My Buy Nothing Christmas

By David Nickarz

My feelings around christmas are mixed. I was raised in the Anglican church and was never indoctrinated into the Christian faith. I left the church when I was 17.

In our family, chrismas was about getting together with family and buying copious quantities of gifts. I appreciated the family gathering but the gift side of things was a chore. When I became old enough to start buying gifts I began to feel the anxiety. I was worried about who to buy for. My immediate family was a given. What about cousins, or close friends? How much money did I have to spend?

I certainly didn’t have any money left over after the big day.

It took me a number of years, but I have come to not participate in the commercial aspect of Christmas. I will not buy any gifts and will not accept any. If I do get any then I will donate them to an appropriate charity.

What’s your plan for this Christmas?

Statement from an Elder

The following is a statement from an Elder from the East Side of Lake Winnipeg. The forests on the East Side of Lake Winnipeg are of global importance as they are part of the largest intact region of forest left in the world. Pressures to cut down the trees and build hydro-electric lines are threatening this beautiful forest. - Dave

Eastside Elder Statement:

As an Anishinaabe Elder and a pipe carrier the lands on the Eastside of Lake Winnipeg is sacred. It is the place where - Manidoo Abi - the Creator sits, where we get our teachings, where our ancestors dwell, where we hold our ceremonies, have our sweat lodges, a place where we pick our sacred medicines and where we still hunt, fish, gather wild rice and trap for food.

For those of us who maintain and still practice our traditional ways it is our duty, given to us by the Creator, to respect, honour and protect Mother Earth and all things that give and sustain all life. Simply put, for us this land is part of who we are as a people, as a nation and as a country.

The four scared elements; Air, Water, Earth and Fire are all being heavily impacted globally by our relentless pursuit to wastefully consume natural resources. Yet, we have forgotten where all this natural wealth comes from – Mother Earth. What we do to her we do to ourselves.

I and many others have gathered over the years to smoke our pipes, hold our shaking tent ceremonies and to discuss the fait of the Eastside of Lake Winnipeg and it must be said that Mother Earth does not belong to us, but that we have to care for and maintain the delicate balance of nature for the sake of the well being of our children and of all future generations.

It is our sacred duty as humans to preserve Mother Earth and to honour the intentions of the Creator. For if we respect the gifts given to us by the Creator, these gifts will last forever. But if we disrespect these gifts and if we destroy them then they will end and we will end.

There are many people who have forgotten these teachings and the responsibilities to honour and protect - that which is sacred - Mother Earth. Many have gotten lost on the wrong path - a path that has lead to destruction.

For those of us who are traditional elders, pipe carriers and keepers of our traditional knowledge it is our duty to speak the truth and teach people these responsibilities.

What is needed now more then ever is for humanity to walk the path of reconstruction. We must become more then caretakers of Mother Earth, we must become caregivers - it is time for healing.

Gary Raven

Morning Star - Good Thunder Voice

Tembec’s Green Laundering Corporation Responds

Tembec has paid Smartwood to certify its forestry operations as ‘green’ and ‘well-managed’, and they got every penny’s worth. On October 11, 2007 Tembec was certified under the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) by Smartwood. They held and open house for their 2008-09 logging plans and let everyone know about it.

After spending 17 years as a forest activist, I was naturally skeptical. True to form, Tembec confirmed every fear. Vince Keenan, divisional forester for the Tembec mill in Pine Falls, took me aside and showed me how he was going to cut down half of the lowland Black Spruce on his 9000 square kilometer logging area. Black Spruce is the majority species needed to feed their aging newsprint mill.

After frantically scribbling down my concerns with their plan on several of the ‘questions and concerns’ papers left on the tables, I went home and contacted the company responsible for this green-washing.

Smartwood is a company that is paid to certify logging companies under the FSC principles. I knew I was in for a ride down the techno-babble black hole when Alex Boursier, Regional Manager of Smartwood informed me that he was treating my concerns as a formal complaint under FSC complaints and appeals process.

For those of you who are not familiar with the black hole, it’s when a company wants to obscure and confuse an issue they respond with several pages of technical and double-speak. It’s designed to bore you out of your skull and hopefully you will just go away and let them destroy the planet. FSC and Smartwood has now become another layer of obstacles for conservationists to overcome in their efforts to protect forests.

I made it known that I was not to be treated with a ‘process’ and that I wanted answers to my very real and pressing concerns regarding Tembec’s logging operations.

Smartwood’s five page response was very telling.

Apparently clear cut logging is an acceptable practice for managing the Boreal Forest. Logging in Provincial Parks does not contravene FSC standards—and he backs that up by citing other atypical uses of Manitoba’s parks such as mining and hydro-electric development. I am to assume that FSC supports mining and hydro developments in Manitoba’s Provincial Parks?

Logging is still allowed in the habitat of the endangered Owl Lake Woodland Caribou herd. My questions about herbicide spraying were not answered.

The worst of his response was in about Tembec’s efforts to weaken guidelines that protect wildlife. Tembec has been in contravention of the Wildlife Guidelines several times over the past years. Manitoba Conservation has overlooked several of these violations until citizens started seeing them—and making noise. After that, Tembec started to complain that the guidelines were ‘not clear or flexible’.

One example is the line-of-site across a clear cut must not exceed 400 meters. This already weak rule is to allow for deer to escape from predators out in an open clear cut. The 400 meters allows for a maximum of 200 meters to the nearest cover. Tembec is trying to weaken this rule so that they can cut down more trees and make larger clear cuts. Quoted directly from Mr. Boursier’s e-mail to me,

“Tembec has been discussing with MC the possibility of removing these conditions from the work permit as it will continue to generate non-compliances because of a lack of clarity and flexibility in the work permit condition interpretation and a lack of clarity in how the condition will be enforced. Stakeholder interviews indicated that they believed the line of sight requirement is clear and that Tembec is not following the rules. MC does afford some flexibility over the line of sight and wildlife guideline implementation. Despite the difficulty in the work permit “line of sight” wording, the audit team feels that the concept has merit, and the compliance standard can be made more precise through discussion with MC, Tembec and stakeholder groups. “

Not only does Smartwood take money to certify Tembec under FSC principles, but they are actively supporting Tembec’s efforts to weaken the laws that protect wildlife, and in clear opposition from stakeholders. Logging companies like Tembec have a new ally in their efforts to destroy our forests, and it’s the Forest Stewardship Council.

Mr. Boursier’s response finished with insults to my intelligence. After denying me and others the preconditions for Tembec’s certification, he wrote “We are very proud of the transparency of our process.” He also apologized for not getting back to me within the timeframe of the certification and that they had ignored my concerns from as far back as 2005.

My response to his e-mail was finished within three hours. I really let him have it. If I could have yelled in an e-mail, I would have.

This also brings up a more pressing issue for the conservation movement. Greenpeace, World Wildlife Fund and the Rainforest Action network are a few of the groups that support FSC. They need to pull out of the process altogether. FSC condones the destruction of old growth forests, pesticide use, logging in parks and, now lobbies to weaken existing laws.

I must give credit to the Rainforest Action Network for posting the debate about FSC on their website. They talk about reforming FSC, which I strongly disagree with, but at least they are talking about it.

http://understory.ran.org/2007/10/31/forest-stewardship-council-credibility-on-thin-ice/

I strongly believe that FSC has been completely co-opted by the logging industry. Conservation measures are watered down and made meaningless by qualified language. Conservation groups must now pull out of the FSC process because they are lending legitimacy to this dead effort. There have already been efforts to lobby Greenpeace and Rainforest Action Network to do something to improve FSC. We have already come to the day that we have to lobby large conservation groups to protect forests on a grass-roots level. What a sad day.

Ask a Sea Shepherd Crew Member

Many people ask me what its like to be a Sea Shepherd crew member. I've been on five separate trips with the Sea Shepherds and spent a total of two years on board, so I feel that I have enough experience to speak on the matter.

This is not a very easy question to answer. There are times on the ship when I've desperately wanted to go home and never return. There are also times when there is no place that I'd rather be. And there's everything in between.

The first time you get on board can set the tone for the whole campaign. I hate to say it but if there are too many young people on the crew, then morale is poor. I believe that it's because 19 and 20 year olds don't know themselves enough to handle the stress of being a sailor.

Let me also clear. Much of what we do on board—in port or at sea—is the same things sailors all over the world do. You have to live communally with room mates that you haven't chosen. You have to deal with the ferocity of the ocean on the ocean's terms. Dealing with nature on it's own terms is enough to turn most people off.

During the 2007 Antarctic Whaling campaign we came through a force 11 storm with the Robert Hunter. For all of you land lubbers a force 11 storm means winds at more than 100 kilometers per hour and waves 37 feet high.

Just brushing my teeth was one of the most physically difficult things I've ever done. I had one hand against the wall and both legs spread as much as I could to keep my balance. I was still thrown off my feet.

Dealing with the elements is one thing. Dealing with the closed-in conditions can send people over the edge. The Sea Shepherd ship Farley Mowat is a very small ship. 173 feet long and 33 feet wide sounds large for some of you who've been on smaller boats on inland waters, but it gets real small when you are away from land for more than six weeks.

My first Antarctic campaign was in 2002. We left in December and came back 46 days later in January 2003. Not only was the trip long, we also didn't find the whalers. We spent all that time getting on each other's nerves. There were a few punches thrown, feelings hurt and love made.

Some of my fellow crew members are able to stay with the ship for years at a time. I don't know how they can do it. You see so many people come and go that you become desensitized to new friendships. In 2000, I spent 7 months on board and saw the ship go from Seattle to the Galapagos Islands, Panama to Miami to Europe and the North Sea. I met 80 different crew members.

Please don't ask me all of their names.

If you get into a disagreement with another crew member—maybe you are a bit jealous of someone, or you just don't get along—you need to deal with it, directly. If you let it fester then it will quickly get out of control. In the normal world you can let problems go because you may never see that person again. On a ship you will not only see that person again, but you will be sitting across from them at every meal. You might even be working with them for eight ours every day.

If you disagree with how the ship runs, then you're really screwed. Only the captain decides where the ship goes and what is done when it gets there. Although the captain has the last word on things, the ship is run by small anarchies. Rarely does the official chain of command get followed.

It's easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission. Do-it-yourself is the motto of the crew. This can and does work very well. Sometimes people drop the ball.

More later….

Sea Shepherd Activists Protect Whales in Antarctic Waters

By David Nickarz

I felt a large jolt as the Kaiko Maru collided with our ship, the Robert Hunter. I was almost thrown into the large, spinning propeller shaft while doing my rounds in the deepest part of the engine room of the Robert Hunter. As the ship heaved to port I pulled my way along the railing that protected me from the propeller shaft. I was surprised at this turn of events because only a few minutes earlier Captain Cornelissen had told me that we were not going to ram any whaling ships this year. Only after I came up on deck did I realize that the whaling ship had rammed us in an attempt to get away from the Farley Mowat—the second ship in the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s fleet patrolling the Antarctic waters for Japanese whalers.

We had left Melbourne, Australia 42 days earlier to search for the outlaw whaling fleet. Our goal was to find the whaling fleet and shut it down. The Sea Shepherd’s mission is to sail the oceans to enforce international marine conservation law—not to protest or to document illegal whaling, but to stop it.

“In the last 30 years, we have never actually seen a whale being killed because when we show up the whalers run away,” said Captain Paul Watson at a recent fundraiser in Melbourne.

“No, we aren’t Greenpeace,” is what I’ve had to tell most people who ask about us. Paul Watson was one of the founders of Greenpeace but left to start the Sea Shepherds in the late ‘70s due to a difference of opinion about tactics.

Rather than protest and bear witness like Greenpeace, the Sea Shepherds get physical and sink whaling vessels and ram illegal fishing ships on the high seas. Although they’ve never hurt anyone their actions are at the very edge of non-violence.

Paul Watson has been the captain of the Farley Mowat for almost every campaign the Sea Shepherds have launched over the last 30 years. This year was different because the Sea Shepherds had two large ships on the same campaign—The Farley Mowat skippered by Paul Watson and the new ship the Robert Hunter skippered by Alex Cornelissen. Famous Canadian author Farley Mowat is the International Chair of the organization and the late Robert Hunter was a respected Canadian conservation leader.

This was my fifth mission with the Sea Shepherds. I spent most of my time on the Farley Mowat, sailing to the Antarctic in 2002, to the Galapagos Islands in 2000 to establish protection for the marine park reserve, to the North sea to protect Pilot whales, to the East coast of Canada to stop the Seal Hunt in 2005 and to the Washington coast in 1998 to protect Grey Whales.

I spent all of my time in the engine room of the Farley Mowat but this time I was transferred to the Robert Hunter and was excited at the prospect of learning about a new ship. Although the Robert Hunter was built in 1975, it seemed brand new compared to the Farley Mowat which was launched in the late 1950’s.

The Japanese whaling fleet, wholly owned by the Japanese government, is killing whales in the Antarctic whale sanctuary. The Southern Ocean Sanctuary was established in 1994 by the International Whaling Commission to provide protection to whales from commercial whaling. This year, in addition to their ‘quota’ of Piked Whales, for the first time Japan will be targeting endangered Humpback and Fin whales, which is in contravention of the Convention in Trade in Endangered Species (CITIES).

Japanese authorities say that they are doing scientific whaling—that is, taking DNA samples as well as establishing the age and stomach contents of the whales they kill. The information that they gather in the name of science can easily be obtained by non-lethal methods. The façade of science disappears when they sell the whale meat in markets back home. This is expressly forbidden by the rules of the IWC, and has been condemned by many nations around the world.

Most of the condemnations are not backed up with any real economic sanctions. There is simply no political will to actually stop the whaling by the governments of Australia and New Zealand.

This is where the Sea Shepherds come in. After our collision with the Kaiko Maru we made conservation history—we actually apprehended a whaling ship. The Kaiko Maru had trouble with their engines after the chase and stopped running. With the two Sea Shepherd ships to either side the Kaiko Maru sent out a distress call. Our two ships immediately responded, offering assistance, as is our responsibility under marine law. Not surprisingly, our offers were refused..

Only three days earlier we had come upon the whaling fleet at two am during a beautiful Antarctic sunrise. The crew was very excited after weeks of searching and drudgery of the ship’s routine. We sent out our helicopter to confirm that it was, in fact, the whalers. We began the chase the Nisshin Maru, the factory ship where all the whales are taken to be butchered. If we could disable this ship, then we would shut down the whole fleet.

“We strongly recommend that you return to your nearest port of call,” said Peter Hammarstedt, first officer of the Robert Hunter over the ship’s radio. “This is not a protest action, this is a law enforcement action.”.

Our recently purchased ship was able to keep up with the Nisshin Maru—something the Farley Mowat wasn’t able to do during last year’s hunt.

We quickly caught up with the Nisshin Maru and some of the crew heaved stink bombs and smoke canisters onto their decks. This was done to ruin any whale meat on the deck and to contaminate the deck to stink for future whale butchering.

We drew a thick rope line behind our ship and ran it across the bow of the Nisshin Maru in an attempt to slow the ship down. It was truly a David and Goliath effort as the 1,000 ton Robert Hunter struggled to slow down the 8,000 ton Nisshin Maru. Our goal was to slow it enough to get the slower Farley Mowat close enough to ram it up the slipway and get it stuck there. The pirate whaler would then have to return to port to get it removed. We never got the Farley Mowat close enough to do this, due to its slow speed.

There’s always next year.

Tembec gets green logo in Manitoba

On October 11 2007, Tembec held an Open House seeking input into their 2009 to 2028 twenty year logging plan. Just the day before, the Tembec mill in Pine Falls received its Forest Stewardship Council certification.

The Forest Stewardship Council bills itself as an international organization that brings people together to find solutions which promote responsible stewardship of the world’s forests. It also accredits independent third party organizations who can certify forest managers and forest product producers to FSC standards. Smartwood is one of those third parties that have certified Tembec in Pine Falls. FSC includes conservation groups like Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund.

There have been rumblings in the forest conservation movement about FSC—questions about if it’s really changing the way forestry is done in the world. I’ve been involved in the forest conservation movement for 17 years and have seen way too many clear cuts in my time. I must admit that I was hopeful at the prospect of the FSC being a way out of our current industrial forestry model that is doing so much damage to the boreal forest.

What I saw at the meeting was more of the same. There was no indication of changing the way the plan to clear cut log, make paper or respect protected areas.

Tembec will continue to clear cut as its sole means of tree harvesting. Tembec will still get its wood from protected areas like Nopiming and Duck Mountain provincial parks. Tembec will continue to use pesticides like round-up to suppress the growth of hardwood trees after logging. They will also continue to operate places that are critical habitat to endangered species like Woodland Caribou and rare species like the Green and Mink Frogs.

The only difference between what they are doing now and 10 years ago is that they can display a logo that says their operations are more ‘responsibly managed’.

Over the past several years Tembec has been charged with violating the Wildlife Guidelines. This has resulted in repeated warnings and fines. In 2006 Tembec was fined 10,000 for violated the Wildlife Guidelines for a clear cut in Nopiming Provincial Park. Instead of complying with the law, Tembec is currently lobbying the province to weaken the guidelines.

I spent a lot of my time at the open house with Vince Keenan, Divisional Forester for the Tembec mill in Pine Falls. He eagerly told me about their plans to maintain levels of older forests through their computer modeling.

He told me that Tembec has goals for maintaining older forest types on their licence area (Forest Management Licence 1 is 9000 square kilometers and is located East of the Southern basin of Lake Winnipeg.) One example is lowland Black Spruce forests; the ones with the deep sphagnum moss. Tembec’s goal is to maintain 22% of lowland Black Spruce as old trees—meaning over 100 years in age. That sounds great until you look at the forest inventory map and see that 43% of lowland Black Spruce trees are already classified as old.

That means they plan to cut down half of the old Spruce trees, which happen to be the majority species required to make paper in their Pine Falls mill. For all the conservation-speak of the FSC boreal standards, the forest will be carved up according to what the mill requires.

As far back as 2001, Nicole Freris and Klemens Laschefski were cautious about the environmental aspects of the FSC certification scheme.

“The environmental sector of FSC uses its pressure to progressively tighten the criteria for certification, reducing the volume of wood extracted. However for certified companies to be economically viable production quotas need to be maintained.”1

Pat Popp is a deer hunter and outfitter who’s livelihood is affected by Tembec’s logging. Popp was not impressed by Tembec’s plan.

“We're talking 20 years here. I was hoping to see a commitment to phasing out some of their more destructive practices, like clear cutting and spraying herbicides, but the only thing they seem intent on doing is to keep destroying as much wilderness as possible to feed their mill. How FSC can certify an operation that clear cuts massive areas, use herbicides, and is one of the worst polluters in the province, is beyond me,” said Popp.

A New Authority

The FSC has become a new authority in the forest. I find myself asking questions of the certification company Smartwood as if they are a government agency. I feel the need to lobby them to get my concerns addressed about what is happening in our forests. I was refused a list of preconditions for Tembec’s certification by Alexandre Boursier, a regional manager of the certification company Smartwood.

I am not the first to question the legitimacy of the FSC. Some forest activists now find themselves in the unenviable position of lobbying a large conservation group to protect old growth and primary forests.

In July 2007 the ‘e-activist’ network Ecological Internet had launched a letter-writing campaign aimed at Greenpeace, asking them to withdraw their support for FSC-certified 'ancient forest logging'. The campaign demanded that Greenpeace publish a report on questionable FSC certificates, which is believed to have been under investigation by the green group for many months, but has remained unreleased.

If the FSC meant even a marginal benefit to forests then I could see the need to support the effort. As to the legitimacy of the FSC, in terms of a true effort to protect forests, I assert that it has failed.

1. SEEING THE WOOD FROM THE TREES, By Nicole Freris and Klemens Laschefski. An edited version of this article was published in „The Ecologist“ Vol. 31, No 6, July/August 2001