Sound Off

The forestry battle is on again - though it's so quiet, you can't hear it if you aren't listening closely.

I noticed in last Friday's edition of the Bugle (our local Irving-owned paper) that there was a press release dressed up as an editorial from a JDI spokesman.  The spokesman was accusing David Coon of the Conservation Council of NB of manipulating the amount of wood that was cut from Crown Land last year.

I don't know enough about the documents to weigh in, but the Irving attack dog was clearly trying to put conservationists on the defensive, with the old line that we need to cut as many trees as possible in order to keep people working.  Omitted from this line of reasoning is that NB employs steadily less and less people working ''in the woods" because of large forest-clearing machines favoured by companies such as JDI.

In the same edition of the paper (which isn't online so I can't link to it!), Jean Arnold of the Falls Brook Centre cited government figures that the Province of New Brunswick actually lost money on Crown Lands last year, by compensating companies for wood they were not allowed to cut.  That's right, our largest collective resource actually cost the taxpayers money.

There is a constant conflict over Crown Land in New Brunswick - about which companies get to cut it, and how much, and for what price.  And most of what really goes on is never fully explained - the story is told in cancelled press conferences, recommendations on 'wood supply' and commissions whose reports may never be implemented.

Here is a story from the Telegraph Journal (which this morning was trying to change the channel on the repeated calls for a shale gas moratorium, and instead encourage the peasants of NB to think about the royalties our government will get) about the debate over forestry in Millinocket, Maine. 

People there are debating about whether to take land formerly used for logging and convert it to a national park.  The thinking from the conservation side is that eco-tourism could potentially be a bigger economic boost than continuing to try your luck in the race-to-the-bottom of the global wood industry.