Whither Our Forests? Part 3

           In last week's space, I expressed strong reservations over the recommendations made in the second report of the Premier's Self-Sufficiency Task Force and about the strong endorsement that the report earned from Mr. Mark Arsenault, President and CEO of the New Brunswick Forest Products Association. I really only had space to articulate my general reservations but promised (threatened?) to be much more specific in this column. And so I shall. In order to do so, though, I must start with a rather lengthy quotation from Mr. Arsenaults' column:      "The Task Force suggested that we increase our yield from the forests by 25 per cent by the year 2026 ... The Report explains how to achieve this goal in part by saying, 'the provincial government should consider reducing the amount of Crown land set aside for conservation to 20 per cent from the current 30 per cent'. The report also prescribes an aggressive investment in silviculture to round out the wood supply initiative.... The forest industry is prepared to show how to achieve these goals without compromising a single environmental value."      I have reread those statements carefully on several occasions because I still cannot completely convince myself that anyone can overlook the blatant contradictions in them. Let me ask anyone of you to reduce your equity or your earnings by a full one-third (from 30% to 20%) and then tell me that you have not compromised your own economic base. How, then, could we do this in the forest "without compromising a single environmental value?" In fact, much of the "best available" science that Mr. Arsenault likes to refer to would argue that 30 per cent of the forest set aside for conservation purposes is barely enough, if that.      The argument that silviculture can supplement or replace existing forests is similarly fallacious. By definition, silviculture requires strict management of species and conditions under which those species will grow. In order to control the habitat for the desired species, large applications of herbicides must be employed. The most desired species in many of these operations are not native trees, or, if they are, they have been genetically altered in to cope with the herbicides and to grow more quickly, for the sole purpose of providing increased fibre supplies for the industry.      Mr. Arsenault also states that we are only harvesting around two percent of the available wood supply each year, and implies that that should be increased. Two percent does seem low, that is, until one asks what will we have left after fifty years? What we will have, if it is allowed to regenerate naturally, will be a forest of fir, aspen and willow. A fifty year old spruce tree is in its middle age; maple, yellow birch, beech and other commercially valuable trees are only just beginning to grow into adult size; and cedar and white pine are still youngsters. Is this the kind of forest that will not "compromise a single environmental value?" If so, Mr. Arsenault and the writers of the Task Force report have very different such values.      I believe that the forestry sector in New Brunswick has a future, but that that future is going to be very different from what it has been in the past. I also believe that we, all of us, have to accept a greater responsibility in making our own values heard. For far too long, we have been passive, complacent, or fearful in the face of industry demands. We have seen what that stance has produced, but we have a chance now to alter that stance. It is our forest, after all - and it will be, regardless of the shape it is in in fifty years.