of local communities in the management of natural resources in the Temagami
area.” (MNR 1) Many protected areas within Temagami were proposed however,
dispite making many protective recommendations, eventually it became clear that
the CPC did not intend to recommend any sort of substantial protection.
This brings the issue to where it stands today. “Red Squirrel Road” has
been replaced with “Owain Lake” but from a legal perspective the concerns are
the same. The provincial government appears to be even less environmentally
friendly than the CPC. In fact, according to Northwatch, an independant
environmental group, “seventeen of the thirty-nine recommendations of the CPC
were not accepted beyond an amiguous ‘agreement in principal’ (ie. not in
practice).” [see appendix] (NWNEWS) The Ministry, however, boasts that they
have “increased environmental protection in the Temagami area, protected old-
growth red and white pine and resolved long-standing land use issues.” (MNR)
The debate, which will be discussed in the next section, remains relatively the
same, with a few twists. Industrialists still battle for the right to carry on
with their jobs while environmentalists and Anishnaibi fight to protect the
diverse wilderness. In order that a better background of the debate be
presented, the concerns of each must be presented individually; only then can
the actual legal conflict be truly appreciated. Part Three: The Temagami Debate
“If Greenpeace devoted all the energy to northern forests as it did to tropical
forests, we’d be in trouble”
— Tony Shebbeare, director of the Brussels
office of the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association
The Forester
Almost fifteen percent of Canadians were employed directly in the
forestry industry in 1989; (C.E.) since then, little has changed. This type of
fact is the basis for what is, and always has been the industrialist response to
environmentalist concerns; you can’t criticise industry because it creates jobs.
And clearly most people accept it, especially today as jobs are becoming more
and more scarce. The forest industry has arisen, as was stated earlier, from an
attitude of exploitation fostered by greed, expansion, and industrialization.
Since early europeans first came to Canada, logging trees has been second nature,
a part of the conquering of the country. Only today is there any apparant
feeling of conservation; people are perhaps admitting, if somewhat reluctantly,
that such practice as clear cutting might be wrong. However, though foresters
may be beginning to reconcile a small amount of what has been long ingrained
into the industry, the mentality remains today that industry cannot be impeded
no matter the cost, as long as jobs are at stake. Basically, forestry today is
just like any other industry; a means of raping wilderness such as Temagami in
order to make a quick buck. Can they be blamed for wanting to earn a living?
In the Temagami case, the MNR has been responsible for most of the
logging facilities already set up in Temagami, however, according to the
Wildlands League, a Toronto-based environmental organization, they have largely
withdrawn from the area and will probably seek to hand management over to a
large forest company. (WILDLANDS) As of yet, no such company has stepped
forward, however several small companies have begun logging already. What these
companies, along with the MNR, want, is the ability to conduct their industry as
it has always been conducted; the adage “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it” seems
to apply perfectly to them as they vehemently deny myths like global warming and
animal extinction. They feel that the concessions allowed by the MNR in this
case are more than fair, and there is the suspiscion that environmentalists wont
be happy until all forestry activity has been eliminated.
The Environmentalist
The environmentalists do not have the same long-standing base that
foresters do. The environmentalist movement itself is a recent thing, beginning
in the 1960s and 70s with the Green Revolution. Since that time, such
individuals and groups have sprung up all around the globe; in the beginning no
more than a minor annoyance to industrialists, farmers and average citizens, yet
eventually becoming a major factor to be considered by industrialists whenever
they attempt anything affecting the environment in any way. Today,
environmental concerns are bringing many people to believe that resources are
not as ‘unlimited’ as everyone has believed for so long and the industrial
movement is finding it more and more difficult to accomplish the same goals they
would have easily accomplished as recently as ten years ago. In response to the
Temagami issue, four prominent environmental groups have risen to to stand
against the industrialists. They are the Wildlands League – headed by Tim Gray
in Toronto, Northwatch – the Northeastern Ontario environmental coalition,
Temagami Lakes Association – a powerful cottage owners organization, and
Friends of Temagami – a coalition created for the specific purpose of fighting
against Temagami loggers and miners. What they want, as outlined in the
Wildlands League’s Future of Temagami Plan, is a Wildland Reserve established to
protect important watershed areas, as well as several other sites of ecological
value, amd the Red Squrrel as well as two other roads permenently closed where
they enter the Reserve. (TEM. 3) They feel that these measures are the only way
to preserve the ecological diversity found in the Temagami wilderness; their
feeling is that the MNR and the forestry industry simply do not care about
ecological stability.
From a legal perspective, there is much to discuss in the Temagami case.
Some laws have already been hinted at but little has been said yet about
specific legal issues. There are three different aspects of the law which are
brought into play in this issue; the purely criminal aspect of civil
disobedience, the environmental laws and regulations (or lack thereof), and the
ever pressing conflit between positive and natural law. These will all be dealt
with individually in the next section, then weighed together to come up with
some definite conclusions.
Part Four: The Law of the Land
“What gives us the right to take the law into our own hands? The answer is
simple. Our birthright as natural creatures, citizens of the earth, gives us
the right to uphold and defend the laws of nature.” —Watson (TALOS 23)
Civil Disobedience
According to Abbie Hoffman, “the best way to get heard is to get
arrested, and the more times the better.” Deemed troublemakers by some and
revolutionary by others, the Red Squirrel Road and Owain Lake protesters did
just that. Scores of people; sitting in the dead center of the road and
refusing to move regardless of threats or coersions, destroying bulldozers or
chaining themselves to them, sitting on platforms high atop the trees, hammering
metal stakes into various trees to destroy chainsaws; and calling it all civil
disobedience. The end result? Many arrests were made, yet few were ever
charged for the acts of mischief (mischief being the most likely charge) – most
were held for a night or even dropped off in North Bay; those who actually
caused damage were never caught or pursued. The government was forced to pay
three million dollars for security measures or damages caused by the protesters
in the Red Squirrel Road building alone, and the builders lost a great deal of
time and money.
The legal battle over the civil disobedience is of two views. Some
people view the acts as a waste of time and tax payers money, holding the belief
that if there is a legal way to protest, it should be used rather than
resorting to illegal practices. Clearly, such reasoning is sound; there are
many legal methods of protesting and governments always hold the policy of being
more willing to listen to the legal protesters than lawbreaking troublemakers.
Knowing such, some might wonder as to the reasoning behind such a clearly
premeditaited group crime.
The answers are varied however, looking at the effects of the
disobedience, one comes to mind. Media. Those of the second view towards civil
disobedience see it as a means of voicing their concerns to the public
effectively and quickly. The fact that their actions are illegal serves only to
attract media attention. To them it is a last ditch effort at raising public
concern and perhaps forcing the government into action. To a large extent they
have succeeded; the only times Temagami has really come up in headline news were
during the two large-scale protests. The environmentalists also believe that,
as a justification to the laws that are being broken, natural law must prevail
over positive law; such will be dealt with later. First, the issue of
environmental law must be dealt with.
Government Legislation / Wildlands League Lawsuit
Environmental legislation is one of the big issues under contention.
Environmentalists say that under current legislation the old growth forest
cannot sustain itself, provided that loggers take full advantage of the lack of
any real legislation. The industrialists, backed by the government, believe
that they are just trying to do their job and that the current legislation is
strict enough, protecting over fifty per cent of the remaining old growth pines.
The actually protected areas fall under the Ontario Provincial Park Planning and
Management Policies but what is under contention today is the Crown Forest
Sustainability Act. This past September, the Wildlands League and Friends of
Temagami, represented by the Sierra Club Legal Defence Fund, filed a law suit
against the government under the CFSA, claiming that the MNR had “failed to
ensure that logging will protect wildlife, ecosystems or the public
interest”.(SIERRA) This lawsuit is in itself a landmark, being the first attack
on Ontario forestry from a legal point of view. As simply stated by Tim Gray of
the Wildlands League, “we are seeking to have the Ontario Court order the
Minister to obey the law . . . we had to act now to draw the public’s attention
to the MNR’s plans to rid themsleves of even these minimal laws to protect the
public interest.” (TEM. UPDATE) As such, the earilier government’s weak
legislation has become an unlikely hero in the eyes of the environmentalists.
The two groups sought an injuction forcing a ’stay’ of the logging in the Owain
Lake forest area until the case was completed; their feeling was that “we will
lose the forest by the time our case is heard.” (TEM. UPDATE) After three days
of testimony and four days of deliberation by an Ontario Divisional Court judge,
the request was denied. However, the case will proceed to full trial this
winter and the outlook is optimistic for the environmentalists. If the case
succeeds, the industrialists will be forced to cease all activity in the area
until the MNR develops the neccessary environmental guidlines.
There are few other pieces of legislation corresponding with forestry
conservation – it is mainly left up to the individual regional MNR to establish
guidlines as regarding their area. The Environmental Assessment Act requires
that an assessment be carried out prior to allowing logging of an area, but the
Environmental Protection Act does not even mention forestry. That there is no
real forestry or even habitat protection in any current Canadian legislation is
perhaps an indication that governments still don’t realize the full consequences
of our present practices. That thought brings up the issue of whether such dire
circumstances as environmentalists see us to be in – and with no legislation to
back their claims up – warrant the breaking of laws set down by governments – in
order to enforce those made by nature.
Natural vs. Positive Law
Early philosophers believed that those laws created by humans (positive
laws) should stem from and reflect those created by nature (natural laws).
Cicero is credited as saying that “civil or human laws should be set aside or
disobeyed if, in the minds of ‘wise and intelligent men,’ the laws were deemed
in conflict with those of nature.” (TALOS 17) In some ways however, along the
way, humanity has failed to see the connection or it being severed.
Environmental resources have always caused some controversy in this regard;
human greed sometimes has an insidious way of overriding care for nature.
People are unwilling to compromise their ability to make money, even though it
might mean that nature is severly damaged in the process. The desire to make
money cannot, in itself, however, be seen as greed; in that respect we must
aknowledge that loggers are not to blame for distruction they wreak. It is the
law makers themselves who are perpetuating the constant rate of natural
destruction both through inaction and harmful action. The question then arises;
are environmentalists justified in disobeying positive law In order to bring
about what they see as disobedience to higher law?
The question brought up in this case is highly disturbing; clearly, the
activists acted in disobedience to the law as defined by our government. Yet,
just as clearly, there was a cause for their actions – to save ancient forests
and the ecological diversity they hold from annihilation and replacement by tree
farm. The question in the case is highly sim