The Canadian Embassy in Bonn is preparing to counter recent
reports on TV and in the press in Germany critical of Canadian
logging practices.
``We're concerned about short-sighted, unfair or indiscriminate
attacks,'' said spokesman Roman Lishchynski. Lishchynski says
there is no evidence of a campaign by German environmentalists to
boycott Canadian pulp and paper products.
But a German documentary that was shown on prime-time TV last
month rekindled memories of a European attack on the seal hunt,
which devastated the East Coast fur industry.
The film, called A Paradise Despoiled and produced by
Westdeutsche Rundfunk, told TV viewers that British Columbia
lumberjacks clear cut a region the size of Germany's prized Black
Forest every year.
The film opens with a confrontation between police and Indians
who are blocking a logging road in British Columbia, a province
described as one of the last rain forest regions in the world.
``There are three things space shuttle Challenger astronauts
could recognize on earth with their bare eyes,'' says the film's
narrator. ``The Great Wall of China, the burning of the Amazon
rainforests, and the bald spot on Canada's West Coast.''
In the film, noted environmentalist David Suzuki calls it
``simply obscene'' to plant two seedlings for every 400-year-old
tree cut down.
``What you see here before you is the same as Brazil,'' said
Suzuki.
The destruction of fishing grounds at Howe Sound off British
Columbia from chemical pollution and even the Oka dispute are
mentioned. The film ends by saying similar environmental damage
is caused by logging in Ontario and Quebec.
``They threw everything in but the kitchen sink,'' Lishchynski
said.
He now is assembling a package on Canada's environmental record
on issues such as acid rain and corporate efforts to develop
environmentally sound logging technologies.
The German TV broadcast was followed by a special magazine
edition put out by Greenpeace Germany to draw attention to
international lumber industry practices.
Also in March, the influential weekly paper Die Zeit published
an expose on forestry.
Germany, which has strict regulations about clear cutting,
imports about 80 per cent of its pulp and paper supply.
Lishchynski says that Canada is not the only target. A
similar television film was broadcast about Lapland and Norway.
And the other Scandinavian countries have figured in news
articles. But there is no sign of an attempt to organize a
boycott of Canadian products.
``I have heard of no such thing,'' said Arno Maximine, a
forestry specialist with the Berlin branch of the Green party.
Other environmentalists contacted in Germany agreed.
Earlier this week in Ottawa, Forestry Minister Frank Oberle
said Canadian environmentalists are smearing the image of
Canadian forestry and promoting an international boycott of the
country's forest products.
He said Ottawa is planning a campaign to fend off the feared
boycott.
Oberle referred to the German TV report, but did not mention
any country that was boycotting Canadian forest products.
Canadian environmentalist deny they are seeking to stop sales
of Canadian forest products abroad. They say they are trying to
attact international attention to Canadian forestry practices.
*************
Vancouver Sun Sat 13 Apr 91 JUDY LINDSAY
Boycotts are environmental terrorism ---
CANADIAN environmental activists who ally themselves with the
lumber boycott movement in Europe need their heads examined.
Aiding and abetting the European extremists is going too far.
Saying, as the Sierra Club's Vicky Husband does, that they don't
favor boycotts and they only provide information to would-be
boycotters doesn't get them off the hook.
Don't dismiss the boycott idea as just a passing fancy of the
extremists. It is worming its way into mainstream activism, as a
press release last month from the Western Canada Wilderness
Committee indicates.
WCWC reported one of its members, Mark Wareing, was attending
United Nations environment committee meetings in Europe to
discuss, among other things, a European call for a ban on
softwood lumber from Canadian old-growth forests.
What do British Columbians think of their fellow citizens who
would support a boycott? IWA-Canada president Jack Munro probably
spoke for many when he called boycott supporters treasonous.
Well, a boycott is a form of environmental terrorism.
Their mastery of public relations and the merit of their
arguments have won environmental groups broad public support, but
cosying up to the boycotters has the look of a PR disaster.
It looks especially bad now that the Sierra Club, WCWC and
others are beginning to have an influence on forest management.
Why give the companies, contractors and policy makers a reason to
tune out just when progress is being made?
Environmentalists should also be choosier about their
bedfellows. Europe has its own blights, including
catastrophically polluted air and water in some areas.
Europe's vulnerability is one reason a boycott is unlikely to
come about.
Michael Heit, senior adviser on resources to the provincial
ministry of forests, assesses the probability of a European
boycott as "very low."
For example, it is technically difficult to boycott a commodity
like lumber. Commodities tend to get mingled, so it's not easy to
distinguish among them. Not many owners know where the
two-by-fours in their house came from, Heit observes.
Language and economic differences would also handicap a European
boycott.
The unintended consequences of boycotts won't bother the
rabble-rousers, but cooler heads need to consider them. Demand
for lumber is such that, if Europeans aren't buying it from B.C.,
they'll turn to other suppliers - possibly countries whose forest
management practices trail Canada's.
Vivid scenes of B.C. clear-cuts shown on German television
recently inflamed attitudes towards Canada's forestry industry,
but the video contained errors, according to Heit.
For example: A shot of heavy equipment ripping stumps out of the
ground was not clear-cutting, as the video indicated, but either
the widening of the Malahat Highway on Vancouver Island, or land
being prepared for a housing development, Heit says.
The video reported B.C.'s harvest increased in 1989 and '90, but
it actually went down. According to the Germans, acid rain is a
serious problem in B.C., but in fact it is so low as not to be an
issue here.
The current slander about B.C. forest destruction being on a par
with Brazil's Amazon basin also made its way into the video. In
other words, the producers put a spin on the material. Without
the spin, the extremists could not arouse support for a boycott.
Current practices do not justify it.
If Canadian environmentalists weren't so convinced of the
perfection of their agenda, they would recognize the progress
that is being made and stop helping the terrorists.