Green Web Bulletin #44
The Wild Path Forward
Left Biocentrism, First Nations, Park Issues and Forestry
A Canadian View
by David Orton
North American
Wilderness Recovery Strategy proponents must address First Nations issues,
because such
issues, at least in Canada, will
affect the successfulness of any emerging Strategy. It has become necessary
to
have views on aboriginal issues -
including aboriginal rights and treaty rights, native sovereignty, and land
ownership - and be prepared to express
them and defend them. A Wilderness Recovery Strategy entails
building alliances. While there are
strong mutual interests between native and non-native conservationists and
environmentalists of a radical persuasion
in fighting the Earth destroyers, there are often also contradictions
which need to be publicly discussed.
The fundamental question is usually, will natives take the "resourcist"
road
or preservationist path? Non-native
environmentalists with biocentric/ecocentric views must feel free to express
critical perspectives.
Left Biocentrism: A necessary
vision for wilderness recovery proponents to address First Nations issues
It is the perspective
of this article, that putting together a wilderness recovery strategy and
building relations
with First Nations, can best be done
with a left biocentric vision. "Left biocentrism" is part of an emerging
trend in
the green and environmental movements,
which is gradually evolving through practical activities and theoretical
discussions.
As used here to
describe this theoretical tendency, "left" means anti-capitalist but
not necessarily socialist;
"biocentric" means putting the Earth
first and subordinating human interests - including indigenous interests
- to this.
The left biocentric tendency represents
a left focus within the deep ecology orientation. The eight-point "Platform"
(drafted by Arne Naess and George
Sessions), is accepted as a basic expression of deep ecology.
The deep ecological
world view is the philosophical basis for building a new relationship for
humans with
Nature and within a society. The attitude
to deep ecology by left biocentrists is one of critical support. This
means criticizing and discarding "deep
ecological" tendencies toward the cultivation of self divorced from
social change, and toward insufficient
concern for social justice or the practical implementation of deep
ecology. Critical support for deep
ecology also means opposing the propagation of myths of 'sustainable'
land use in forestry, or marine use
in the fishery, within an industrial capitalist society based on private
property, endless economic growth,
population growth and consumerism. Left biocentrists agree that
industrial capitalism has to go -
both industrialism and capitalism. The nature of its replacement is the
subject of continuing thinking and
discussions. Various names and conceptualizations have been
formulated to try to encapsulate this
emerging left biocentric tendency. Its final terminology and content
are yet to be decided. In applying
the left biocentric perspective to the topic of "Environmental-First
Nations Relationships," there will
obviously be genuine differences of opinion.
Relationship to Traditional Native
Thought
The relationship
of the left biocentric tendency to traditional native thinking is also in
the process of being
defined. Traditional native world views
seem to have stressed several themes at odds with industrial
capitalism: the unity and interrelatedness
of life; the belief that the world unfolds in a cyclic, not unilinear, way;
a communal system of property, as against
private ownership; detailed knowledge of Nature; living in place
(bioregionalism); population self-regulation;
respect for all life forms and their sacredness; a sustainable
"harvest" of wildlife over thousands
of years; and rituals that severely limit the destruction by humans of flora
and fauna and the land itself. Obviously,
this traditional native perspective has a great deal of compatibility
with the eight-point platform of deep
ecology.
Some environmental
organizations that promote environmental/aboriginal alliances elevate indigenous-
centered social justice over environmental
justice because they have a human-centered orientation to the
natural world. They become in effect
"solidarity" organizations. Social justice must be addressed by our deeds,
not only our words, but it has to be
accompanied by a deep ecology perspective. Otherwise, any exploitation
of the natural world for human purposes
can be justified.
Beyond human-centeredness
Deep ecology builds
on, but extends beyond, traditional native thinking:
My own preliminary position is that deep ecology is a
movement beyond indigenous attitudes to
nature, which centre around human use, however respectfully carried out.
One might characterize
the best Native positions regarding relationships to the natural world as
"deep stewardship" - a
position that still remains human-centered. Although adequate for gathering
and hunting societies
with little technology and small numbers of people, it is not encompassing
enough for the survival
of the natural world in the 1990s. (See David Orton "Envirosocialism:
Contradiction or
Promise?" in Green On Red: Evolving Ecological Socialism,
Society for Socialist Studies/
Fernwood Publishing)
David Suzuki and
Peter Knudtson, in their book Wisdom of the Elders, in an examination
of a number of
aboriginal views, write:
Aboriginal peoples' relationship with other life-forms
comes from a deep respect that is
ultimately self-interested.
This native human-centered
world view believes that animal and plant life is on Earth for human use,
as shown
in some of the anthropological evidence
introduced in support of the native food fishery in the well-known
Canadian Supreme Court Sparrow Case.
(The Sparrow court case has become the justification for the now
official federal government Aboriginal
Fisheries Strategy. See text of the 1990 Decision, Supreme Court of
Canada "Ronald Edward Sparrow
versus Her Majesty The Queen"):
The salmon was not only an important source of food
but played an important part in the
system of beliefs of the Salish people, and in their ceremonies. The salmon
were held to be a
race of beings that had, in "myth times," established a bond with human beings
requiring the
salmon to come each year to give their bodies to the humans who, in turn,
treated them with
respect shown by performance of the proper ritual. Towards the salmon, as
toward other
creatures, there was an attitude of caution and respect which resulted in
effective conservation
of the various species.
This self-limiting human-centered "respect"
is undermined and ultimately destroyed by capitalist industrialism,
which turns all of Nature into commodities
for sale in the market place.
The dilemma for
traditional native thinking is how does one "settle" with the dominant society,
when this
society defines legally what is and
what is not acceptable for debate and negotiations? Unfortunately, the
traditional world view is usually jettisoned
in order to extract some recompense from the dominant society.
Metis historian Olive Dickason in her
progressive book, Canada's First Nations: A History of Founding
Peoples from Earliest Times, quotes
Cree lawyer Delia Opekokes, saying the concept of aboriginal rights,
'recognizes our ownership over lands we have traditionally occupied and
used and our control
and ownership over the resources of the land - water, minerals, timber,
wildlife and fisheries.'
Beyond treaties
To enter the judicial
process to 'settle' land claims, to take part in the dominant paradigm of
values, is to
give up or go against the traditional
native relationship to the land and accept the imposition of the values of
the
colonizers and of industrial society.
Occupancy, even first human occupancy, cannot convey title to land. The
aboriginal peoples of Canada who were
themselves initially migrants from somewhere else - Asia - occupied
the lands in this country; they did
not "own" them.
Treaties were originally,
and are now, instruments for the colonizers to gain access to lands traditionally
occupied by natives, and to the lands'
wealth. Treaties have expedited the process. We cannot - nor should
native peoples - accept the validity
or relevance of treaties signed two or three hundred years ago by English
or French feudal kings or queens, or
appointees on their behalf. Eighteenth century treaties now in contention
by Nova Scotia Micmacs, such as the
Treaty of 1752, were "signed" on the aboriginal side by people
unable
to write or read the treaty language.
Moreover, all the treaty language "agreed" to by the colonialists and the
indigenous peoples presupposed a totally
human-centered view of the natural world.
Beyond land ownership and property
rights
Language embodies
a world view which is often taken for granted, and frames a debate. Thus
the wording
of the expression "land claim" assumes
in some way its justice. "Property rights" are the way a society
organizes its affairs; they reflect
the distribution of power and influence - the class structure - within a
society.
Insofar as they have been applied to
Nature, such rights have presumed that one species - humans - has the
right to decide whether or not other
animal species, plant species, and the physical environment itself, have
the
"right" to live or die. Clearly, this
is not an acceptable view for a deeper environmentalism. Humans cannot
"own" the Earth. We make use of it,
wisely or foolishly.
Property rights
vary from state, through communal, to individual ownership. Such rights are
socially created
and can therefore be socially redefined
and changed. Social justice and justice for Nature within a society
should be the criteria for evaluating
so-called property rights. Court systems in all modern societies, including
Canada, buttress property rights and
defend the existing class structure, over human rights and the rights of
Nature.
The choice becomes
then, whether to accept the property rights values, within which present
debates are
conducted (as with "buy back the dacks"),
or to put forth an alternative vision of "rights," and socially
mobilize for their implementation.
The latter is the promise of a radical deep ecology. There can be no true
resolution of past and present injustices
against native peoples, and no sustainable land use practices or
sustainable native or non-native communities,
within a continuing industrial capitalist society.
Land claims
"Land claims" and
"treaty rights" present conflicts when developing a wilderness strategy for
Canada. Two
very helpful recent (1993) discussion
papers that raise these issues, and identify specific national and
provincial parks subject to native
land claims, are: Putting Nature First: Conservation Principles to Guide
the Settlement of Aboriginal Land Claims
by the Federation of Ontario Naturalists, and Protected Areas
and Aboriginal Interests in Canada
by James Morrison for World Wildlife Fund Canada.
The federal government
in 1973 established a process to supposedly settle land claims outside of
the "win or
lose" court system, making the distinction
between "comprehensive" and "specific" claims. Comprehensive
claims concern lands never been covered
by treaties,
where the claimant seeks a negotiated settlement on the basis of unextinguished
Aboriginal
title arising from traditional use and occupancy of the land.
Comprehensive land
claims cover very large land areas; for example, the first was the 1975 James
Bay and
Northern Quebec Agreement. First Nations
have directed comprehensive land claims at Parks Canada
concerning the Mingan Archipelago (Quebec),
the Torngat and Mealey Mountains (Labrador), and Gwaii
Haanas/South Moresby (B.C.). For much
of the territory of northern Canada and much of British Columbia,
comprehensive claims have now been
settled or are in negotiation. Recently settled comprehensive land claims
include Nunavut (eastern Arctic), Inuvialuit
(western Arctic), and the Gwich'in lands (Yukon). Hundreds of
millions of dollars have been paid
out or committed for comprehensive claim settlements.
Specific claims
deal with unfulfilled treaty promises or government maladministration,
where the claimant seeks a negotiated settlement arising from unfulfilled
government
obligations under treaties, agreements or statutes, or the improper administration
of
Indian
lands and other assets under the Indian Act.
First Nations have
directed specific land claims at Parks Canada concerning the following parks:
Banff (Alberta),
Riding Mountain (Manitoba), Pukaskawa
(Ontario), Bruce Peninsula (Ontario), and Point Pelee (Ontario). In
addition to these federal parks, a
number of provincial parks, including Algonquin and Quetico in Ontario,
are
also subject to native land claims
and thus to fundamental change. To take positions on the hundreds of
outstanding specific land claims in
Canada, biocentric non-native environmentalists need to look at First Nations'
fundamental values and assumptions,
asking, for instance, "can treaty rights and land claims be supported?" and
also at their own values and assumptions.
Why aboriginals generally oppose
"allocations for nature"
Native land claims,
are often about the "harvest" of wildlife and "economic" opportunities. There
seems to be
little regard for sanctuaries - or
what the Land Claims Work Group of the Federation of Ontario Naturalists
called "allocations for nature."
Working against
allocations for nature are the following factors:
a. Aboriginal Canadians historically
utilized and changed their natural surroundings.
b. Traditional native territories often
include existing provincial and federal parks and other protected areas,
or
some portion of them.
c. Natives were often physically dislocated
when parks or other protected areas were established.
d. The primacy of treaty rights and
land claims is asserted in the Canadian Constitution.
e. Much crown, i.e. public, land covered
in forests has been handed over to the forest industry, on long-term
renewable leases.
f. At least in southern Canada, most
land "unoccupied" by humans, is in some kind of park status.
For all of these
reasons, in many parks indigenous rights to hunt, fish and trap as part of
land claims are being
pursued, and wilderness or wildlife
sanctuaries closed to human "use" are being opposed. Governments at the
federal and provincial levels seem
increasingly willing to compromise the ecological integrity of the poorly
defended parks system in Canada for
native land claims. This is politically easier than changing or challenging
the well-defended "allocations" of
non-park crown land, which have been committed to the timber industry on
a long-term basis. Generally, aboriginal
peoples in Canada are asserting their "rights" to hunt, trap, and fish
year-round, as in "traditional" times,
but using modern technologies of destruction and transportation, and in a
country now with a population of around
30 million people.
However, the situation
in the 1990's, because of human numbers and the habitat and wildlife destruction
caused
by industrial society, demands large
wilderness areas without any industrial exploitation such as clearcut logging,
mining, and hydro projects, and without
human "harvesting" of animal and plant life. The basic conditions of
biological life have to be given the
opportunity to continue evolving. The general vision outlined in "The
Wildlands
Project: Plotting A North American
Wilderness Recovery Strategy" needs to be implemented on the ground.
It is a necessary condition for ensuring
the survival of all species on Earth, including Homo sapiens. This
is the
ecological context for addressing social
justice for aboriginal Canadians.
Ecological integrity given up
In Canada's National
Parks and reserves for National Parks north of the 60th parallel, aboriginals
have the
legislated right to "harvest" wildlife
by hunting, trapping and fishing. In the south, only Pukaskwa National Park
in
Ontario presently allows this. However,
ministerial discretion in the National Parks Act allows the federal
government to authorize in any wilderness
area "the carrying on of traditional renewable resource harvesting
activities." Land claim settlements
in northern Canada have accepted that aboriginal people can kill wildlife
in
protected areas.
A posting on the
electronic network in September of 1994 announced that the Canadian government
is seeking
an amendment to the Migratory Birds
Convention (MBC):
The MBC establishes a closed season between March 10 and September 1 each
year. The intent
of the closed season is to protect migratory birds from over-harvest by sport
and commercial
hunters, but the closed season also made certain traditional harvesting of
migratory birds by
Aboriginal people illegal.
The
primary amendment proposed by the Canadian government would provide for Aboriginal
people in Canada to harvest, throughout the year, migratory birds for food,
social and
ceremonial
purposes, subject to conservation and allowing for the existing Aboriginal
and treaty
rights protected in the Constitution of Canada.
The maintenance
of ecological integrity, which is supposed to be the first consideration
in any national park
management plan, has essentially been
abandoned. The following is stated in the current (1994) Guiding Principles
and Operational Policies of Parks Canada:
In parks where there are existing Aboriginal or treaty rights, the exercise
of these rights will be
respected. As well, in some national parks, traditional activities by Aboriginal
peoples will continue
as a result of rights defined by land claim agreements and treaties, or by
specific agreements
negotiated during the process of park establishment. Given the legislative
and constitutional basis
of
such agreements, they are expected to supersede Parks Canada policy and in
some instances will
consequently amend the National Parks Act.
An acceptance of
the validity of land claims and treaty rights - based on the premise that
aboriginal peoples in
some way "owned" the land now called
Canada and therefore must be compensated today - justifies aboriginal
peoples' many assertions. If the logic
is followed through, "inherent" rights, i.e. rights by virtue of being an
aboriginal people, mean that aboriginals
do not need agreements with federal or provincial governments
regarding hunting, fishing, trapping,
taxes, education, or the like. From such a perspective, making agreements
with the federal or provincial government
means not recognizing inherent rights! Notwithstanding grievous
historical wrongs however, an endorsement
of such aboriginal views today is at the expense of Nature as well
as non-native Canadian society.
Fur trapping and parks
Access to furs was
a major reason for European entry into Canada. The resulting introduction
of the "fur trade"
totally changed the aboriginal lifestyle
away from self-sufficiency to one of dependency and subordination to the
European colonizers for various trading
goods. The fur trade undermined the self-restraint of the native deep
stewardship relationship to wild animals.
Fur bearing animals became "commodities" for a market. Also, many
native people were killed in fighting
over control of the fur trade between the British and French colonial powers.
Given this history, it is bewildering
that many native and non-native mainstream environmental spokespersons
defend fur trapping as crucial to the
indigenous way of life.
We should oppose
commercial fur trapping, commercial hunting, and management of wildlife for
commercial
purposes. Personally, I do not oppose
trapping or hunting or fishing by aboriginal Canadians, for personal or
community use, as part of a traditional
lifestyle - provided it is carried out in a context of the new awareness
and
knowledge being gained from conservation
and restoration biology today.
Algonquin Park is
one of Canada's many ostensibly protected areas now exploited by trappers.
This much-
loved Ontario park was established
in 1893. Used in various basically harmless ways by hundreds of thousands
of Canadians, and stamped in the contemporary
Canadian soul by landscape painters like Tom Thomson, it is
the last ecosystem in southern Ontario
where natural processes have a chance of functioning normally. (Wolves
crossing the park boundaries in winter
in pursuit of deer regularly get shot, showing the need for extensive buffer
zones surrounding parks, with controlled
human, wildlife-friendly, land use.) The Algonquins of Golden Lake have
made an extensive land claim - about
36,000 square kilometres, covering much of the Ottawa Valley, and taking
over the administration and control
of Algonquin Park. Greg Sarazin, spokesperson for the tribe has written (see
the 22-page document "220 Years
of Broken Promises", no date):
In 1954 a new regime of fur management in Algonquin Park arrived. The
government realized
that proper harvesting of fur-bearing animals would strengthen the populations
and ensure their
survival - something the Indians always knew. The entire eastern half of
the park was opened to
the trappers from Golden lake (and only to them) and, ever since, each trapline
has been in full
use and occupation.
The idea that trapping
and hunting are needed to maintain the balance of nature is also repeated
by non-native
killers of wildlife in seeking to continue
their practices. Native and non-native biocentrists need to step forward
in
unity and become vocal spokespersons
for the wildlife of Algonquin, lest plant and animal 'voices' become
drowned out in the carving up of this
park.
Forestry
In forestry, natives
and their non-native environmentalist allies seem to face these choices:
- Natives can seek a place within the
existing industrial forestry model, which destroys ecosystems and
human communities, but which can disburse
some economic benefits. Buffy Sainte-Marie has a line in her song
"Disinformation" that
seems appropriate here - "to make the same old mistakes in a brand new
way."
- Aboriginals can define their own
alternative forestry perspective.
- Aboriginals can unite with the deep
ecology forestry alternative which is struggling to emerge in practice and
theory.
Non-native forestry
activists must be clear about their own path, and about which path potential
native allies
have embarked upon.
The dominant First
Nations trend in forestry in Canada now, is participation within the industrial
forestry
paradigm. An article outlining an Aboriginal
Forest Strategy, presented by Harry Bombay, the President of the
National Aboriginal Forestry Association
(NAFA), in the 1994 Spring/Summer issue of the trade magazine
Canadian Silviculture, makes
this quite clear. He offers no critique of clearcutting or forestry biocide
use, but
endorses 'sustainable development':
continued economic growth in the forest industry.
NAFA made an August
1993 intervention to the Canadian Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples,
called
"Forest Lands And Resources For
Aboriginal Peoples." In it, NAFA argued for an "aboriginal forest
industry" and sought "co-management"
of "natural resources" with the timber and pulp companies and
governments. The flawed assumption
in their intervention was that the forest industry as it exists today can
accommodate and respect aboriginal
values. Other Canadian examples of native participation within the
dominant industrial forestry paradigm,
supported by some non-native environmentalists and organizations,
include participation in the federal
government's Model Forest Program, participation in the "Interim Measures
Agreement on Clayoquot Sound",
and the 'Sustainable Development' Agreement of the Algonquins of
Barriere Lake in La Verendrye Park
in Quebec. Corporations are interested in access to forests, not necessarily
in ownership of forested land. Therefore
when public pressure builds in support of "settling" land claims,
corporations will accept such settlements
provided they are permitted continuing access to turn trees into
industrial commodities, as in Clayoquot
Sound.
The Aboriginal Forest
Strategy evolved from within native thinking and is not official government
policy. The
Aboriginal Fisheries Strategy is federal
government policy and is being implemented across Canada. Both
Strategies assume participation within
the industrial capitalist model - the very model that is destroying the forests
and the fisheries in Canada.
The Deep Ecology Forestry Alternatives
There are two contrasting
paths to follow. One is a reformist path, which defines some kind of eco-forestry
and
its certification, within the existing
industrial system. "Renegade" foresters are active on this path. Journals
like the
International Journal of Ecoforestry
serve as a vehicle to express the reformist deep ecology, "eco-forestry
within the system" position. The other
path, less well developed, and in the left biocentric camp, states that a
"sustainable forestry requires a sustainable
society." It calls for, and is working toward, the dismantling of existing
industrial society as part of a deep
ecology forestry strategy.
Conclusion
From an ecocentric
perspective, we need total land reform in Canada and throughout the world,
so that land,
water, and air are seen as the common
inheritance of all living beings. So-called private, native, or crown (state)
property "rights" are ecologically
meaningless. Non-native environmentalists seeking unity with aboriginal peoples
to create a North American Wilderness
Recovery Strategy need to make the distinction between a native rights
agenda and a native land or land claims
agenda. Native rights to full self-governed participation in Canadian
society must be supported. But if one
believes, as ecocentrists do, that the Earth "belongs" to no one, not even
to
aboriginal peoples, then often land
claims and native views on non-human species must be opposed.
March 1995
The following persons read the
draft and contributed their ideas to the perspective presented:
Helga Hoffmann, Billy MacDonald, Philip
Fleischer, Ian Whyte and Dan Bourque.
This article was printed in Wild Earth magazine
in the Fall 1995 issue. Wild Earth is published
quarterly by the Cenozoic Society, Inc., POB 455, Richmond,
Vermont 05477, U.S.A. The article
was also part of the material making up a Discussion
Paper for a panel debate/discussion at the
Learned Societies Conference, on June 5th 1995, in Montreal,
on the topic "The environment and
he relations with First Nations." This Learneds session
was co-sponsored by the Society for
Socialist Studies and the Environmental Studies Association
of Canada.
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