Environment

of urgency about the problem, he says,
but has also created a certain skepticism
about the effectiveness of regulation by
the kinds of governments currently in
office.

“A lot of people start with a perception
of the environmental problems that are
around them but when they start to look
for solutions, they realize that what
they’re looking at is only a piece of the
problem. That leads them to consider
questions such as: who has the power?
and how do you effect change?” he says.

Many of those same questions have
also been at discussions taking place
within the two-year-old Tin-Wis
Coalition, one of the most important new
developments that has taken place in the
environmental movement in B.C.

Established informally in February,
1988 out of the intensive — and
ultimately successful — campaign to halt
mining exploration in Vancouver Island’s
Strathcona Park, the coalition initially
brought together environmentalists, trade
unionists and Native tribal councils in a
joint campaign to challenge government-
corporate resource policies and to support
Native land claims.

The coalition was later formalized in
February, 1989 at the Nuu-Chah-Nulth
Tribal Council’s Tin-Wis Guest House in
Tofino — from which the coalition drew
its name — and now comprises
representatives from the B.C. Federation
of Labour, the New Democrats, the
Communist Party, several other unions,
religious groups, two Native tribal
councils, as well as Friends of Strathcona,
the Alberni Environmental Coalition and
other environmental groups.

Frank Cox, a founding members of the
coalition when he was an organizer for the
United Fishermen and Allied Workers
Union and now the CP’s representative on
the coalition steering committee, says the
organizations came together originally
because members realized “that they had
to do more than just save a park — they
also had to deal with the need for political
change and to challenge the resource —
policies that had threatened the park in
the first place.”

Bill Green, the fisheries co-ordinator for

the Nuu-Chah-Nulth Tribal Council and

its representative on the coalition, agrees,
adding that all of the groups involved “set
aside their individual issues to work on a
longer-term agenda.”

So far, that agenda is embodied in the
“Tin-Wis Accord” which states:

@ “We commit ourselves to active
support for the recognition by all non-
Native governments, of aboriginal title
and rights; and for the immediate
commencement of governmental and
community processes to negotiate treaties
between Native nations and non-Native
governments. We recognize that these
rights have not been and cannot be
extinguished.

@ “We further commit ourselves to
develop and implement a process of
learning and sharing within and between
Native and non-Native communities and
organizations, with a goal of developing
trust and a shared vision about how we
can justly and sustainably share in this
earth. This includes a process of learning
about the full meanings of terms like
democracy, community, local control and
ownership.

@ “In accordance with the above, we
further commit ourselves to develop and
implement mechanisms for Native people,
trade unionists, environmentalists,
women, youth and others to work
together on a regional basis to resolve
resource development and environmental
issues and conflicts and to further the
process of developing a ‘people’s
alternative’ to the policies of the present
government.”

Later this year, the coalition plans a
major conference on Vancouver Island
which will grapple with the issues of

sustainability, regional economic
development and democratic

control — specifically as it relates to the
Alberni-Clayoquot region.

The coalition also voted recently to
affiliate to the Pro-Canada Network, Cox
notes, citing it as one indication of the
links being established between
environmentally-oriented groups and
those with a broader social program.

Several of those interviewed noted that
the new environmental activism of the
*80s and ’90s has brought together many
who have been active in a variety of
campaigns for social justice as well as
those who have come to see the broader
vision in the course of their work around
the environment.

“T think there is a growing awareness —
and politicization in the environmental
movement — a sense among people that
they need to look at the links between
social justice and the environment. It’s
small but important,” says Cox.

_Catherine Stewart notes that the
discussion at the last board meeting of
Greenpeace was taken up with the same
issue — bringing together issues of social
justice with environmental concerns. “I
think there has always been a sense of
those causes being linked but there is now
a more open acknowledgement that they
have to work together,” she says.

_ The Greenpeace director also notes the
important “One Conference” called for
this October by the Anawim Community
for Peace and Justice which will bring
together representatives from the peace,
social justice and environmental
movements.

Frank Tester, an assistant professor of
social work at the University of B.C. and
sessional lecturer in environmental studies
at York University who has studied the
environmental movement extensively,
agrees “there is some movement in the
direction of a more social approach.”

Greenpeace regional
director Catherine
Stewart (top) at her

office; Kathryn -

Cholette (r) outside the
Green Party's
storefront headquarters
on Commercial Drive
in Vancouver.

He cautions, however, that there is “a
long way to go,” noting that the efforts by
the corporate sector to co-opt
environmental awareness for its own
objectives is bound to have a considerable
influence. And there are also spiritual,
mystical trends within the environmental
movement, including the so-called “deep
ecology,” which weigh against a social
approach, he says.

“I’m hopeful,” he adds, “but there’s a
lot of educational work that has to be
done.”

Not surprisingly, the debate over the
direction of the movement and the
dramatic upsurge in public concern over
environmental issues have both had an
impact on the main political formation
that has emerged from the environmental
movement, the Green Party.

Although still a marginal party
electorally, it has shown some growth in
this province and many within the party
hope that it can become the beneficiary of
recent polls which showed that a
significant percentage of voters would give
their support to a party with a strong
environmental program.

That possibility of an electoral
breakthrough has created new pressures
within the party, says its federal leader
Kathryn Cholette.

Cholette says the party’s makeup is a
“mixed bag,” with some seeing a need to
work with other movements, while others
are pressing for the Greens to “become a
mainstream party by proposing a few
regulations while keeping free enterprise,
and making the party more attractive
politically.” ~

Those pressures are bound to increase
as government and business intensify their
efforts to sell “market solutions” to the
environmental crisis and Cholette admits
to being “really concerned”.

An activist in the Green Party since
1984, she herself sees the need for a more
comprehensive analysis of the
environmental crisis and discussions with
other groups on solutions that take into
account questions such as local
democracy, resource ownership as well as
broader social issues such as feminism.

Because of that, she was part of a
recent initiative launched in the U.S. last
year, called the Left Green Network.
Based in New Hampshire but with

GREEN GREEN GRE
PARTY PARTY PAR

chapters in regions throughout the

U.S. — Cholette is listed as the contact
person in Vancouver — the group issued
an appeal for co-ordinated work among
various movements.

Echoing the language of the 1960s
student movement — from which many
environmentalists come — the appeal
outlines a series of broad principles and
states: ““We want to help the Green
movement realize its potential to
fundamentally change this society into one
that meets just and legitimate human
needs for all citizens in harmony with the
natural world.”

Cholette sees co-operation among
various groups as part of the answer for
environmentalists. “There are a lot of
ideas already current in the left — and the
Greens are beginning to look at them,”
she says.

“I think that’s where the hope
lies — that they can come together.”

If there is an increased momentum
towards that convergence, much of the
movement has come from the left which
has been compelled to re-assess some of
its own views and to put environmental
issues to the top of its agenda.

Kuehn notes that the support among
New Democrats for the NDP Greens’
policies on limiting growth — while still
at variance with the priorities of the
leadership — are an indication of the
marked change in approach.

“A lot of people are recognizing that
the ecological crisis is the central policy
issue of the 90s and it must be
addressed,” he says.

The change has been more fundamental
for the Communist Party which had
traditionally tended to focus on economic
development and centralized planning in
its programs, leaving environmental
concerns in the background.

The extent of the environmental crisis
in the socialist countries, itself the result of
highly centralized ing and
development carried out without regard
for the environment, has also highlighted
the problem, often shockingly.

“We used to focus on technology,
looking to socialist development as the
solution itself to problems of the
environment,” says Cox. “Obviously it
wasn’t right.” 4

Cox notes that many CP members have
long been active in the environmental
movement and have pointed to the need

for new priorities, but the change in
thinking has now become general
throughout the party. “I think our recent
document on the Communist Party and
the New Decade reflects the change,” he
says.

The key point of a new agreement
among various groups is around the issue
of local and regional control of resources
and development.

see CORPORATE page 20

Pacific Tribune, April 30, 1990 « 19

~ ‘TRIBUNE PHOTOS — SEAN GRIFFIN

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