DITORIAL

The jury is out on
MacBlo’s new plans

f you make your clearcuts smaller and leave

more clumps (of trees) with your stumps, they

are no ponker considered clearcuts. Is that

what MacMillan Bloedel really announced to
the world on June 10, when it said it was get-
ting out of clearcutting and into “variable
retention” harvesting in British Columbia
over the next five years?

Because MB put all of its eggs in one basket on the
Coast — the Japanese market, and that market col-
lapsed in spectacular fashion last year, the large for-
est San Dany is looking to sell its wood elsewhere.

It is doing everything possible to get into European
markets which have been brainwashed by Green-
pene to believe that old growth timber from B.C. is

eing harvested in an environmentally damaging
and unsustainable manner.

Unable to sell its lumber for a high enough price in
Japan, the company has thrown in the towel. Rather
than trying to fight the radical environmentalists, it
appears to be going for “eco-certification” of its prod-
ucts. That includes poproncking the Greenpeace-
backed Forest Stewardship Council which is the
major eco-certifying force in Europe.

ith lumber eoote restrictions to the U.S., MB’s
move to “variable retention” logging has a great deal
to do with beating its competitors to offshore mar-
kets. At the same time, it sees others in the industry
making a mistake of defending clearcutting while it
poses as a progressive trendsetter.

As MB’s top woodlands manager Tom Holmes
recently told an assembly of I.W.A. officials; “Reten-
tion logging is clearcuts with reserves but clearcuts
with reserves are not necessarily retention logging.”

In terms of a definition, there is a certain point
where the size of an opening in the forest is no
longer considered a clearcut in Europe and other
places.

What will likely satisfy the FSC and European
lumber buyers is when over half (50% +) of the open-
ing in the forest canopy is within an “edge effect,
which, according to Mr. Holmes, is defined as leaving
no more than one tree length of space from the edge
of standing trees.

The I.W.A. has adopted a “wait and see” approach
to what MB is doing. The union is concerned over
what MB says it will do and what it will actually do.

There are more inherent safety risks in the com-

pany’s plans while it says that its workers’ safety is
the number one priority. Hetbng and yarding will be

more cramped and dangerous. In addition, the com-
any is experimenting with single tree selection and
fas one as far as Beane a variance from the Work-
ers’ Compensation Board, to allow single trees to be
“cut-up” and actually left standing until a helicopter
comes along and breaks them off their stumps. _

As well, we would like to know why MB is cutting
at unsustainable levels on its own private lands and

@is studying “economic rotation” rather than “biologi-
cal rotation.” : ‘ :

We are also aware that MB is exporting private
wood to Japan (up to 30% of wood volumes in some
areas) and calling for a wide-open log market which
would likely lead to greater log and cant exports.

We are concerned that it may escalate job elimina-
tion with more helicopter logging and will try to
eliminate Baound ews altogether as it perfects its
helicopter grapple system.

We Res ieee ned that MacBlo may high-grade and
Jeave silvicultural slums to future generations.

We don’t know the answers to these and other
issues yet. In terms of health and safety, jobs and the

future forests, the jury on MB’s new strategy will be
out for quite a while.

o/JIMBERWORKER

Official publication of the Industrial,
Wood and Allied Workers of Canada

DAVE HAGGARD. . President

TORN GEREA NEIL MENARD . «Ist Vice-President
ue FRED MIRON . . 2nd Vice-President

DAVID TONES , . 3rd Vice-President

5th Floor, HARVEY ARCAND . . 4th Vice-President

1285 W. Pender Street ‘TERRY SMITH .
Vancouver, B.C.
V6E 4B2

BROADWAY “> PRINTERS LTD.

- Secretary-Treasurer

BEFORE WE REALLY

START FEELING THE

EFFECT OF THE
SINKING LOONEY...

INGRID RICE FOR THE WMBER WORKER

Liberals roll over on environment
and health issues due to NAFTA

During the federal elec-
tion campaign in 1993, Lib-
eral leader and future Cana-
dian Prime Minister Jean
Chretien said he would tear
up the upcoming North
American Free Trade
(NAFTA) agreement if he
thought it would hamper the
country’s ability to protect
the health of its citizens or
do damage to the environ-
ment.

But that was then and this
is now.

In July, over five years
later, the Liberals agreed
that Canada should pay an
American multinational cor-
poration about $20 million
for legal fees that the corpo-
ration spent on suing our
federal government over its
ban of a gasoline additive
suspected in causing both
damage to the health of peo-
ple and the environment.

Ethyl Corporation of Rich-
mond Virginia, had itself,
without any assistance from
the U.S. government, taken
action under the NAFTA to
sue the Canadian govern-
ment for $350 million US
(now about $425 million
CDN) over the Chretien’s
government's effective ban of
the gasoline additive MMT.

Although the government
introduced the Manganese
Based Fuels Additive Act
(Bill C-29) in May of 1995,
which would outlaw the use
of MMT across the country,
Health Canada did not act
to prohibit the use of MMT
(Methylcyclopentadienyl man-
ganese tricarbonyl) despite
mounting evidence that long
term exposure to the gaso-
line additive in airborne par-
ticles would cause damage
to humans.

Years earlier, while in
opposition, Jean Chretien
called the MMT additive “an
insidious neurotoxin that
could have “truly horrific
effects on people in Canada.”

Research done at the Uni-
versity of Quebec in Mon-
treal by Canadian scientist
Donna Mergler, which has
been funded in part by the
U.S. Environmental Protec-

tion Agency, (which itself
banned MMT until it was
forced by a U.S. federal court
to lift the ban in November
of 1995) says the even low
levels of manganese can
cause health effects in chil-
dren and adults. Mergler
said that more research
should be done.

Two years ago Barbara
McElgunn, health liaison
officer of the Learning Dis-
abilities Association of
Canada told the government
that there is scientific con-
cern over the neurotoxic
effects of inhaled man-
ganese.

New research that came
out at the time of the Lib-
eral’s capitulation to the
Ethly Corporation, indicated
that long-term low-level
exposure to manganese can
cause nervous impediments
(memory loss) and tremours
that resemble symptoms of
Parkinson disease.

Research conclusively
shows that miners who have
been subjected to excessive
levels of manganese devel-
oped elevated rates of psy-
chosis and severe neurologi-
cal disorders and disease
causing early death.

The Chretien government
couldn't get its act together
to direct the research needed
on chronic, low level expo-
sure, or to put an outright
ban on the substance for
environmental or health rea-
sons. And the onus was on
the government, not Ethyl
Corporation, to prove that
MMT is a bad substance.

By January of 1996 the
Bill C-29 was dying in the
House of Commons as Lib-
eral Sergio Marchi became
Minister of Environment. A
month later newly appointed
International Trade Minis-
ter Art Eggleton told Marchi
that an MMT ban would not
be in lead with Canada’s
obligations under the World
Trade Organization and
NAFTA.

So the Liberals tried to
stop the import of MMT and
ban the interprovincial sales
of MMT while Ethyl Canada

only had stockpiles of the
poison in Sarnia, Ontario
and Alberta. Seven prov-
inces, lead by politicians
from Alberta and Quebec,
successfully fought the inter-
provincial barriers under a
1994 agreement on inter-
provincial trade.

In April of 1998 Ethyl
launched the NAFTA com-
plaint, claiming that inter-
provincial trade barriers
constitute the “expropria-
tion” of its Sarnia plant.

The multinational corpo-
ration said that the inter-
provincial barriers con-
stituted “a local content
preference that violates
Canada’s NAFTA obliga-'
tions.”

The company charged that
the Canadian government
was damaging its interna-
tional reputation by saying
that-MMT is harmful to the
environment and human
health. Ethly did this all on
its own, under NAFTA.

Chretien, threatened with
the $250 U.S. lawsuit under
NAFTA, soon called for nego-
tiations with Ethly and sent
in Deputy Minister Herb
Gray to cut a deal out of
court.

The results are that
Canada’s pays Ethyl lawyers
and states that MMT is no
harm to the environment or
health. And Ethly can go on
its merry way selling the
octane boosting neurotoxin
and pollutant.

Imagine a federal govern-
ment that lacks the sover-
eign power to. make its own
environmental laws and you
have the Liberals. Imagine
Canadian taxpayers dishing
out money to cover a foreign
corporation’s legal expenses
because their government
has sold out to the multina-
tional interests of NAFTA
and you can begin to under-
stand what has happened.

Imagine eB carell and your
family members affected by
the neurotoxic effects of man-
ganese gasoline additives
and an unhealthier environ-
ment and you may appreci-
ate what the NAFTA can do.

LUMBERWORKER/SEPTEMBER, 1998/5