. Creighton, Forestkeeping.
38. Ibid, p. x.
39. For my evaluation of Johnson
and Creighton, see the 2002 review essay "'Sustainable'
Forestry in Nova Scotia?" (The Northern Forest Forum, Winter
Solstice 2002,
Volume 9, No. 4.) I make the
following point in my review of their forestry books:
"The fundamental critique of industrial forestry in Nova Scotia has not come from
its supporters/practitioners
within government, or from the
forest industry itself, but
from the outside. Any critical
comments by Creighton or
Johnson in their books seem
tepid compared to the past work done by environmentalists like Charlie
Restino,
Geoffrey and Elizabeth May, Rudi Haase, Neal Livingston, myself and
other
dissidents.", p. 27.
40. Against the Grain, p. 291. The term
"so-called ecoforesters" seems to be applied by
Sandberg and Clancy to people
like Chris Maser, Alan Drengson and Duncan Taylor. All
three have been associated with
support for deep ecology.
41. Against the Grain, p. 289.
42. Ibid, p. 273.
43. Ibid, p. 287.
44. Ibid, p. 271.
45. Ibid, p. 272.
46. Ibid, p. 101.
47. Ibid, p. 287.
48. Ibid, p. 146.
49. Ibid, p. 149
50. Taken from a leaflet giving a "Strategic Framework 2002-2007" and
also advertising a
Forest Stewardship Council
meeting, put out by the Nova Scotia Woodlot Owners' And
Operators' Association.
51. Against the Grain, pp. 208-209.
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