Spelunkin' again...
 * Reply to msg originally in Canpol
>>>> QUOTING Kirk L. Bennett to All <<<<
 KLB> * Crossposted from: The Quebec Political Scene (REAL NAMES ECHO)
 KLB> From Hour - October 3 - 9 1996                      
 KLB> 
 KLB> 
 KLB> On paper, Quebec's forestry policies look progressive. On
 KLB> the ground, the province faces environmental and economic
 KLB> catastrophe.
 KLB> by Roslin, Alex
 KLB> 
 KLB> Let me say first off I'm not the type to get all sappy about a tree.
 KLB> A tree will not lick Grand Marnier out of your bellybutton. It won't
 KLB> mumble strange, cute things while it's sleeping. But I'll never forget
 KLB> the day I drove up the James Bay Highway for the first time and saw
 KLB> something that changed  how I see trees forever. Mile after mile of
 KLB> mangled stumps, rotting logs,  abandoned machinery and industrial
 KLB> debris passed us by. It was like a war  zone. We've all heard people
 KLB> say clearcutting is an ugly thing, but until  you've seen it with your
 KLB> own eyes it's hard to really know what they mean. 
 KLB> Seeing it from the air is even more educational. As you pass over the
 KLB> Laurentians on the flight from Montreal to Chibougamau, lush forests
 KLB> suddenly give way to a barren desert virtually devoid of foliage
 KLB> stretching out to the horizon in every direction. Alongside roads and
 KLB> waterways, narrow slivers of forest have been left standing as if to
 KLB> conceal the wasteland that lies  beyond.
 KLB> People in Quebec don't get excited about trees. They don't chain
 KLB> themselves  to them or fling themselves in front of logging trucks.
 KLB> This isn't BC -  "Brazil of the North."
 KLB> Or is it? A recent book by forestry engineer Pierre Dubois 
 KLB> tells a disturbing 
 KLB> tale about the state of Quebec's forests and the activities of the
 KLB> companies  that exploit it. And, if Dubois is right, you don't have to
 KLB> be a tree-hugger  to be concerned.
 KLB> Ten years ago, anyone who said there would be no more fish on the
 KLB> East Coast would have been ridiculed. Today, the fishery has collapsed
 KLB> and Atlantic Canada is on the verge of bankruptcy. A way of life is
 KLB> over. 
 KLB> In Quebec, where one in six jobs is tied to forestry, another fragile
 KLB> resource faces obliteration.
 KLB> On to the tree line
 KLB> In The Real Masters of Quebec's Forest, published by Eco-Societe,
 KLB> Dubois accuses forestry companies of "mutilating" the forests of
 KLB> Quebec while the  government stands on the sidelines cheering them on.
 KLB> "We are on our knees  before an industry that overexploits Quebec's
 KLB> forests, ruralresidents and  forestry workers," he writes.
 KLB> Forestry is Quebec's biggest industry, one with long historical roots
 KLB> in just about every region and a prime source of export dollars.
 KLB> Largely due to exploitation of Quebec's trees, Canadahas become the
 KLB> world's top exporter of forest products. Canada is easily the largest
 KLB> newsprint maker, with 27 per cent of the world's production. Of that,
 KLB> Quebec alone accounts for 12 per  cent, putting it in third place
 KLB> behind the US but ahead of Japan and the former Soviet Union. One out
 KLB> of every four pages in an American newspaper or magazine is made in a
 KLB> Quebec mill. 
 KLB> Crazy as it may sound, Quebec is running out of trees, warns Dubois.
 KLB> The amount of trees needed to sustain such a level of production is
 KLB> mind-boggling and loggers are being forced to search ever further
 KLB> north for fresh timber. Because trees in Quebec are relatively small,
 KLB> five times more surface area must be logged to produce the same amount
 KLB> of timber as in BC. 
 KLB> Already, the white pine, which used to hang over maple forests
 KLB> throughout southern Quebec, has been all but wiped out. In 1989 Quebec
 KLB> furniture makers complained of the lack of oak, wild cherry and maple,
 KLB> all species previously  in abundance in Quebec but now so
 KLB> overexploited that supplies must be  imported from the US.
 KLB> As southern forests are logged out, companies are heading 
 KLB> into northern areas 
 KLB> like James Bay where the cold and lack of sunlight means a spruce
 KLB> tree takes  100 to 200 years to grow only five metres. The day may not
 KLB> be far off when  loggers find themselves at the limit of the tree
 KLB> line. At that point, unless  someone can think of a way to make tables
 KLB> and newsprint out of lichen,  Quebec's 300 towns almost exclusively
 KLB> dependent on forestry will face  economic disaster.
 KLB> According to Dubois, if we ever run out of trees the Quebec
 KLB> government will  be as much to blame as the loggers. Ninety per cent
 KLB> of our forests are on provincial Crown land. On paper, Quebec has some
 KLB> progressive regulations governing forestry. But on the ground, it's
 KLB> another world.  Fines for companies
 KLB> that violate regulations are minimal - mostly in the 
 KLB> hundreds of dollars - and
 KLB> pale in comparison with the $12 billion in revenues generated by the
 KLB> industry each year.
 KLB> Quebec also has the distinction of having the lowest stumpage fees -
 KLB> the charge companies pay for trees they cut - in North 
 KLB> America. This remained true
 KLB> even after Quebec doubled stumpage fees in the last few years. 
 KLB> Environmentalists argue that low stumpage fees encourage a
 KLB> quantity-over-quality approach to the resource. Low fees also mean
 KLB> the public gets little benefit from this collective resource, while 
 KLB> forestry corporations 
 KLB> walk off with fat profits.
 KLB> A way of life
 KLB> A battle is brewing over forestry in Quebec as the industry comes
 KLB> under greater scrutiny by environmentalists and international
 KLB> observers. But the battle will most likely be won or lost in the
 KLB> North, far from the public eye. 
 KLB> As loggers hack their way toward the tree line, they will first have
 KLB> to get through Crees like Paul Dixon. A trapper for 25 years, Dixon
 KLB> brought his family out of the bush and settled down in the Cree
 KLB> community of Waswanipi  with one goal in mind - to take on the
 KLB> forestry giants that, by his calculations, have wiped out 92 per cent
 KLB> of his ancestral hunting territory. 
 KLB> For Dixon, forestry isn't just a question of jobs or exports - it's
 KLB> about a  way of life. "The reality here is us Crees need the trees to
 KLB> survive as a hunting society. You cannot expect us to roll over and
 KLB> play dead. We were here first," he says. "The public at large must
 KLB> understand that somewhere in our comfortable homes, between the walls,
 KLB> is a tree - taken from out there on the land. That tree was a home or
 KLB> a shelter for another world," he says. 
 KLB> "Due to logging on our traditional lands, there is much less wildlife
 KLB> to depend on. We have much less to feed our families. On hunting
 KLB> expeditions, we are coming home more often empty-handed. We are one of
 KLB> the strongest  hunting societies still existing today in the world.
 KLB> Can our sons and  daughters say this in the next hundred years? A
 KLB> culture and philosophy that  existed for over 5,000 years is slowly
 KLB> being destroyed." 
 KLB> James Bay is a sort of loggers' paradise. Forestry operations in this
 KLB> vast  region covering a quarter of Quebec are exempt from 
 KLB> environmental hearings by 
 KLB> the province, unlike in southern areas. The permitted size 
 KLB> of clearcuts - the 
 KLB> equivalent of about 200 football fields - is twice as large as in
 KLB> southern  Quebec.
 KLB> In the last 20 years, 5,000 square kilometres of forest have been
 KLB> clearcut in Cree territory, the size of the state of Delaware and the
 KLB> same amount of  land flooded by Hydro-Quebec's La Grande
 KLB> hydro-electric project. Decades of  clearcutting and the influx of
 KLB> non-native hunters on logging roads have  nearly wiped out entire
 KLB> species of wildlife. Moose, a staple of the  traditional Cree diet, is
 KLB> verging on extinction in southern James Bay. 
 KLB> Environmental crime
 KLB> Crees estimate that about $1 billion worth of trees are 
 KLB> removed from James Bay 
 KLB> each year, while only a few thousand dollars in compensation has been
 KLB> handed  out during the last two decades. Crees are rarely consulted
 KLB> about logging of  ecologically or culturally sensitive locations such
 KLB> as burial sites or  hunting camps.
 KLB> "It's an environmental crime," says Sam Etapp, a Cree from
 KLB> Mistissini. "If there's no land base left to teach our children
 KLB> traditional knowledge, it comes down to cultural genocide that's
 KLB> taking place." 
 KLB> Etapp, who with Dixon sits on a Cree committee now planning a major
 KLB> campaign on forestry, says Cree lands are becoming barren wastelands:
 KLB> "It's getting  very difficult to pursue a decent way of life based on
 KLB> subsistence." 
 KLB> If the last 20 years were bad, the future promises to be even worse.
 KLB> New logging roads are snaking into virgin forests in the heart of
 KLB> James Bay. Lebel-sur-Quevillon, a town of about 4,000 on the southern 
 KLB> edge of James Bay, 
 KLB> has gone from being a near ghost town a few years ago to the Klondike
 KLB> of Northern Quebec. Unemployment has plummeted from 16 per cent to
 KLB> zero amid  plans by forestry and mining companies to invest $400
 KLB> million in expanding their facilities in the town.
 KLB> If the Cree campaign is as successful as their fight against the
 KLB> Great Whale hydro-electric project, it could be the first time a real
 KLB> debate has occurred about forestry in this province. And if Pierre
 KLB> Dubois and  other critics of the
 KLB> forestry industry are right, all Quebecers would benefit.
 KLB> For Dubois, the influence of the industry in Quebec is so 
 KLB> great and nefarious, 
 KLB> it is a threat to democracy. "We must put the industry in 
 KLB> its place," he says. 
 KLB> "The choice is clear - put the brake on the activities of the
 KLB> industry, or  wait until we've reached the bottom of the barrel."
 KLB> ... We're from the government and we're here to help you
 KLB> -!- Blue Wave/386 v2.30 [NR]
 KLB>  ! Origin: Juxtaposition BBS (1:167/133)
Regards Dik
... Nigeria hanged nine environmentists activists, for the Shell of it.
___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12
--- Maximus 2.02
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