Site C, the Neoliberal Plan B

Gordon Campbell selling Site C, April 2010. Photo Vancouver Sun

Many in British Columbia have noticed the curious coincidence between the ongoing agony of the “run-of-river” private power scheme, and the sudden resurgence of Site C as one of our government’s top priority policy objectives.

That timing is not coincidental, but reveals instead an organic link between private power and Site C - a publicly managed 900 MW dam project to be located on the Peace River. Put simply, Site C is Gordon Campbell’s Plan B in his pursuit of the neoliberal agenda, in the event that the collapse of the private power adventure is confirmed in months to come.

For those opposed to private power in this province, what an extraordinary year 2010 has been! No doubt (and barring any last minute catastrophe) this will go down in our collective memories as our finest hour, our annus mirabilis. Let’s summarize.

January. Plutonic Power announces its decision to put its gigantic Bute Inlet private power project on hold for 12 months. Two months later, in March, it announces that the project is suspended indefinitely. It is probable - although none of it has transpired publicly - that General Electric, the project’s financier, killed the Bute once it realized that the risks involved in this $4bn project had escalated dramatically, both in terms of its disastrous public image and the increasing uncertainty about whether BC would even be allowed to sell its energy to California.

April. The modest-size Tyson Creek private power project is temporarily shut down, two months after going online, due to large amounts of sediments being deposed in the nearby fish-bearing Tzoonie river. The incident has brought the entire environmental assessment process into disrepute, as regional districts have discovered to their dismay that some of the most textbook risks such as - duh - the potential sedimentation impact of a lake delta, have been completely left out of the impact studies.

May. BC’s other private megaproject, Kleana Power’s Klinaklini project in Knight Inlet, is killed by BC Hydro after environment minister Barry Penner publicly voices concerns about the project’s potential environmental impacts. The rumour goes that this project was so disastrous environmentally that the government could simply not afford to support it. I will also argue that at that stage of the game, the BC Liberals had already decided to shift their priorities back to Site C.

September. The California legislature says no - again! - to importing BC’s private energy, in spite of the Campbell government’s herculean lobbying efforts. California’s renewable power bill died of neglect on the senate floor, without even being voted upon. Not that it changed much for Campbell anyways, since the California legislators refused to change that bill’s language to qualify BC’s private power as “green”. And why would they? Their political duty is to protect the state’s fledgling solar energy industry - and its badly needed jobs - from the unfair competition of their northern neighbor’s subsidized private energy.

This year’s amazing developments are coming after another pretty good year, 2009, which saw among other things the West Kootenays rise against the Glacier-Howser private power project, and the BC Utilities Commission deliver a resounding slap in the face to the Campbell government by ruling that its private power scheme was “not in the public’s interest”.

On the face of it, Site C signals that Gordon Campbell has finally received the message from the public loud and clear. You don’t like private power? Well okay, he appears to be saying, let me give you instead a good old-fashioned Bennett-style public project, one that puts BC Hydro back in the driver’s seat, one that even the NDP won’t be able to object to.

Politically, it’s a savvy narrative. But the problem lies in its failure to address two nagging questions:

1. British Columbia does not need the additional power provided by Site C, any more than it needed that provided by Bute Inlet and the Klinaklini. That point was made clear time and again during the anti-private power campaign. Even BC Hydro acknowledged that fact in its 2007 Marbek Report. And if the purpose of producing this surplus energy was to export it, as the Campbell government was finally forced to acknowledge in 2009, that route has now been closed by California’s lawmakers.

Question #1: if we don’t need it and California doesn’t want it, for whom exactly are we producing Site C’s energy?

2. The BC government is actively pursuing a transmission line project which is under-reported in mainstream media and therefore remains mostly under the public radar, the Northwest Transmission Line. This $400 to 600m project consists of a 500-kilometre line from Terrace to Dease Lake. Whoa, hold it there - from Terrace to Dease Lake? What’s up there? A handful of diesel-powered rural and First Nations communities which, by the admission of the BC government itself, will not get linked to the grid after this new transmission line is completed.

Question #2: why are we spending half a billion dollars to build a Transmission Line to Nowhere, one which will fail to get a single community off diesel?

With incredible candor, the Mining Association of British Columbia provides a compelling answer to both aforementioned questions in the form of the following map, appearing in a 2008 report which underscores the benefits of the projected transmission line for the mining industry:

 


The MABC’s report further acknowledges that “demand for power in the northwest is driven largely by the mining sector”, and adds that “the potential economic benefits to the province of constructing the Northwest Transmission Line appear considerable” and are “extremely dependent upon the various mining projects identified in this report”.

And it’s really as simple as that. Site C’s excess energy, paired with this new transmission line, will serve to power private mining ventures in Northern BC. Mines consume enormous amounts of energy, and none of those projects north of Terrace would be economically viable without a very large supply of cheap, publicly subsidized energy. It’s one of the oldest tricks in the neoliberal hat, one being used today all around the world. Large transnational corporations apply their enormous political leverage to obtain from local governments full access to the country’s public resources - both energetic and financial - to the detriment of local populations. It’s a textbook case of the “enclosure of the commons”. 

Campbell’s initial plan was to cater to two of his constituent groups in a single move. (a) Hand BC’s rivers over to the private power industry - the so-called IPPs -, purchase the entirety of the energy produced at outrageously high rates (~$100/MWh) on public funds through exclusive 40-year contracts, and sell that energy back at half the cost (~$50/MWh) on the North American spot market, while (b) catering to the mining industry by providing them with an ample oversupply of cheap energy thanks to the IPP gold rush, and by “investing” provincial and federal taxpayer money in a transmission line which would serve no other purpose in life but to power up those mines. This has nothing to do with sound economics or rational market-driven cost cutting measures. It has everything to do with the looting and pillaging of public resources by an elite class constituted of mutually serving corporate executives and government officials.

Part (a) of Campbell's plan is now falling apart, partly because of the massive public outcry, partly because of the greater economic context of a deepening recession which is now morphing into an outright depression, a situation which exacerbates the likelihood of an energy oversupply in North America, and which has, in turn, triggered California’s lawmakers to deny entry to BC’s private energy. 

And so Campbell is now adapting to the new circumstances and refocusing on part (b) of his plan, the mines. What used to be a sophisticated scheme involving multiple players and several interrelated markets, has now devolved into a coarser and more classical case of good old “third world” appropriation of public wealth by a small group of private players. According to the new Plan B, corporations will now be allowed to make money by purchasing dirt cheap energy from the public, instead of selling it at outrageous rates to the public as was initially envisioned. This shift in the looting strategy reflects the simple fact that, since the 2008 financial meltdown, the energy market has become a buyer's rather than a seller's market.

Frankly, after the promising year 2009 and the glorious year 2010, I am a little worried about 2011. I don’t think that the activist community has fully grasped yet the scope and magnitude of the danger looming ahead, if the BC Liberals are allowed to carry out their plan. If we don’t react rapidly and mount a strong response to this latest phase of the neoliberal assault on our common resources and wealth, 2011 could become a year of major setbacks and great disillusion. Let’s gear up for that next battle.

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Awakening

Greek Communist Party members unfurl banners on the Acropolis. Photo the Daily Telegraph.

The American socialist commentator James Petras recently reflected that the current period of capitalist development is comparable to a barbarian invasion, albeit one taking place from the inside.

Looting and pillaging of economic wealth, raw exploitation of available resources, rapid dismantlement of political institutions, brutal destruction of existing communities and of the social fabric. Those are some of the characteristics common to both the Germanic invasions which overrun the western Roman empire in the fourth and fifth centuries, and the neoliberal revolution which is gripping the world since the 1980s. Some of the defining features of the contemporary barbarian hordes, according to Petras, are:

• The ascendancy of a parasitic financial-speculative elite which has pillaged trillions of dollars from savers, investors, mortgage carriers, consumers and the state.
• Corruption at the top in all aspects of state and business activity – from state procurement to privatization to subsidies for the super-rich – and the establishment of an international network of organized corporate crime. This is particularly manifest in the merger of the corporate and political ruling classes, to the point where it becomes almost impossible to distinguish one from the other.
• The placement of the burden of the pillaging onto the shoulders of wage and salaried workers, pensioners and the self-employed, resulting in long-term, large-scale downward mobility.
• The massive exploitation of labor in post-revolutionary capitalist societies, like China and Vietnam – the contemporary equivalent of fourth-century populations being sold into slavery by their barbarian conquerors.
• In the United States, the surge of a militaristic political elite overseeing a state of permanent warfare and the building of a military economic empire at the expense of the domestic economy and basic social services.

Today – particularly after the 2008 financial crisis and bailout of large banks at the expense of everyone else – the current political and economic system is historically bankrupt. That much is clear to everyone. The only people who are still likely to support this barbarian state of affairs are those who personally benefit from the looting and pillaging.

And that’s why another socialist commentator, Alan Woods, recently asked this troubling question: if all of this is true, why is it that the forces of socialism in general, and Marxism in particular, still remain a tiny minority? As a trained dialectician, Woods provides a simple and rather convincing answer to his own question, which is that collective consciousness always lags behind an objective situation. The people are awakening, but belatedly, to their condition of exploited class, not unlike climate change which occurs several decades after carbon dioxide is released in the atmosphere. In other words, patience.

Another equally convincing response is to say that this is simply a matter of optics. Socialism remains a tiny minority force here at the center of the capitalist Empire – the US, Canada, Western Europe – but those forces of change are in full motion as we speak in other peripheral regions of the world, such as India’s eastern provinces with the Maoist insurgency, Latin America with its Bolivarian revolutions, or, increasingly now, China itself where factory workers and local communities are mounting increasingly effective movements of resistance against naked capitalism.

A friend of mine who describes himself as an orthodox Marxist and lives right here on the Drive in Vancouver (so I guess the forces of change are not that far away after all) offers another explanation. While he does not dismiss at all the other two – he is a strong believer in the rise of collective consciousness and has intimate knowledge of the various revolutionary movements taking place today in developing countries – he sees us (that would be you and me) as the primary obstacle to a more rapid surge of the forces of change in Canada and the industrialized world.

The problem that my friend sees in the North American middle class, including its self-righteous, self-proclaimed forward-thinking “environmentalist” fringe (ouch), is that this class is a primary benefactor of capitalism’s global imperial system. And so, objectively, we have no reason to give up the relative material comfort which we have gained through the barbarian horde’s looting and pillaging of the rest of the world. Sure, the elite class is obscenely richer than you and I, but the two if us are still so much better off than the rest of the world. And so, my friend claims, we are more likely to fight to protect the system than to bring it down. Did I write earlier that the only people still likely to support this barbarian state of affairs are those who personally benefit from the looting and pillaging? Well yes. My friend’s point exactly.

My bad-conscience-of-a-friend sees the middle class as subservient, fickle, unreliable and fundamentally conservative. And to support his claim, he likes to quote a famous passage from Marx and Engels’ Communist Manifesto which I am reproducing here with great reluctance, as it inflicts a painful blow to my self-righteous, self-proclaimed forward-thinking environmentalist ego:

“The lower middle class, the small manufacturer, the shopkeeper, the artisan, the peasant, all these fight against the bourgeoisie, to save from extinction their existence as fractions of the middle class. They are therefore not revolutionary, but conservative. Nay more, they are reactionary, for they try to roll back the wheel of history. If by chance, they are revolutionary, they are only so in view of their impending transfer into the proletariat; they thus defend not their present, but their future interests, they desert their own standpoint to place themselves at that of the proletariat.”

Dialectics is really a wonderful thing. It expresses in the very same instant, in a flash of pure clarity of the mind, both the contradiction and its resolution. My objective condition of being a prime benefactor of the barbarian loot is incompatible with my self-righteous claim of wanting to save the world from the barbarian hordes. I am a fraud to myself and to the people around me. (The contradiction.) But the unstoppable erosion of my relative well-being creates the objective conditions for my awakening. Today, I would rather fight to protect my relatively privileged position. But tomorrow, I will have less to protect, and even less so later on until I can no longer identify myself to the system. (The resolution of the contradiction.) A process which, in the Manifesto, Marx and Engels referred to as the gradual proletarianization of the middle class:

“The lower strata of the middle class — the small tradespeople, shopkeepers, and retired tradesmen generally, the handicraftsmen and peasants — all these sink gradually into the proletariat, partly because their diminutive capital does not suffice for the scale on which Modern Industry is carried on, and is swamped in the competition with the large capitalists, partly because their specialised skill is rendered worthless by new methods of production. Thus the proletariat is recruited from all classes of the population.”

Since my objective sinking into the proletariat and the erosion of my family’s way of life are ineluctable, my subjective task should then be to welcome that change, as a necessary transition towards my positive acting upon the world. Of course, this resolution of mine is perfectly meaningless, self-serving, and slightly laughable as long as it is only considered individually. But as soon as such an awakening to one’s proletarianized condition occurs collectively, at a societal level, then everything changes and the forces in play become truly tectonic. Take Greece for example. If countries were people, Greece would fit exactly in Marx and Engels’ “lower strata of the middle class” categorization: a country which one generation ago managed to extract itself out of poverty and join – at least nominally – the exclusive club of rich countries, courtesy of the European Union. Today, a bankrupt country looking right down into the abyss. No question, I am a Greek.

Last month, the German daily Der Spiegel reported that the austerity measures imposed upon Greece by the financial-speculative elite had backfired big time. Yes, the Greek government has managed the extraordinarily exploit of reducing its budget deficit by 40% in one year. But the social and economic cost of the austerity measures is intolerable, translating in a collapse of the Greek consumer’s purchasing power, a very severe recession in 2010 which was supposed to be the year of the “recovery”, an overnight disappearance of the state’s tax base and therefore future revenue, and an unnatural unemployment rate of 70% in some cities and regions of that country.

Having reported on such a bleak situation, Der Spiegel could only conclude that there is “no way out” in Greece today and that “things are starting to simmer”. Well there is a way out of course, but not within the boundaries of the system under which Der Spiegel and other official media operate – namely a social revolution. It is fitting that the Greeks themselves invented the word barbarism which was used to identify foreign terms used in their language, and which literally means blah-blah. One of the reasons put forward for the 2008 banking collapse was the increasing complexity of the financial instruments used, to the point where only a few people were able to comprehend them. Societies are awakening to the contemporary barbarian hordes and their meaningless financial babble.

I strongly believe that the world’s middle classes will lead the assault (and in this I differ strongly with my Marxist friend) but not until they have undergone their necessary transformation and joined the ranks of the proletariat (so perhaps we agree on this more than we think). The next milestone which will signal that we are closer to a resolution of the contradiction than it appears, is when genuine socialist movements emerge and flourish in marxophobic Canada. Such structured organization will be necessary to avoid social upheaval from venting out aimlessly, or worse, tea-partying itself.  How much longer? Well, I plan to see that happen in my lifetime.

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Stream of Consciousness

My old friend Andrew Teasdale sent me this beautiful story about his ecological restoration work and ensuing struggle with the city of Surrey's bureaucratic red tape.

What was that quote by Mead again? Oh yeah.

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

Keep it up, Andrew.
 

Pandora's Box and the Stream of Consciousness

By Andrew Teasdale

A chance meeting in a Vancouver cafe where I had heard about a house facing a forest found me the very next day wandering down a wooded trail in a faraway nook of Surrey but not in my wildest dreams had I expected to find this.

Suddenly the air was cool and fragrant. The succulent sound of running water could be heard nearby. Looking down a steep slope I stood transfixed: a shimmering little waterfall, the most peculiar one I have ever seen. It came out of a long rectangular concrete box two meters above the ground, the water hitting the mossy rocks below before disappearing into a valley in the distance. Shrouded in green and mist this little sanctuary was of such beauty to me I could have been staring at the goddess of the woods herself.

But there was a grotequeness to this vision. Mangled and rusted iron bars stuck out from the ancient looking moss covered box which had been hastily constructed when a road was built over the ravine in a bygone era. Beside the waterfall was an old fridge half buried in the ground. Rotten mattresses and pieces of foam lay amongst other discarded appliances. Garbage bags overflowed with plastic bottles and tin cans in various stages of decomposition. Old car tires and broken bicycle rims lay still. A burgundy 'GM' foot mat was curled up in the soil. Everywhere was innumerable bits of broken glass, cords, wires and metal shards.

As an avid hiker I knew that I could follow a stream up a hill face and find a waterfall somewhere near the top but never had I seen this. Suspended two meters above the ground this concrete box had created a waterfall not at the top of a mountain but near the bottom.

In some strange trance I stood looking down at the water and somewhere deep inside the deal was sealed: I had to get down to this stream. But of the steep and slippery slope and the sheer volume of trash made this impossible.

And so it was that a few weeks later in the hard rain of Vancouver's winter I found myself scurrying about in what was effectively a big dump with my little shovel making the first few uncertain steps of a earthen staircase down to the stream.

My new neighbor came out and asked, 'What are you doing down there?',

'I am a volunteer for Greenspace Vancouver', I replied somewhat dubiously.

Indeed, there was something almost obscene about digging about in this garbage pit. After all, I was doing this for free and with no permission from the city on whose land I was working.

Not to be deterred by the suspicious looks of passerbys and from my new landlord I plodded along carrying out the biggest pieces of garbage first before setting my sights on whatever else lay half exposed beneath the earth.

Months passed with no discernible progress. Regardless of how much garbage I hauled out from this little valley, there was more underneath. Wire, pieces of clothing, rusted pieces of machinery and sometimes the odd antique bottle or ancient farm tool in the form of a pitch fork or a horse shoe. Further down the stream I found the remains of a party from long ago including an old bottle of Chivas and a magnum of wine lying in the grass with an entire set of the type of kitchenware you'd expect to find in an affluent middle class household. But mostly it was just nasty garbage. The worst offenders were the pieces of broken glass and bits of sharp metal just waiting to make mincemeat of someone's unsuspecting digits.

But I plodded on. Eventually I made it down to mostly sticks and stones and earth.

On one of the few clear nights we'd had I looked out my window and for the first time realized that I could see the Fraser River. The Fraser comes all the way from the Rocky Mountains and is home to five kinds of salmon and the Sturgeon, or 'dinosaur fish', some of which can exceed five metres in length. This mighty river captivated my imagination and I hatched a plan to follow the little stream on my street down to the Fraser's banks and beyond.

First I had to finish my staircase down to the stream. But every time I would cut a stair into the earth the rain would wash away another. It was no easy task. In the woods were logs from trees that had been felled in years past and I used these wedging them into place with rocks hidden in the soil. At the most slippery part of the slope directly beside the stream I spent two months making an entire section of the staircase from rock alone. I somehow managed to lug these rocks, some more than one hundred pounds, by myself and fit them in place. Like icebergs once these behemoths were submerged into the bank it was impossible to judge their true size.

One day when the steps were nearing completion I finally decided to follow this stream down to the Fraser. After walking for a few minutes along the stream I came to a clearing and looked up to see a massive old craggy tree. On its highest branch were two eagles sitting in the sunlight.

Continuing on I came to another clearing with several beautiful pine trees. In the ground beside a different stream was the brick foundation of an old house. I followed the home's original path through this natural wonderland when suddenly I saw something hideous and totally out of place. A giant mound of sand fifty meters across and hundreds of meters in length brought this wondrous sanctuary to an abrupt end just beyond the eagles' tree. The Fraser River Perimeter Road!

Several years earlier I had heard of a plan to put a highway on either side of the Fraser and immediately grasped its implications. Why would anyone build a highway beside the home of the salmon? But to see it here made it all the more diabolical.

Passing over this sand trap I continued over a road where the stream passed through a pipe under the asphalt and out through the other side. It then flowed into a long canal which headed toward the Fraser. I followed it along the canal with my clothes getting caught on the blackberry bushes but it soon went under the fence and onto the property of CN land. From the 'no entry' sign I could see the Fraser not more than fifty meters in the distance! So close yet so far. My route was blocked.

I decided to follow the river along the closest road hoping that further along I could find a way to its banks. For several kilometers I walked in a spooky old area full of junkyards and barking dogs. Eventually I came to an old steel company that had been shut down. Massive coils of wire and other industrial equipment stood silent and rusting in the yard. A row of ancient turbine engines with 'Detroit Steel' on their sides had long ago ceased to run. I kept walking trying to find an entry to the Fraser but had no luck. I came to a pleasant forest but this soon gave way to the Perimeter road and another fence beside the railroad. Amazingly, despite being able to see the Fraser from my window I was unable to get to its banks even with a walk of several kilometers.

My plan to follow our little stream into the wilds of British Columbia had been crushed. Dejected, I turned around and made my way back through the forested area beside the steel plant. In the distance I saw some pink flowers and then a tiny hummingbird. This sighting lifted my spirits. I would content myself with the little stream on our street I told myself.

The highway might be approaching from all sides but I tried not to think about it. Instead I devoted my efforts to making this little waterfall an oasis. The fictional planet of Pandora in Avatar is really here on Earth I realized. Standing among the tall trees and large ferns all around me was a kind of blue green light created by the water and the forest. With my hands in the earth and falling sound of the water I was part of a fantastic world.

Several seasons passed since I first spotted this little treasure beneath the garbage. With my staircase looking more professional my neighbors started to be impressed with the beauty of this little spot. More than a few times I would walk past to see somebody staring down at the water. One night we saw a giant owl spread its wings and fly away from under the waterfall. Lovers started to make their way down the steps to be together in the forest. Another evening a shiny car drove past. It stopped and backed up as I poked around in one the little gardens I had made at the entrance of this green space. Was this another skeptic? coming to taunt me I mused when a lovely woman rolled down her window.

'I just wanted to tell you what beautiful work you do', she said before driving off.

But it wasn't long before I was paid a visit by another woman, this time from the city. After exchanging pleasantries, she came to her point. Looking at the fence which had bent just above where I had cut my trail, she said 'I like your work but it has caused some damage to this fence and we wouldn't want anyone to get hurt. Just so you know, your garden might be affected. It's a shame after all the work you've done', she added somewhat unconvincingly.

I too noticed the bent fence one day and big piece of the slope which had crumbled beneath it and realized it would mean trouble.

Then a couple of months ago, it came to a head when I was visited by a couple of different city workers as I was moving a big log.

'I like what you have done, but we are going to have to destroy it' said the older of the two workers who was wearing thick glasses which hid his eyes.

There was a younger guy with him wearing a glum expression ostensibly in disapproval at what they were being made to do.

Shocked I blurted out 'This was a dump when I moved here with garbage up to here', pointing to my knees.

'Well I am just warning you that we will be pouring 24” rocks in here tomorrow morning At 8 AM'

he told me.

'How far do you plan to go with them?', I asked in a panic.

'As far as they will roll', he answered looking at the beautiful pool of water beneath the waterfall.

The next day the trucks came with the rocks as promised while I was at work. I told my wife to go down to the green space we had built to make the city workers feel as badly as possible. Later my neighbour, a solid looking workingman told me he had also gone down to see what was going on and had told the workers that I had spent almost two years working on the staircase. 'Sometimes it's better to look the other way', he told them.

For whatever reason the green space and the little stream were saved that day. Nobody cared a whit about this little stream when it was a dump, least of all the city on whose land it runs. But since I started my project there has been enormous interest and dozens of workers surveying the area.

One reason for this is undoubtedly a result of the most vile thing I uncovered in this little valley when I was doing my work. Every time there is a heavy rain the whole stream turns into a toxic sludge of foam. It is clear from its volume that some type industry is dumping waste into this little stream which empties into the Fraser. But this terrifying fact had escaped detection until I had built my little path down to the stream.

I took a water sample of the sludge as well as some video and reported the violations to the provincial government. After weeks of calls to hapless officials I finally received a call from the provincial Ministry of the Environment informing me that this was a Department of Fisheries issue. The Department of Fisheries called me and said that it was the Ministry of the Environment's responsibility.

When I asked the person on the line to put that in writing, the line went dead.

Yesterday, two months after I filed my report we had our first big rain in recent memory. Returning home from the city I took a glance down at the little stream only to see it engulfed in foam two feet high.

The previous day I received an e-mail from a city worker in charge of the Surrey Beautification Program. Seeing the poster at our local library offering grants for those who have beautified Surrey's public spaces I made an application thinking our community green space would be the ideal candidate.

Instead the e-mail said that there were erosion issues with my project and so please cease any further work. When the city had threatened to destroy the greenspace because of erosion issues, I worked in the middle of the night to shore up the bank with logs and rocks. There were at present no erosion issues I assured the official and added that I learned from my neighbor that someone up the street who had damaged the fence and caused the erosion issue when he had lost control of his trailer which smashed into the fence bending it and knocking out the earth.

So I am not holding my breath for any awards from the city for my trail down to the stream.

But where there was once ugliness there is now beauty. At least for today.

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No to proposed Federal Pacific Aquaculture regulations

Ed Porter, Team Leader, Regulatory Operations
Fisheries and Oceans Canada
PAR-RPA@dfo-mpo.gc.ca

Dear Mr. Ed Porter:

I am responding to the 60-day public comment opportunity on the proposed Federal Pacific Aquaculture Regulations http://www.gazette.gc.ca/cg-gc/about-sujet-eng.html (left column “Part I Notices and Proposed Regulations” Vol. 144, No. 28, page 1933).

It was brought to my attention by Ms. Alexandra Morton that the purpose of the proposed amendments is to reduce, not increase, the safeguards in place to regulate aquaculture along Canada’s Pacific coast. In particular, the proposed new regulations would provide government with the ability to grant and renew licenses without public or First Nations input nor further environmental assessments. One of the reasons given for this amendment in the Canada Gazette of December 19, 2009 is to enhance our aquaculture industry’s ability to compete on international markets. These draft regulations, I am told, ignore the International (OIE) and the Canadian Food and Health Inspection Agency standards by exempting salmon feedlots from full disease reporting.

This is so wrong on so many levels.

First, at a time when sockeye runs are collapsing (this year’s exceptional and joyfully abundant return notwithstanding), more – not less – regulation is required to ensure that the aquaculture industry does not interfere with the threatened life cycles of our beloved wild salmon.

Second, introducing regulation which is aimed at keeping the public and First Nations out of the decision making process is yet another instance of the neoliberal “privatization of the commons” agenda, resulting in massive transfer of public wealth in the hands of private interests. It is yet another attack against our society’s democratic principles.

Third, the government’s official rationale for introducing such changes (as stated in the Gazette) are extraordinarily and inexplicably short-sighted. What is the point of enhancing Canada’s potential ability to compete on international markets for, say, the next 3 or 4 years, if after that period there is no aquaculture left to compete over? The 2009 sockeye collapse and ongoing Cohen Commission are tangible proof, if needed, that the disappearance of our fisheries has ceased to be a merely theoretical threat.

In this context, such amendments make no sense at all, unless the non-stated goal is to eradicate wild salmon runs altogether as a means of establishing the fish farming industry’s monopoly over the “production” of salmon. An extravagant and outlandish conspiracy theory, no doubt! Yet, it is one which is gaining traction in the general public, as people attempt to rationalize a truly irrational set of decisions on the part of their government in recent years and months. For my part, I refuse at least for now to believe that our government could be involved in such a cynical, abject, and counter-nature plan.

Mr. Porter, I am asking you to help me restore my trust in my government’s truthful intentions. The aforementioned proposed amendments to the existing aquaculture regulations must be rejected.

Yours truly,

Ivan Doumenc

Vancouver, BC

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Fish farms - critical public input required

This urgent call from Alexandra Morton. Please pass on ASAP to your mailing lists.

In Alex's own words:

"I know it is very hard to react to everything that comes at us, so I have tried to make this easy for you. However, I can’t turn this looming disaster, it requires each and everyone of you and your friends and family. Please pass the petition to all you know."

Hello All

The federal government has released their proposed Federal Pacific Aquaculture Regulations with a sixty-day public input period.  These regulations role back the safe-guards we have in British Columbia to prevent heavy industrialization and privatization of the coast at the expense of our communities. Once these regulations pass there will be no further public input on how each salmon feedlot licence is written, how many wild fish they can take and what diseases they must report. The federal licences will be issued without First Nation or other consultation and can be expanded without an environmental assessment.  I feel there has to be enormous response or else we all lose, even the people working in the industry, because no retailer is going to want to be in possession of a seafood product authorized to “Harmfully Alter, Disrupt and Destroy” parts of the North Pacific. Oddly these regulations will not apply to the east coast of Canada, where the Minister of Fisheries resides.

There are several options for you to act by the deadline September 12:

• See my letter below/attached which interprets the proposed regs and provides a direct link to them
• write to Ed Porter who is accepting public input PAR-RPA@dfo-mpo.gc.ca
• Sign the petition http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dElVTFY0d1JqMGRYR2F6Vnp3QjEzRnc6MQ#gid=0
  

You can see my presentation on the strong correlation between disease in salmon feedlots and decline of Fraser sockeye "What's New"
http://www.sfu.ca/cstudies/science/

I know it is very hard to react to everything that comes at us, so I have tried to make this easy for you. However, I can’t turn this looming disaster, it requires each and everyone of you and your friends and family. Please pass the petition to all you know.

To stay up to date please frequent www.salmonaresacred.org I will let you know how many people have signed.  Volunteers are hosting events throughout BC this summer to link all of us together and this information will be posted. The T-shirts left from the migration are on my website www.alexandramorton.ca and proceeds go to this effort.  

The Get Out Migration brought thousands of people together, but government does not want to hear from our communities nor of our need for good health in our environment and our bodies. Clearly there needs to be more public response.  That is all that is required to fix this. I will continue to push for protection for salmon feedlot workers, as this is a government mistake and they need not bear the cost of this to our coast.

I think we will have a good Fraser sockeye run this summer and that should tell us the ocean and the river are still highly capable of feeding this coast!  This generation of sockeye has shown one of the least declines and we need to investigate why this run is good and the others have failed so badly.  If we allow government to let salmon feedlot companies hide their disease outbreaks this investigation will be incomplete.  If there is no salmon feedlot disease problem, there should be no reason for secrecy.

Hundreds of people have said “I am behind you Alex,”  but this is not working. We have to stand shoulder to shoulder, where we are all peacefully and strongly visible. This is the only way to save ourselves and our planet.  



Alexandra Morton



July 28, 2010
 
Ed Porter, Team Leader, Regulatory Operations
Fisheries and Oceans Canada
PAR-RPA@dfo-mpo.gc.ca

Dear Mr. Ed Porter:
 
I am responding to the 60-day public comment opportunity on the proposed Federal Pacific Aquaculture Regulations http://www.gazette.gc.ca/cg-gc/about-sujet-eng.html
(left column “Part I Notices and Proposed Regulations” Vol. 144, No. 28, page 1933).  
 
When BC Supreme Court ruled that the federal government must take over regulation of salmon feedlots, the intent was to bring the industry into compliance with the Constitution of Canada.  But what Stephen Harper’s Conservatives are trying to do instead is remove safeguards established by previous governments and open the door to privatizing the ocean, which is prohibited by the Canadian Constitution.
 
With his document Harper not only licences massive ecological damage, he depreciates the market value of BC feedlot salmon. No reputable retailer can afford to be seen with a seafood product raised under a licence to “harm, alter, disrupt and destroy” the ocean.  The federal licences will be issued without consultation with First Nations.
 
“Increasingly stringent international standards are driving seafood importing nations to require Canada to certify health (disease) status, not just food safety, of live aquatic animals and their products. … Canada cannot meet these standards, and is facing increasing challenges to export market access. Canada is already subject to a lesser market access than the United States, Europe ...“ http://www.gazette.gc.ca/rp-pr/p1/2009/2009-12-19/html/reg1-eng.html
 
Canadian pathologists warn against holding millions of diseased salmon in pens (Traxler et al. 1993) and the graph below demonstrates the reason. There is a strong correlation between salmon feedlot epidemics and the declining Fraser sockeye.  This must be examined, but the provincial government is stonewalling release of salmon feedlot disease records and Harper is stepping in to help.
 
These draft regulations ignore the International (OIE) and the Canadian Food and Health Inspection Agency standards by exempting salmon feedlots from full disease reporting. Harper is not only offering Norwegian companies the right to leave infected salmon in the water, he is protecting them from liability. If government and the industry are willing to throw away premium market value for disease secrecy we are warned this is a dangerous and strong priority.
 
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is also offering these Norwegian companies blanket authorization for “Harmful Alteration, Disruption or Destruction” of fish habitat (Section 35(1) Fisheries Act). This ignores the value of the oceans to communities across British Columbia. Oddly, these rules will not apply to eastern Canada, where the Minister of Fisheries resides.
 
Harper is going to legalize destruction of wild fish that become trapped in the pens, attracted by the bright lights and food in the water. There are no surplus wild fish and so this by-catch will compete with fishing quotas.  Many feedlots are in rock cod conservation areas where fishermen are not allowed, but the feedlots will continue trapping unknown amounts. This is bad management and will affect herring, sable fish, salmon, lingcod and other important wild fish.
 
The federal Conservatives are proposing salmon feedlot licences be granted and amended without environmental assessment.  This violates strong public demand for healthy coastal waters, but neatly resolves the irreconcilable issue of dumping over a ton/day/site of industrial waste into salmon habitat. These are the only feedlots that never have to shovel manure and chemical waste as it flows conveniently into public waters.  
 
It is dangerous to humanity, (risking food security, drug resistance, disease mutation) to allow feedlots to contaminate natural environments with disease. Feedlots remove all the natural disease control mechanisms and thus allow viruses to mutate, multiply and jump to new species.
 
Because Mr. Harper is proposing to remove standards designed to protect the ocean from Norwegian feedlots, retailers like COSTCO will have to decide if their mission statements honor government or their customers. Promising to “Exceed ecological standards required in every community where we do business,” is meaningless if there are no ecological standards.
 
Salmon feedlots are an “ecology of bad ideas,” struggling to control disease with drugs, corrupting the foodchain by using warm-blooded animal products, plants and fish from the southern hemisphere as feed, displacing local businesses, turning a public resource into a corporate commodity with no public access, dyeing their fish pink to resemble salmon. If jobs were the goal, the federal Conservatives and BC Liberals would be working with the BC companies developing sustainable land-based aquaculture to create a viable, world-class product. Instead Mr. Harper is proposing to change the laws of Canada to allow unchecked pollution by a 92% Norwegian-owned industry associated wild salmon declines worldwide. Wild salmon are thriving everywhere this industry does not exist (Alaska, Iceland, western Pacific, areas of BC).
 
These proposed regulations are a signpost. If this was about fish, attention would have been paid to the market value of the product. Instead it risks one of the last naturally producing salmon regions in the world for a depreciating commodity. What these draft regulations do is clear away legislation established to protect Canadians and our coast from industrialization and privatization.
 
Ed Porter, the proposed Federal Pacific Aquaculture Regulations do not protect the interests of Canadians or the world and must not be adopted.
Sincerely,
 
Alexandra Morton
 
 
The Fraser sockeye decline began at the same time government failed to cull millions of IHN virus infected feedlot salmon on the Fraser River migration routes. Government ignored federal scientists who state infected Atlantic salmon should not be permitted in pens (Traxler et al 1993). The federal government also ignored warnings from their scientists that would have saved the North Atlantic cod.  When the cod went extinct the Hibernia Oil wells appeared on the Grand Banks – the most generous food-producing area humanity will ever have was exchanged for oil.

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Avatar Grove - Part 2. Logging? What logging?

Part 1. What's with the name?

Shayn  McAskin at the Avatar Grove. 

Photo Tom Jaugelis.

After we finished inspecting the bizarre red cedar known as the 'knotty tree', most of us assumed that our job at the Avatar Grove was done for the day, and so we started our slow descent back to the logging road.

But Shayn McAskin, the Environmental Technology student of our group, was not moving. Instead, he was focusing his attention uphill. He was looking for something in the dense vegetation. There, he said after a moment, pointing to a grayish patch in the trees about 200 meters above our heads. I’m going to check that cliff to see what it's made of. You guys go ahead, I won't be long. What are you looking for? I asked. Limestone karst, he answered. I shrugged. Did we really need to embark on a nerdy geological expedition so late in the day and in this lousy weather?

Searching for limestone

But then Shayn explained. Limestone karst is potentially critical for our purpose of protecting the Avatar Grove, because logging companies are usually not permitted to clearcut a forest which lies on a limestone bedrock. Limestone reacts to water and so it weathers away very quickly once it's exposed. This can result in catastrophic soil erosion which may prevent the forest from ever growing back. It recently happened near Campbell River in an area called the Tahsish River Valley. After the forest was clearcut 10 years ago, the soil gradually washed away, and last July a wild fire turned the entire zone into a moonscape. That area is wasted, Shayn said, it will take hundreds of years for the forest to reclaim it. He added: I recently checked a geological map which indicates that a limestone karst deposit could be located right under our feet, so I hope we can find evidence of it.

Moonscape caused by limestone erosion, Tahsish River Valley.  

Photo Carol Ramsey, Canwest News Service.

After a few minutes, our little group reached the cliff. It was made of granite, not limestone. But around us, there were several yellowish boulders which Shayn immediately identified as limestone and he proceeded to take pictures of them as evidence. Well that’s cool, you've found the limestone, it's game over for the logging company, eh? I asked in excitement. I wish it were that simple, he said. Yes, there's definitely limestone here but it could have been brought down by the glacier. We'll have to establish that the bedrock itself is made of limestone. We may have to go to the top of that hill, he pointed out with his extended arm, and inspect the cutblock that’s already been harvested up there, maybe the bedrock is exposed enough for us to see the limestone. And so off we went. But the vegetation was getting increasingly dense as we climbed, and time was running out. The forest was resisting our intrusion. After an hour or so of hardcore bushwhacking, we finally spotted a more accessible area that we could use as a pathway to the top of the hill. We noted its location and planned to return in a couple weekends to continue our inspection.

'Local kids just fooling around'

Back in Port Renfrew, we stopped at a local coffee shop to warm ourselves a little. On its wall, there was an anonymous home-made leaflet which stated “Avatar Grove = Ecofraud”. The leaflet claimed that the grove had no environmental value, that many other sections of rainforest in the region were far more worthy of salvation, and that environmentalist Ken Wu (the guy who had initially brought the Avatar Grove into the media spotlight) had done nothing in the past to stop logging in the region. The leaflet then descended into profanity and personal attacks against Wu which I cannot reprint here and called upon local residents to “save your money” by not supporting Wu’s group.

What caught my attention about this pretty incoherent rant on the wall was not so much what was written in it, but rather over it – a hand-written inscription which had probably been added by someone else than its anonymous author and which read: “No Cutting Permit even Applied for, Save Avatar From?” The implication here was that there was no identifiable logging threat against the Avatar Grove and that environmentalists had therefore manufactured a nonexistent crisis. That same opinion was voiced by a local old man who went by the name of Lonesome Dave and was sitting at a table in the coffee shop. Those environmentalists are roaming around looking for causes and they have found one at the Avatar Grove, he commented. But the problem, he added, is that there is absolutely nothing happening here, this is a typical case of a Mouse that Roared.

I told him about the flagging tape which I had seen all over the Grove, and I pointed out that people don’t usually flag an area of old growth forest without a purpose. But Lonesome Dave responded: How do you even know that a logging company did that? The tape may have been placed by hiking enthusiasts opening a new trail, or local kids just fooling around. A few yards of tape don’t prove anything, he concluded.

But the flagging tape that I had seen up there had clearly been placed in a deliberate fashion, so I did not buy old Dave’s 'random act' theory. Later, Shayn explained to me that whoever did that had followed to the letter the guidelines provided by the BC Ministry of Forests, such as axe blazes exactly 10 cm wide by 30 cm long, delimitation of riparian zones, etc. Definitely a professional job, he concluded. Which left me scratching my head over why the locals would be in such denial about a rather self-evident act.

Cutting permit

So, logging or no logging? Back home, I decided to get to the bottom of it and I called the logging company which owns the tree farming license around Port Renfrew. Yes our people recently flagged and surveyed the Avatar Grove, John Pichugin, Manager of Engineering at Teal-Jones, told me. So are you planning to log it? I asked. We are looking at it, but at this point I cannot tell you if we're going to harvest or not, he responded. Have you applied for a cutting permit with the Ministry of Forests? No we have not. Do you know if and when you plan to apply? No I do not. So does it mean that the area is safe for now, say at least until the end of 2010? No I cannot tell you that.

Clearly, I was not getting anywhere with that line of questioning. So I tried something else. Are you aware that there is a possibility of limestone karst deposits in this area? Silence. I almost heard the gulp on the other side. Then after a brief moment, he responded: Personally I am not aware of that, but karst is definitely something that in general we have to take into account in our logging operations. How do you go about performing karst studies? I asked. We have engineers trained to look for karst, it's a very formal process. Have studies begun yet at this specific site? I don't know, I cannot say. Okay then, I asked, is there someone else in your company that would be able to answer that for me?

 Potential limestone karst bedrock at Avatar Grove (in orange). Source: FORREX

At that point, John Pichugin changed his tactic. I need to be careful about the information that I release to the public, he said, so I need to know more about who you are and what are your motivations. After I finished telling him all he cared to know about me, he proceeded to lecture me. We want to engage the public, he said, but we are also running a business. Society has determined that logging needs to take place here. As a society, we all benefit from a high standard of living. Where do we get the tax dollars to pay for our hospital beds? Did you know that 40,000 hectares of old growth forest are protected in the area surrounding our tree farming license? etc.

I swiftly got him back on topic. How do I stay informed about future logging developments at the Avatar Grove? I asked. Well, you can call me, he said. That’s it? Just call you? Do you mean to say that there are no processes in place to keep the public informed? No, was the flat answer. Teal-Jones already went through the Forest Stewardship process in 2006. Back then, the public had an opportunity to voice any concerns. At this stage of the game, we are no longer required to consult with the public. Look, he said, we just follow the legislation here. Perhaps you want to take this up with the government.

So I did. I called Vivian Thomas, the media spokesperson for the BC Ministry of Forests. But before I did that, I took some time to study the documentation posted on the Teal-Jones website regarding the 2006 Forest Stewardship Plan that they signed with the Ministry. And I stumbled upon a map which indicated that, back then, some portions of the Avatar Grove had been marked as “draft old growth forest management areas”.

Old growth forest management areas

Vivian Thomas confirmed to me that cutting permits are granted by the Ministry to the logging company without any input from the public. Essentially, the Forest Stewardship Plan is a blanket agreement for an entire tree farm license, which includes a 60-day public comment period. After that, implementation details take place behind closed doors. In particular, there is no process to keep the public informed about this or that specific cutting permit.

What about old growth forest management areas? I asked. Oh, those areas have been set aside for protection, they cannot be logged, she said. But, I interjected, some sections of the Avatar Grove were marked in the 2006 Forest Stewardship Plan as “draft old growth forest management areas”. How, then, can that particular grove even be considered for logging? “Draft” sometimes means that one area can be subsequently substituted for another, she explained. So for example, for each area that will receive actual protection, you may decide to have 3 or more areas marked as “draft” in the initial Plan, allowing for flexibility when you get to the actual cutting stage. Maybe that’s what’s happening in this specific circumstance, she ventured.

But doesn't that change everything? I asked. It could mean that when people got an opportunity to comment on the Forest Stewardship Plan back in 2006, they did not really know what they were commenting upon. For example, someone may have agreed to the Plan based on the assumption that the Avatar Grove would be untouched. Also, if this is true, then the map gives the false impression that more forest is being protected than there really is. I understand the need for some amount of flexibility, I added. But if an area initially marked as protected is later being considered for logging through a cutting permit application, shouldn't the public be involved in the decision-making process involved in such a sweeping change to the initial Plan?

I’m going to have to get back to you on that one, Vivian responded.

Unanswered questions

Obviously with my two lonesome phone calls and casual research, I've barely scratched the surface in this matter. But already, I have harvested an unexpected amount of rats. Let’s summarize:

• Shayn McAskin has discovered a geological map which uses Ministry of Forests data to locate a potential limestone karst bedrock right under the Avatar Grove. A superficial survey of the area confirmed the presence of limestone rocks. When I addressed that concern with a representative of the logging company, he did not confirm nor deny.
• When asked about the recent flagging at the Avatar Grove, the company representative acknowledged that indeed his company did that, but he did not confirm or deny that the area has indeed been slated for logging.
• Maps provided by the logging company indicate that some sections of the Avatar Grove have been marked as “draft old growth forest management areas”, an appellation which, according to a representative of the Ministry of Forests, provides full protection to those particular sections.
• When asked whether a logging company should be allowed to clearcut a “draft old growth forest management area” without any further public consultation, the Ministry of Forests representative requested a time out, so she could consult with her hierarchy on what response to provide.

Many unanswered questions here! I am no expert, just an average joe doe from the public asking dumb questions to smart people, but my instinct tells me that well organized environmental groups bent on saving this area of old growth forest - and a few others while they're at it - may potentially have some very good cards to play.

Obviously, to be continued.

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Avatar Grove - Part 1. What's with the name?

Avatar Grove, British Columbia. Photo TJ Watt.

One morning this past winter, environmental activist Ken Wu went for a hike in an exceptional tract of old growth forest which he and photographer TJ Watt had recently discovered near Port Renfrew, off the rugged west coast of Vancouver Island. That patch of untouched forest, made of approximately one hundred giant red cedar and douglas fir trees, is deep into logging territory, and so Ken had always known that it was under the theoretical threat of being cut to the ground.

When he arrived on that day, a nasty surprise awaited him. The area was covered in flagging tape and many of the giant trees were marked with pink and blue spray paint. That patch of forest had been thoroughly surveyed by someone. It was a recent job, since only a few weeks back the area was still in its pre-industrial virgin state with no visible signs of human disturbance whatsoever.

When Victoria-based social and environmental activist Zoe Blunt heard about that situation, she activated her group, the Forest Action Network. It was decided to map the area using GPS, investigate who owned the tree farm license for that zone, communicate with local communities and First Nations, and invite volunteers to come and discover this exceptional swath of old growth forest, which Ken and TJ had renamed "Avatar Grove".

When I first heard that name, I cringed. Avatar Grove? A catchy name, no doubt. But what happens when the hysteria around James Cameron's movie recedes? Shouldn't such an exceptional part of our natural heritage stand on its own feet rather than rely on Hollywood's hype du jour? Then, I reasoned that time appears to be running out for this particular patch of old growth forest and so, I guess - whatever works to save it from the feller bunchers. I decided to go and see the Grove for myself, and so I joined one of Zoe Blunt's volunteer expeditions.

As we left the logging road to enter the forest on a recent rainy Sunday, it struck me right away that this place stood out of the ordinary. No trail. We had to use a small creek bed to enter the zone. The first 50 meters were almost vertical, so I had to cling to whatever branches and tree roots were available to hoist myself clumsily into the grove. After a few minutes of being slapped in the face by low-lying branches and swallowing spider webs, I finally managed to reach a somewhat flatter section where I was able to stand up straight. A quick inspection of myself revealed that I was soaked in rainwater from head to toe. This forest didn't waste any time in whipping me into shape, I thought, a little annoyed.

My senses quickly adjusted to my new environment. The grove I was standing in was exceptional indeed. A completely untouched old-growth temperate rainforest. Massive 500 year-old giants surrounded by many smaller trees in various stages of growth, some of them not much older than myself, others starting to pile up the centuries. The light was dimmed by the dense canopy. The rain, which was coming down pretty hard on the road, only reached us here as a light powdery mist. I was immediately intoxicated by the primal smell of the wet forest. The floor was made of an inextricable chaos of fallen trunks, ferns, branches, moss, mushrooms and lichens, with baby hemlocks growing out of the flanks of their dead ancestors and striving to reach the sky some day. It was a delicate balance of the very large and the very small, a diverse society drawing its collective strength from the multiple relations of its various dead and living members - an ecosystem, in a word.

The pink flagging tape which I had been told about was indeed prevalent and stood out like a sore thumb in this world of brown and green. Every 50 meters or so, a new flag or spray of paint emerged out of the vegetation to construct an elaborate network of signals which were gibberish to us, but no doubt perfectly legible to a trained professional eye. Our mood, looking at all this flagging tape, was that of wild game which hear hunters approaching in the distance and sense the imminent danger, but cannot comprehend quite yet what's about to hit them.

 Blue spray on a red cedar, Avatar Grove. Photo TJ Watt.

Our group of eight hikers was here to find a specific tree in the forest, a bizarrely deformed red cedar nicknamed "the knotty tree" which we needed to geolocate using the GPS device that one of us was carrying. That tree, I was told, had grown some enormous lumps around its base - or burls in technical terms - as a result of a non-lethal bacterial infection. Allegedly, this was Canada's largest "burly" tree, and as such it needed to be mapped with precision to increase its future chances of being preserved.

As we looked for our freak-of-a-tree, we rode the forest's three-dimensional maze, climbing over, crawling under, and walking along fallen trunks suspended in mid air. I silently thanked the sky for this rainy day. The forest is no doubt magnificent under good weather, but it fully reveals itself only in the rain. I sat on a fallen tree for a few moments, and suddenly I realized with amazement what I was sitting on. A forest within the forest. On the dead trunk, an army of small fern-like plants were springing from a carpet of lichen and struggling for existence, reproducing in small scale the battle of giants taking place over our heads. Each plant had captured a drop of rain in its bizarrely curled stem, and that drop was shining like a gem with an almost unnatural bright translucid yellow color which I initially mistook for tree sap. Yet as soon as I picked one of those drops with my finger, it immediately lost its color and turned back into what it was - rainwater.

At my feet, another miniature ecosystem was asserting its right to existence. This one was mostly made of delicate two to three-inch long bright orange plants which I couldn't decide whether they looked more like mushrooms or flowers. I thought that if I touched one of them, it would suddenly retract, but I did not dare to try. Hmm. It appears that I am allowing myself to be penetrated by the Avatareness of this place, I noted with embarrassment. While I was lost in the contemplation of this small world at my feet, one of my travel companions passed in front of me. Because of the position of the fallen trees, she had no choice but to walk through the field of orange mushroomy flowers (or were they flowery mushrooms?) in which my mind was so deeply immersed. She tiptoed very carefully through them, and at one point I heard her mutter to the attention of the forest "I am sorry". Sorry for stepping on some flowers? Okay... Obviously, I was not the only one going native at the Avatar Grove.

Then, on a gentle slope, we finally found it: our knotty tree. And what a tree it was. It looked like nothing I had seen before, and like everything at the same time, since one could read all kinds of faces, shapes and objects in its bizarre intricate knots. It was both grotesquely ugly, and absolutely sublime in its beauty. I was bewildered. What to make of it!?

The knotty tree, Avatar Grove. Photo TJ Watt.

Shayn, an Environmental Technology student at Camosun College who was operating the GPS device, went to work to obtain the knotty tree's coordinates. No luck. Only one satellite was above our heads, and the signal was too weak. Too much cloud cover and natural obstacles. We're going to need a stronger GPS unit, he concluded, one that carries a larger antenna. I'll borrow one from my school and bring it along next weekend.

For my part, I didn't worry too much about satellites and geo-coordinates. I was simply enjoying the moment and the place, in the weird company of the knotted tree. What's in a name? I thought. Whatever people decide to attach to it, I guess. This place is so beyond its 'Avatar Grove' name. For one thing, it's real. And so are the forces threatening it. It's a more subtle world, too, than the digital one being projected in our cities' multiplexes. You actually had to work a little, you had to pay attention, before its ineffable beauty would set itself in motion. But if the name helps people relate to the place, if it's actually going to facilitate their entry as external witnesses and allies into its delicate eco-society, well then hell yes, Avatar Grove it is. Because one thing that this place shares in full with its virtual counterpart, is that it is worth fighting for.

Next: Avatar Grove Part 2. Logging? What logging?

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