The Martlet

Last stop on the anti-logging tour

March 14, 2007 by Anna Kemp

On March 9, UVic welcomed three indigenous activists from the Grassy Narrows First Nation, who spoke about the damage clear-cutting is wreaking on their traditional lands and lives.

The group stopped in Victoria as part of their “Road to Seattle Tour,” a journey from their territory in northwest Ontario to the Seattle headquarters of logging giant Weyerhaeuser, where they will demand a complete moratorium on logging of their traditional lands.

The tour is being supported by U.S.-based NGO Rainforest Action Network (RAN) and by local environmental and human rights organizations at each stop. Along the way, they also hooked up with big- name punk band Propagandhi and spoke at one of its concerts in Edmonton.

About 40 people attended the March 9 event, which was hosted by UVic’s chapter of Journalists for Human Rights.

The speakers from Grassy Narrows spoke about the effects colonization and industrial development have had on the Grassy Narrows community, including forced relocation, hydroelectric dams that flooded large areas and destroyed many wild rice beds in the 1950s, and mercury poisoning from the pulp and paper industry in the 1970s. Currently, clear-cut logging practices pose the greatest threat, destroying the forests and altering the community’s way of life forever.

The people of Grassy Narrows have sustained themselves by hunting, trapping, fishing and gathering medicine and food, but as the forests disappear, animal species like the pine marten and woodland caribou and important native plant species vanish with them. Extensive use of pesticides is poisoning traditional foods and medicines.

“We can no longer pick medicines that are close to us. We can no longer eat what Mother Earth provides,” said Gloria Kejick, a youth worker and counsellor who teaches traditional knowledge and spirituality.

“It’s not just about clear-cutting; it’s about our rights, our treaty rights,” said Maria Swain, whose family has been involved in the Grassy Narrows logging blockade since the movement began. “Treaties were signed and they’re not being honoured.”

An 1873 treaty guaranteed the rights of the Grassy Narrows First Nation to hunt and fish on their land.

“When our people signed treaties, we agreed to share the land. We never surrendered.”

Warren Ashopenace, a Grassy Narrows youth, talked about the blockade that was begun by the community’s young people on Dec. 3, 2002, and is now the longest standing indigenous logging blockade in Canadian history.

“[The logging company is] like an elephant, and we’re like a little mouse tapping their foot, saying, ‘Hey, what are you doing?’” said Ashopenace. “And you know how elephants are scared of mice. They’re scared of us. They know we have inherent rights.”

All three of the speakers talked about the “reawakening” of culture that is happening because of the blockade. Young people are learning old traditions and language out on the blockade, building strength in their community and a sense of pride in their culture.

“It’s a blessing as well as a curse,” said Ashopenace.

David Sone, a RAN activist who is also part of the tour, said that most dialogue about environmental issues sets up “false conflicts” between the environment and people’s needs or between First Nations’ needs and non-First Nations’ needs. “It is a frame put out by people in power because it serves their interests,” he said. “The real conflict is between the interests of large multinational companies and the interests of ecosystems and the people who depend on them, like loggers and First Nations.”

The group hopes to encourage people to lobby Weyerhaeuser and boycott their products. “Logging in places like Grassy Narrows will stop when it is no longer profitable and starts becoming a liability,” said Sone.

“We’re not doing this for ourselves,” said Swain. “We’re doing it for everybody. Every day we hear about climate change. Mother Earth is dying a slow death.”

For more on the Grassy Narrows campaign and the Road to Seattle Tour, visit www.freegrassy.net.