I think this is an important aspect of #bcekxn2024 #bcpoli

[email protected] :mstdnca:

@chris This has long been a divide in BC. And esp as rural resource players (workers as well as business owners) saw largely urban environmentalist movement threatening “their” backyard & God-given (or Crown-given) rights to make a living. IWA had some social conscience & engaged w enviros to some ltd extent during/after the “war in the woods.” That war history needs to be written. It may help us get past the urban/rural divide (which Cons will exploit)
#bcpoli #bcelxn2024

Ms. Que Banh

@hanspetermeyer @chris I don't know how to deprogram industry folks who believe environmentalists are the reason they are out of jobs when it's the piss poor BC forestry policies & capitalist greed that are the cause. People like me have fought for forestry reform for decades so folks can have sustainable jobs without feeling they need to be a part of large scale ecocide to earn an honest living. It's the swinging door BC governments that has repeatedly failed to change their outdated policies to truly help workers transition to more sustainable & ethically responsible work.

Theresa

@hanspetermeyer @chris both Kootenay ridings went NDP, we are rural and resource based. I think lots of progressive folks live in rural areas...and lots of conservative voters live in Metro Vancouver according to my map. I think this rural/urban divide myth stopped mattering a while back.

[email protected] :mstdnca:

@chris @PhoenixSerenity Thanks for your efforts. I really do think it has a lot to do with a rural get-away-from-complexity impulse. Many of us are here in small towns & rural areas b/c we want life simplified. And generally it is. The rethink required from “resource extraction” to “rural stewardship” is NOT about simplifying-at least in the short term. And it costs. 1/2

[email protected] :mstdnca:

@PhoenixSerenity @chris And rural businesses & families are paying the (short term) cost. A real rural strategy will be a long-term thing. Who can afford that? Not small businesses. Not families. Not rural & small town local govts. Not provincial govts on a 3-5 year election cycle. And the sowers of discontent (fascists & fellow-travellers) reap the whirlwind (and esp their funders & cronies). 2/2

#bcpoli #bcelxn2024 #forestry #rural #smalltowns #community

Ms. Que Banh

@hanspetermeyer @chris The provincial government has had many opportunities to help workers dependent on resource extraction industries & they have chosen not to. There's still billions going to corporate welfare for industry screw ups & that's money that could be spent on helping workers move to sustainable jobs. The biggest problem is lack of political will to make any progressive changes & both swinging door governments have that in common.

Janis La Couvée

@chris oh so true - once every last tree is cut, those companies will move on to "greener" pastures in countries with fewer environmental protections. They talk about "fibre supply" as if it didn't mean that the trees they are cutting are getting smaller and smaller. They will never again have the volumes of the 50s 60s 70s

[email protected] :mstdnca:

@chris @PhoenixSerenity Political will, yes. Political opportunity? Not so much. Recall the Harcourt NDP govt of the 90s, to my mind the most visionary &pragmatic of recent BC govts. Big steps forward in forestry policy/ practices. This may have precipitated the “war in the woods,” or maybe led the way to post-war pragmatism? Govt leadership: rarely appreciated except in crisis or hindsight. Timing is everything. In the meantime…
##bcpoli #bcelxn2024 #forestry

Ms. Que Banh

@hanspetermeyer @chris I remember it well - I was part of that blockade. It was my first.
I also remember when BC Liberals changed BC Forestry policies & we are still stuck with those shit clauses with cutblocks/TFL. Horgan never tried to change them when he had majority powers & it's because he's an ecocidal profiteer.
There has been no political will exercised since I became eligible to vote, decades ago - except when it benefits corporate lobbyists & politicians who take lobbyist monies instead of actually serving citizens.

[email protected] :mstdnca:

@chris @PhoenixSerenity Thank you for that.
But I can tell you, as a logger from late 1970s, a treeplanter from 1990s, a researcher/writer/photographer of the forest industry in the 2000s, the BC Liberals didn’t undo all the good work you & your fellow travellers inspired. Much has changed for the better & coastal communities (& forests) are better for it.
As for Horgan, I’m no fan. Now we press Eby (w Green leverage) to make BC better.

#bcpoli #bcelxn2024

Chris Alemany🇺🇦🇨🇦🇪🇸

@hanspetermeyer @PhoenixSerenity it gives me hope that there are resource folks (alot!) that get it.

Ms. Que Banh

@hanspetermeyer @chris I hope Eby will do better. I'm not holding my breath.

Ms. Que Banh

@chris @hanspetermeyer Most resource extraction folks I've talked to really want progressive changes to happen but don't feel supported. That needs to change if we are to move forward & not keep spinning same wheels in same ruts.

Chris Alemany🇺🇦🇨🇦🇪🇸

@PhoenixSerenity @hanspetermeyer agreed

[email protected] :mstdnca:

@lacouvee @chris I don’t know how volumes of fibre compare, but there are 100s more stems per acre in today’s industrial forest than there were in the natural forests of 50 or 100 years ago (or today, we’re still cutting old growth stands).
Industry loves standardization. Many small trees are easier & cheaper to process. It really is “fibre industry” today. Not a “forest industry.” BC, and especially VI, grows fibre - fast.
1/2

#bcpoli #forestry

[email protected] :mstdnca:

@lacouvee @chris
Forest industry or fibre industry?
Does that matter to a contract logger who’s trying to feed his monthly payments on equipment, before he even gets to feed his family? Hardly.
Does it matter to those of us who value qualities beyond fibre? Absolutely. I know many loggers who love the natural forests they once worked in or heard about working in. Some of them feel this tension. But feeling it, that doesn’t pay the bills.
#bcpoli #forestry

Chris Alemany🇺🇦🇨🇦🇪🇸

@hanspetermeyer @lacouvee I have a deep mistrust and suspicion of the Truck Loggers Association as a vessel for everything that is hurting both our forests and the people working within them.

[email protected] :mstdnca:

@chris @PhoenixSerenity Long, deep breathing. Sitting in the forest —usually an old second growth stand of Douglas Firs and Broadleaf Maple. Listening to the ravens. That’s what I do.
We —I!— need a lot of calm going forward. (Fascists hate calm.)

ps. If you know any written material on the 1990s BC “war in the woods,” please send it my way. There is much to understand, much to learn that *may* bear fruit today.

#bcpoli #forestry #fascism #yoga

[email protected] :mstdnca:

@chris @lacouvee I used to write/photograph for the TLA
Even in my few years around that crew I saw what I thought were good changes. Some good people.
But they were (& imagine still are) squeezed by corporate profiteers. And rather bite the hand that feeds them, they will lobby against progressive policy.
They are a lobby organization with one goal: maximize the short-term business (financial) interests of their members. Much weaker than they once were.

[email protected] :mstdnca:

@chris @lacouvee Meanwhile, the ones who squeeze them (used to be repped by lobby org FIR, Forest Industry Council), are quietly mistrusted but publicly allowed to do their business as usual: turning forests into fibre farms, maximizing shareholder profits at truckloggers’, BC communities’, and BC taxpayers’ expense. TLA gets a bad rep, sometimes unearned. The villains are behind the curtain…

#bcpoli #forestry