http://coastwatchsociety.org/default.htm

Coast Watch Society is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organizaton

NEWS REPORTS FROM THE MEDIA

Bellingham Herald- December 22, 2007

DNR likely to approve timber sales

County receives response about potential parkland

County officials doubt the state Department of Natural Resources will agree to delay two timber sales, including one that likely will include timber on land being transferred to the county for a park.

Whatcom County asked the DNR to hold off on two upcoming timber sales in the Lake Whatcom watershed as part of the county and DNR’s negotiations over transferring more than 8,000 acres of DNR-managed land to the county for parkland.

County Parks & Recreation Director Mike McFarlane wasn’t optimistic that DNR would halt a sale scheduled for auction in late January.

“We’re coming in probably at the 11th hour on a timber sale saying, ‘What would it take to stop this?’” McFarlane said.

The White Chanterelle sale includes 1.28 million board feet of timber near Smith Creek, on the east side of the lake. It is likely to include future parkland.

The second sale, Look North, involves cutting about 2 million board feet of timber on land west of Sudden Valley. It’s unclear whether the land in that auction, scheduled for February, will be included in the transferred land, county and state officials said.

McFarlane wrote to Bill Wallace, head of the DNR’s Northwest Region, on Nov. 29 formally asking “if there is some way that these sales could be placed on hold or pulled pending approval of the reconveyance proposal.”

DNR Policy Director Craig Partridge responded in an email Dec. 6, saying that the sales already had been approved by a committee of environmental experts and the state Board of Natural Resources.

“As you suggested in your email, the State has made substantial investments in these timber sales, both in planning and in developing access,” Partridge wrote. The sales aren’t in visually sensitive areas and they would be reforested after cutting, he added.

In an interview Monday, Partridge said he’s waiting to hear back from county officials.

The county had asked about the White Chanterelle sale once before, county Executive Pete Kremen said.

Kremen said he left a voice mail for Wallace in early October asking about delaying White Chanterelle but never got a formal response. That was shortly after watershed resident Fred Miller sent an email on Oct. 1 to Kremen and DNR Baker District Manager Jeff May asking whether it would be possible to delay the sale, Kremen said.

Kremen recently said he doesn’t believe DNR will agree to delay the sales.

“If the sale did go forward, I would certainly still welcome being able to culminate the proposed reconveyance,” Kremen said.

Reach Jared Paben at 715- 2289 or jared.paben@bellinghamherald.com.

Bears Worth More Alive Than Dead
Nicholas Read- Vancouver Sun
Wednesday, June 18, 2003

A report due to be released today says a live grizzly bear is worth twice as much to the B.C. economy as a dead one

According to Crossroads: Economics, Policy and the Future of Grizzly Bears in British Columbia, a report prepared by the Centre for Integral Economics, a non-profit organization that promotes market-based solutions to environmental problems, grizzly viewing is worth $6.1 million annually to the provincial economy, versus $3.3 million from grizzly hunting.

It says a continuing trophy hunt could have a negative impact on over-all revenues generated by grizzlies if a sustained hunt causes populations to decline.

"The revenue analysis suggests it would be wise to proceed cautiously and not to jeopardize the large and potentially sustainable industry growing around eco-tourism and grizzly viewing for the smaller and potentially less sustainable business of grizzly bear sport hunting," say its authors.

It also suggests while halting the hunt would have a significant economic impact on provincial coffers in the short term, that impact would be mitigated over time due to a steady growth in wildlife viewing.

If grizzly viewing was to increase four per cent annually, it says, it would take 20 years to offset the revenue loss caused by an end to hunting. With a growth rate of 9.1 per cent, it would take five years.

The B.C. Wilderness Tourism Association says revenues from wildlife viewing are growing at a rate of 11 per cent a year. There are about 35 wilderness guide operators that incorporate grizzly viewing as part of their tours.

Thus the report concludes: "Our analysis shows that in the long term, it makes more economic sense to shoot grizzly bears with cameras than to shoot them with guns."

Dean Wyatt, owner/operator of Knight Inlet Lodge, the largest grizzly-viewing operation in the province, says he expects his revenues to grow from $1.7 million to $1.8 million this year.

However, he added that continuing the hunt does have an adverse effect on his business, particularly among British clients, his top source of revenue, who can't understand why it's allowed to proceed.

"It's a big black eye," Wyatt said.

B.C. Minister of Water, Land and Air Protection Minister Joyce Murray said her government's decision to continue a trophy hunt was based on science, not economics. She said a panel of six scientists appointed by the government to study B.C. grizzly management practices corroborated government estimates of 13,000 bears in the province.

However, the same panel concluded that current hunt quotas (about 300 bears a year) could result in a 50-per-cent chance of an unacceptable population decline, meaning more than 20 per cent of the population could be lost over 30 years.

Murray added she intends to abide by panel recommendations that the grizzly kill quota be reduced in some areas, and if more people wish to look at grizzlies rather than shoot them, that was the prerogative of the marketplace.

"Customers make the decision about how they want to interact with the wilderness," she said. "My job as minister is to make sure we have good science and are conserving the numbers."

No one from the Guide Outfitters Association of B.C. was available to comment, but Chris Genovali, executive director of the Raincoast Conservation Society, the organization that commissioned the report, said Murray's decision to continue the hunt is based solely on "special-interest politics" not good business.

"It's telling that when you have a government that professes to be so pro-business, it can turn its back on economic evidence like this," Genovali said. "It almost borders on the irrational."

"There really is no ecological, economic or ethical justification to continue to hunt grizzlies for sport. The bottom line for us is that the hunt is not only bad for grizzly bears, it's bad for business."

Reports that calculate the economic worth of a live animal versus a dead one are rare. The B.C. government doesn't do any such calculations, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service only provides ball-park figures for hunting and wildlife viewing.

In 2001, the most recent year for which statistics are available, hunting generated $20 billion US for that country's economy compared with $40 billion generated by wildlife viewing.

It also said while the number of hunters dropped seven per cent between 1996 and 2001, wildlife viewing increased five per cent over the same period.

A study done for the Iceland government on commercial whaling showed while killing whales generates $3 million to $4 million annually, whale watching brings in $8.7 million US.

Zane Parker, one of the grizzly report's authors, said his group's research shows government revenues could be seriously affected if a grizzly hunt is allowed to threaten grizzly populations.

"Over time, if the grizzly population declines, we're going to lose revenue both from the grizzly hunt and from the eco-tourism industry, which has the potential to be a long-term industry," he said.

Also see: Eco Tourists can co exist with Bear Hunt.

Be sure you make a comment in the SOUND OFF section

Friday, July 18, 2003 · Last updated 5:43 p.m. PT

Atlantic salmon found in Thurston County creek

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- Several hundred juvenile Atlantic salmon have been spotted in a Thurston County creek near a commercial hatchery that breeds the nonnative species for fish farms, the state Department of Fish and Wildlife said Friday.

Concerns about Atlantic salmon colonizing Pacific Northwest streams at the expense of native fish have worried biologists and fishing interests as the salmon-farming industry has grown explosively in recent years.

Scatter Creek, a tributary of the Chehalis River, is home to a healthy native coho salmon population.

The Atlantic salmon - some as long as a foot - were spotted during a snorkeling survey of Scatter Creek earlier this week.

"We don't know how long they've been in the creek, frankly," said John Kerwin, the department's head hatchery official.

Juvenile salmon sometimes escape hatcheries through holes in screens as water used to keep the fish alive is discharged into nearby creeks and streams, Kerwin said.

As many as 183 young Atlantic salmon per year have been found in downstream traps in the Chehalis River system, Kerwin said. However, no adult Atlantic salmon have ever been caught attempting to return to the system.

The Scatter Creek hatchery, operated by Cypress Island Inc., Washington's dominant commercial salmon-farming operation, is the only hatchery in the state currently producing Atlantic salmon.

Although state officials don't know for sure where the young fish came from, the hatchery is the logical place to look, Kerwin said.

"We are going to meet with them next week," he said.

State biologists collected 17 of the fish for genetic testing and analysis.

The department and representatives of Cypress Island will work on a plan to remove the foreign fish, prevent future escapes from the hatchery and step up monitoring for hatchery escapees, Kerwin said.

Washington law bans introduction of nonnative fish into the state's waters, but the law is aimed at willful violators, Kerwin said.

Possible removal methods include hand-netting the fish, electroshocking the creek, or constructing a trap that would allow the Atlantic salmon to be removed from the creek as they migrate downstream,

Kurt Beardslee, executive director of Washington Trout, which opposes Atlantic salmon farming, called the news a predictable result of introducing an exotic species.

"This puts at great risk Washington's salmon, Washington's native salmon," Beardslee said. "This one has just come home to roost."

A telephone call to Cypress Island's Anacortes headquarters wasn't immediately returned.

Cypress Island's Scatter Creek hatchery produces up to 3 million juvenile Atlantic salmon a year for transfer to the company's eight net pen sites around Puget Sound, the department said. Those farms in turn produce 11 million to 14 million pounds of salmon each year.

The survey of Scatter Creek was the first in a series funded through a grant from the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission. Additional surveys for nonnative species are planned for 13 other watersheds over the next two years.

---

On the Net:

Department of Fish and Wildlife: http://www.wa.gov/wdfw/do/newreal/jul1803a.htm

Logging Battle Legacy

Clayoquot protests 10 years ago signaled start of dramatic change

August 8, 2003

Ray Smith, Times Colonist /
An RCMP officer confronts a Clayoquot logging protester in August 1993

Richard Watts
Times Colonist

A government wake-up, a corporate shift and a new beginning for environmental activists -- all, to some extent, were the result of some 800 arrests in Clayoquot Sound.

It has been 10 years since reports of a protest movement first filtered out from the southwest coast of Vancouver Island. Thousands of people, most of them young, set up a campground in an old clearcut.

Every morning some of them stood in the paths of trucks carrying loggers into the old-growth forest. Every morning Mounties arrested them for disobeying a court injunction ordering them to step aside

By the end of the summer, 856 people had been charged with contempt of court. Most were convicted, with penalties ranging from fines to jail terms.

Dennis Fitzgerald works for Weyerhaeuser now, but then he was corporate spokesman for forest firm MacMillan Bloedel, main target of the protests. He remembers that summer mostly as a play in which the principal actors never spoke directly to each other.

Fitzgerald said he has a mental picture of himself at the protest site giving interviews. About three metres away stood a protest organizer, also giving interviews. They never talked to each other.

"It was theatre," he said. "It was a media event, but unlike a lot of media events there was nothing going on behind the scenes. It was all out front."

But afterwards, things changed in Clayoquot Sound.

Logging was scaled back to only a fraction of what was previously being done, and new mechanisms for public scrutiny of development plans were enacted.

MacMillan Bloedel undertook a serious self-examination, restructured, and was eventually bought by U.S.-owned Weyerhaeuser.

Now, that company is working in a joint venture with First Nations people in Clayoquot Sound.

Interfor, the other firm still entitled to log in Clayoquot Sound, is not cutting trees right now. Its plans call for the cutting of only 120 hectares a year, a tiny fraction of the sound's 260,000 hectares.

The longtime activists who were behind the protests largely gave up on civil disobedience and took their pressure tactics to the marketplace.

Views vary on how many of these changes can be traced to the Clayoquot arrests.

Monika Winn, a business professor at the University of Victoria, sees Clayoquot Sound as just one occurrence -- albeit a high-profile, international one -- in a series of events that led to a major shift in the corporate culture of MacMillan Bloedel.

In the years following the summer of 1993, MacMillan Bloedel committed itself to a near-complete overhaul. It even included a re-examination of whether clearcut logging, a method vilified around the world as destructive but fiercely defended in B.C., was absolutely necessary.

But these things were happening anyway, said Winn. "I would not say Clayoquot Sound was the one, key button that was pushed."

Rob Dobell, a UVic professor of public administration, can point to a number of initiatives after the Clayoquot protests. It was only afterwards, for example, that governments started to make deals with First Nations in the area.

Aboriginal people had stayed away from protests and arrests that summer. But they had their own aims for a greater share and control of the resources in the area to be embedded in treaties.

After that summer, the provincial government signed a pact with the five First Nations in Clayoquot Sound. The interim agreement allowed some logging to continue without compromising possible future settlements when those First Nations signed treaties.

A body called the Central Region Board, with representatives from First Nations and government, was established to oversee development. A scientific panel was created to ensure logging was done in accordance with stricter guidelines.

While the effectiveness of these actions is unclear, Dobell said, they act as pressure relief, places where people can at least talk. Everyone, from loggers to fishermen to First Nations to citizens-at-large, is demanding a chance to have a say in how forests and other resources are treated.

Dobell stops short of giving full credit to the Clayoquot protesters. They put pressure on government but weren't the sole reason for action, he said.

Even Tzeporah Berman, the woman behind the megaphone who co-ordinated most of the protests, admits to having momentary doubts.

Berman said that in October 1993, the Friends of Clayoquot Sound, Greenpeace and others came together to assess what they had accomplished. They were feeling devastated because logging in Clayoquot Sound continued. If government could ignore such a visible and committed signal of public disapproval, tactics would have to change, the groups decided.

So they took the protest to the marketplace, particularly the U.S. where most forest products were sold. Berman said the campaign has already convinced firms such as Staples and Home Depot to avoid stocking their shelves with products linked with threatened old-growth forests.

"We launched an international movement to protect ancient forests and for the first time ever we connected the logging of ancient forests to the lumber and paper on store shelves," said Berman.

She traces the creation of that movement directly to the summer of 856 arrests. "Ten years later I'm still finding out what Clayoquot Sound accomplished," said Berman.

And Sean Atleo, co-chairman of the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council, an umbrella group whose members include the five First Nations in Clayoquot Sound, also tips his hat to the efforts of the protesters.

Any political success his people have had so far have to be credited to the First Nations leaders and people who came before him, he said. But the Clayoquot Sound protesters certainly put pressure on government.

"They all have to be commended for trying to bring about changes to civil society," said Atleo.

Activists from the 1993 protests will hold a 10-year reunion Saturday in Tofino.

SKAGIT VALLEY HERALD.com - Click here to return to our home page

Voices of the Valley
November 13, 2003

Johnson

By Glen Johnson

Nontraditional farming helps food system

Here we go again, adding to the debate over the legitimacy of "natural" food. What is "natural" food anyway? As a lifetime farmer of both conventional and organic systems, I see neither as "natural." When we were hunter/gatherers, we foraged for food that naturally occurred without the aid of plant and animal domestication. Ever since, we've used our wits to increase efficiencies to help feed ever increasing populations. Now it might seem that these innovations have led to the betterment of people's lives. You know, less people slaving away weeding miles of rows of soybeans as Mr. Blake Hurst alludes to in his article titled "Demand for natural food must be weighed against impact on society" (Skagit Valley Herald, Nov. 9). He claims that farming naturally (organic) requires more land to produce the mass quantities of food needed to supply the populations.

Yet it is apparent that our conventional food system is largely to blame for the health crisis that is financially sinking our society. Obesity is rampant, as is adult diabetes in our youth. The American Medical Association is constantly recommending more fresh fruits and vegetables in our diets as well as the need for more exercise. These things occur much more readily on small organic farms. Our agricultural food systems, be they conventional or organic, leave much to be desired. Our conventional system depends upon outside inputs for every aspect of it. The average piece of food consumed in this country travels nearly 1,500 miles from point of production to consumption. What's so bad about people once again being involved with their food?

Blake alludes to "The concern about food has brought unwanted attention to farmers like me." Our conventional food system with its cheap food agenda is not the panacea our leaders thought. It has led to exactly what Blake says it doesn't. We do have contaminated water and soil and that's nothing compared to the diseases that affect our daily lives. Sadly, Blake strikes out at the froufrou nature of organic agriculture, claiming some sort of pagan agenda. As an organic farmer, I take offense to such claim. I am fully aware of the hard sciences that prevail in our current food system. I fully appreciate the efforts of our land grant universities that strive to aid their constituents. I have used much of their work in tweaking my own organic farm. His claim that organic farms, with their lower production levels, require more land to be put into tillage is just plain false. I voluntarily allocate upwards of 20 percent of my land to wildlife habitat. I and my colleagues in this minuscule movement are committed to quality of life issues. What's so bad about farmers selling direct to their community? Sharing ideas of joys and sorrows over a bunch of fresh produce at the weekly market seems like a good thing. I'm sorry if Blake feels threatened by concern over his farming practices.

I hate to sound antagonistic, but Blake says "If I plant legumes and plow them under to fertilize the next year's corn crop, then I lose a year's production of corn." He's describing the typical corn, soybean rotation that provides annual income and fertility. Organic farms are often able to both build soil fertility and make a living at the same time. There is such a wealth of opportunity in the world of food production it seems Blake is jealous of those who have built a better mousetrap. He's trying to scare people away from something that is the foundation of this country. Our founders wanted this nation to be founded upon the notion that small business would be its backbone. As for me, I prefer to see my customers smiling at me from three feet away. It seems so sad that he'd lash out at a small group of mostly younger folks trying to be entrepreneurial. I understand your frustration, however your angst needs to be pointed in a different direction. Better living through chemistry. Oops, well maybe not. OK, then let's transmigrate genes from one species to another. With attitudes of superiority to our trading partners, is there any reason they'd just take what we say as the truth from on high? There's no wonder we're losing market share to other providers around the world.

There are just too many unanswered questions to make such outlandish claims.

Glen Johnson farms 20 acres in the Skagit Valley. His email is johnson@ncia.com

Coast Watch Society is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization

Coast Watch Society
P.O. Box 267 Bow, WA 98273
Email Coast Watch Society