Clayoquot decision is no victory for workers or British Columbia By Kim Pollock By now, we've all heard the media’s version of the Clayoquot Sound land use decision. Like most major media stories, it’s framed in terms of “winners” and “losers”. The losers, we are told, are the environmentalists who wanted the gov- ermment to preserve the entire area of Clayoquot Sound, some 260,000 hectares, most of which was previously part of the working forest. The winners, we are told - are us. Never mind that the B.C. cabinet’s decision means a shrinking of the working forest from 82 percent of the land in Clayoquot Sound to 45 per- cent (with 17 percent in the grey avea of an unde- fined “special management zone”); never mind that about 400 direct forest jobs and up to another 1000 jobs will be lost due to reduced timber harvesting; and never mind that the decision included no labour adjustment and transition strategies for those who lose their jobs because of this reduction. We won, we are told, because the government has allowed some timber harvesting to go ahead in Clayoquot Sound. It’s an indication of how influential preser- vationist arguments have become with those who produce and report the news. It is unreasonable and unrealistic to believe that we can somehow stop harvesting timber in Clay- oquot Sound or other controversial regions and watersheds. It is also unfair to people who work in those industries and the communities that depend on forestry. It’s important that we make this clear in the debates that will follow in the wake of the Clay- oquot Sound decision -because there will be future “Clayoquot Sounds” right across Canada. As a recent study headed by University of B.C. dean of forestry Clark Binkley points out, over 250,000 people in B.C. live in forest-dependent com- munities in which the forest sector accounts for 40 percent or more of the income generated by basic sectors of the economy; another quarter million live in communities in which forestry generates between 26 and 40 percent of basic sector income. “Thus a significant reduction in the activities of the forest industry in these communities is likely to destabilize them if not destroy them,” warn Binkley and his associates. That's always been clear to anyone who lives in a resource-dependent community, of course. But city folk sometimes lose sight of the weight of the forest ‘sector even within the economies of large urban centres. So it’s important to remember as Dr. Bink- ley and his friends remind us, that “though less visi- ble, the forest sector also plays a dominant role in the economy of the metropolitan Vancouver area”: it directly employed 16,800 workers earning a total of $550 million in wages and salaries; e forest sector activities and investments else- where in B.C. contribute to the metropolitan econo- my another 71,000 jobs and $1.83 billion in wages e Clayoquot Sound, on the west coast of Vancouver Island, has had its working forest reduced from 82% of land base to 45%. and salaries; ¢ when you add in transportation, and wholesale revenues and other benefits of the forest sector to the Vancouver economy, the total forest sector con- tribution comes to 115,000 jobs with wages and salaries of $3 billion, not counting Vancouver’s share of the provincial government's estimated $800 million in forest-sector-related revenues. So we simply cannot just stop harvesting timber, manufacturing forest products or exporting them. The economic consequences would “destabilize if not destroy” our communities, rural and urban alike. Every unwarranted removal of land from the working forest base has a cost: as IWA-CANADA vice-president Warren Ulley says, it’s like a credit card and there’s a bill at the end of the month. But we, too, have to be realistic and reasonable. There’s no reason, for instance, that we need to be defensive about the forest industry’s past logging practices. Very often, both out of lack of knowledge and the kind of corner-cutting that follows from the search for short-term profit, forest ecology has been sacrificed. The IWA-CANADA has been critical of unsustain- able harvesting and forest management practices for over half a century: there’s no reason to stop now just because many among the general public have finally caught up to us! We have to make a clear distinction between con- servationist policies that point to a long-term sus- tainable future for our communities and families, on the one hand and dangerous preservationist motions that would have us shut down whole indus- tries and communities, policies which offer our peo- ple no options and no future, on the other. But we must also distinguish clearly between policies that offer short-term gain but again offer no future because they leave our forests ruined and unreplen- ished. Shortly after I started work for FWA-CANADA, a friend of mine asked whether or not that meant J ‘was now with the “bad guys, the pro-logging side”. I replied that I preferred to believe that I’m on the side of the people, as opposed to the animals and trees. But the point, really, is that it doesn’t help to polarize land-use issues in the way that media sto- ries tend to encourage. We should try not to take sides between sensitivity to forest ecology and empathy with people who depend on the forest industry for employment or income. Instead, let’s try to find the balance between our economic needs and the real conservation needs of our forests, not just for Clayoquot Sound but for all the forested lands across Canada. Kim Pollock is the Director of IWA-CANADA’s Environment and Land Use Dept. Decision takes devastating toll on employment in communities dependent on forest industry ing. Local 1-85 has lost over 2,500 jobs in the last 10-12 years. One thousand of them were lost in the last 2-3 years. Few local unions of the IWA have been hit as hard or as often as Port Alberni. IWA-CANADA participated in and EFFECTS OF CLAYOQUOT SOUND LAND USE DECISION Working Forest Land Base (HA) Preserved for Parks (HA) Before April 13 Option 5 Clayoquot Sound Land-Use Decision 212,200 83,840 117,900 “resource use” Direct Forest Employment Jobs 44,500 “special management” 39,800 73,360 86,460 Jobs Dependent on Forestry Before April 13 Option 5* Clayoquot Sound 1200 employed 182 jobs lost 400 jobs lost 2975 employed 455 jobs lost 1000 jobs lost * Option 5 included a requirement for mitigation of the social and econom- ie impact of harvest reductions. The government decision did not. By Kim Pollock The B.C. government’s April 13th land use decision for Clayoquot Sound dramatically increases the amount of land set aside for parks or preservation in the region. More than one third of the total area of Clayoquot Sound will now be protected, more than doubling the set aside area. Meanwhile, the working forest land base shrinks from 81 per- cent of the total area to 45 percent (see table); another 17 percent is included in a “special management” zone in which logging will only be allowed under stringent, as-yet unspecified conditions. As the accompanying tables indi- cate, this comes at considerable expense in terms of jobs; an estimated 400 direct forest jobs and 1000 related or dependent jobs in other sectors will be lost, mostly in Port Alberni, Tofino and Ucluelet. The job losses in the Alberni Valley in the last decade have been devastat- supported the Clayoquot Sound Sus- tainable Development Steering Com- mittee, which painstakingly studied the environment and economy of the region for four years. It’s majority position, the so-called Option 5, would have softened and mitigated jobs loss, even though it would have actually brought an even greater reduction in the working forest than does the B.C. cabinet decision. Clayoquot Sound has been the tar- get of attempts by preservationist groups to put a complete halt to log- ging activity. IWA-CANADA continues to push for measures to offset the employment impact of the government's plan. The union maintains that jobs must be found for displaced workers affect- ed by the government's decision. The IWA does not believe in one time compensation or forms of social assis- tance. We believe that other jobs can be created in the forest industry struc- ture for workers affected. LUMBERWORKERJJUNE, 1993/3