British Columbia: Forest Ethics & the privatization of public representation

Whatever happened to the “Mountain Caribou Project” – that coalition
of ten environmental groups that signed confidentiality agreements and
let ForestEthics and Wildsight negotiate terms on a mountain caribou
plan that wouldn’t cost the logging companies anything significant?
They have all disappeared into the woodwork, I suppose waiting for the
Progress Board promised to them by the government. The writing is on
the wall that what little caribou protection was proposed south of
Wells Gray Park is in jeopardy. The Mountain Caribou Project is quite
likely involved in these affairs but remains silent. They remain
silent though the plan they endorsed has, embarrassingly, not
materialized. Are they hunkered down to hide from a firestorm of
public outrage at the killing of wolves and wild horses – killings
that are inextricably connected to the plan’s failure to protect
adequate habitat and rehabilitate clearcut areas.

This failure is the
result of the collaboration between ForestEthics et al. and the
government using the confidentiality agreements to shield their
concessions from the public. Yes, there is still a healthy movement
that does not agree with ForestEthics and its entourage, and does not
accept their sellout mountain caribou plan. In this regard, note that
the following groups sent a letter to Pat Bell, then Minister of
Agriculture and Lands, with a cc to the Premier, several newspapers
and various beaucrats, expressing non-confidence in ForestEthics,
Wildsight and the Mountain Caribou Project: Purcell Wilderness
Alliance, Ecological Internet, Perry Ridge Water Users, Slocan Valley
Watershed Alliance, Conservation Biology Centre, Applied Conservation
GIS, Save-the-Cedar League, Applied Ecological Stewardship, World
Temperate Rainforest Network, Northern Ecology Watch, and individuals
Glenda Ferris and Wayne McCrory. Thus while FE and its allies are
silent as the government stalls, manipulates and betrays their own
negotiated agreement, and silent as the slaughter of wolves ensues
(even though FE and the Mountain Caribou Project assured us there
would only be “targeted” killing subject to public review), the
environmental movement on the whole is silent as the government
parades the consent of a so-called environmental coalition, created by
pumping millions of dollars (for salaries) into these coalitions and
giving them priority access to public affairs in secret meetings. In
its silence the real environmental movement allows itself to be
counterfeited, having had the door slammed in its face by backroom
negotiators who collectively compose a counterfeit public process.
The environmental movement has a duty in principle to denounce fake
representations of itself, but the majority would rather avoid the
controversy. bcenvirowatch@lists.onenw.org

Posted via email from Deane’s posterous