The Wild Path Forward: Left Biocentrism, First Nations, Park Issues and Forestry, A Canadian View

Green Web Bulletin #44

by David Orton

This article is in press with Wild Earth magazine and will be published in the Fall 1995 issue. Wild Earth is published quarterly by the Cenozoic Society, Inc., POB 455, Richmond, Vermont 05477, U.S.A. The article is also part of the material making up a Discussion Paper for a panel debate/discussion at the Learned Societies Conference, on June 5th 1995, in Montreal, on the topic "The environment and the relations with First Nations." This Learneds session is co-sponsored by the Society for Socialist Studies and the Environmental Studies Association of Canada.

• Left Biocentrism: A Necessary Vision for Wilderness Recovery Proponents to Address First Nations Issues
• Relationship to Traditional Native Thought
• Beyond Human-Centeredness
• Beyond Treaties
• Beyond Land Ownership and Property Rights
• Land Claims
• Ecological Integrity Given Up
• Fur Trapping and Parks
• Forestry
• The Deep Ecology Forestry Alternatives
• Conclusion

North American Wilderness Recovery Strategy proponents must address First Nations issues, because such issues, at least in Canada, will affect the successfulness of any emerging Strategy. It has become necessary to have views on aboriginal issues—including aboriginal rights and treaty rights, native sovereignty, and land ownership—and be prepared to express them and defend them. A Wilderness Recovery Strategy entails building alliances. While there are strong mutual interests between native and non-native conservationists and environmentalists of a radical persuasion in fighting the Earth destroyers, there are often also contradictions which need to be publicly discussed. The fundamental question is usually, will natives take the "resourcist" road or preservationist path? Non-native environmentalists with biocentric/ecocentric views must feel free to express critical perspectives.

Left Biocentrism: A Necessary Vision for Wilderness Recovery Proponents to Address First Nations Issues

It is the perspective of this article, that putting together a wilderness recovery strategy and building relations with First Nations, can best be done with a left biocentric vision. "Left biocentrism" is part of an emerging trend in the green and environmental movements, which is gradually evolving through practical activities and theoretical discussions.

As used here to describe this theoretical tendency, "left" means anti-capitalist but not necessarily socialist; "biocentric" means putting the Earth first and subordinating human interests—including indigenous interests—to this. The left biocentric tendency represents a left focus within the deep ecology orientation. The eight-point "Platform" (drafted by Arne Naess and George Sessions), is accepted as a basic expression of deep ecology.

The deep ecological world view is the philosophical basis for building a new relationship for humans with Nature and within a society. The attitude to deep ecology by left biocentrists is one of critical support. This means criticizing and discarding "deep ecological" tendencies toward the cultivation of self divorced from social change, and toward insufficient concern for social justice or the practical implementation of deep ecology. Critical support for deep ecology also means opposing the propagation of myths of 'sustainable' land use in forestry, or marine use in the fishery, within an industrial capitalist society based on private property, endless economic growth, population growth and consumerism. Left biocentrists agree that industrial capitalism has to go—both industrialism and capitalism. The nature of its replacement is the subject of continuing thinking and discussions. Various names and conceptualizations have been formulated to try to encapsulate this emerging left biocentric tendency. Its final terminology and content are yet to be decided. In applying the left biocentric perspective to the topic of "Environmental-First Nations Relationships," there will obviously be genuine differences of opinion.

Relationship to Traditional Native Thought

The relationship of the left biocentric tendency to traditional native thinking is also in the process of being defined. Traditional native world views seem to have stressed several themes at odds with industrial capitalism: the unity and interrelatedness of life; the belief that the world unfolds in a cyclic, not unilinear, way; a communal system of property, as against private ownership; detailed knowledge of Nature; living in place (bioregionalism); population self-regulation; respect for all life forms and their sacredness; a sustainable "harvest" of wildlife over thousands of years; and rituals that severely limit the destruction by humans of flora and fauna and the land itself. Obviously, this traditional native perspective has a great deal of compatibility with the eight-point platform of deep ecology.

Some environmental organizations that promote environmental/aboriginal alliances elevate indigenous-centered social justice over environmental justice because they have a human-centered orientation to the natural world. They become in effect "solidarity" organizations. Social justice must be addressed by our deeds, not only our words, but it has to be accompanied by a deep ecology perspective. Otherwise, any exploitation of the natural world for human purposes can be justified.

Beyond Human-Centeredness

Deep ecology builds on, but extends beyond, traditional native thinking:

My own preliminary position is that deep ecology is a movement beyond indigenous attitudes to nature, which centre around human use, however respectfully carried out. One might characterize the best Native positions regarding relationships to the natural world as "deep stewardship"—a position that still remains human-centered. Although adequate for gathering and hunting societies with little technology and small numbers of people, it is not encompassing enough for the survival of the natural world in the 1990s. -- David Orton "Envirosocialism: Contradiction or Promise?" in Green On Red: Evolving Ecological Socialism, Society for Socialist Studies/Fernwood Publishing

David Suzuki and Peter Knudtson, in their book Wisdom of the Elders, an examination of a number of aboriginal views, write:

Aboriginal peoples' relationship with other life-forms comes from a deep respect that is ultimately self-interested.

This native human-centered world view believes that animal and plant life is on Earth for human use, as shown in some of the anthropological evidence introduced in support of the native food fishery in the well-known Canadian Supreme Court Sparrow Case. (The Sparrow court case has become the justification for the now official federal government Aboriginal Fisheries Strategy. See text of the 1990 Decision, Supreme Court of Canada "Ronald Edward Sparrow versus Her Majesty The Queen"):

The salmon was not only an important source of food but played an important part in the system of beliefs of the Salish people, and in their ceremonies. The salmon were held to be a race of beings that had, in "myth times," established a bond with human beings requiring the salmon to come each year to give their bodies to the humans who, in turn, treated them with respect shown by performance of the proper ritual. Towards the salmon, as toward other creatures, there was an attitude of caution and respect which resulted in effective conservation of the various species.

This self-limiting human-centered, "respect", is undermined and ultimately destroyed by capitalist industrialism, which turns all of Nature into commodities for sale in the market place.

The dilemma for traditional native thinking is how does one "settle" with the dominant society, when this society defines legally what is and what is not acceptable for debate and negotiations? Unfortunately, the traditional world view is usually jettisoned in order to extract some recompense from the dominant society. Metis historian Olive Dickason in her progressive book, Canada's First Nations: A History of Founding Peoples from Earliest Times, quotes Cree lawyer Delia Opekokes, saying the concept of aboriginal rights,

'recognizes our ownership over lands we have traditionally occupied and used and our control and ownership over the resources of the land - water, minerals, timber, wildlife and fisheries.'

Beyond Treaties

To enter the judicial process to 'settle' land claims, to take part in the dominant paradigm of values, is to give up or go against the traditional native relationship to the land and accept the imposition of the values of the colonizers and of industrial society. Occupancy, even first human occupancy, cannot convey title to land. The aboriginal peoples of Canada who were themselves initially migrants from somewhere else, Asia, occupied the lands in this country; they did not "own" them.

Treaties were originally, and are now, instruments for the colonizers to gain access to lands traditionally occupied by natives, and to the lands' wealth. Treaties have expedited the process. We cannot—nor should native peoples—accept the validity or relevance of treaties signed two or three hundred years ago by English or French feudal kings or queens, or appointees on their behalf. Eighteenth century treaties now in contention by Nova Scotia Micmacs, such as the Treaty of 1752, were "signed" on the aboriginal side by people unable to write or read the treaty language. Moreover, all the treaty language "agreed" to by the colonialists and the indigenous peoples presupposed a totally human-centered view of the natural world.

Beyond Land Ownership and Property Rights

Language embodies a world view which is often taken for granted, and frames a debate. Thus the wording of the expression "land claim" assumes in some way its justice. "Property rights" are the way a society organizes its affairs; they reflect the distribution of power and influence—the class structure—within a society. Insofar as they have been applied to Nature, such rights have presumed that one species— humans—has the right to decide whether or not other animal species, plant species, and the physical environment itself, have the "right" to live or die. Clearly, this is not an acceptable view for a deeper environmentalism. Humans cannot "own" the Earth. We make use of it, wisely or foolishly.

Property rights vary from state, through communal, to individual ownership. Such rights are socially created and can therefore be socially redefined and changed. Social justice and justice for Nature within a society should be the criteria for evaluating so-called property rights. Court systems in all modern societies, including Canada, buttress property rights and defend the existing class structure, over human rights and the rights of Nature.

The choice becomes then, whether to accept the property rights values, within which present debates are conducted (as with "buy back the dacks"), or to put forth an alternative vision of "rights," and socially mobilize for their implementation. The latter is the promise of a radical deep ecology. There can be no true resolution of past and present injustices against native peoples, and no sustainable land use practices or sustainable native or non-native communities, within a continuing industrial capitalist society.

Land Claims

"Land claims" and "treaty rights" present conflicts when developing a wilderness strategy for Canada. Two very helpful recent (1993) discussion papers that raise these issues, and identify specific national and provincial parks subject to native land claims, are: Putting Nature First: Conservation Principles to Guide the Settlement of Aboriginal Land Claims by the Federation Of Ontario Naturalists, and Protected Areas and Aboriginal Interests in Canada by James Morrison for World Wildlife Fund Canada.

The federal government in 1973 established a process to supposedly settle land claims outside of the "win or lose" court system, making the distinction between "comprehensive" and "specific" claims. Comprehensive claims concern lands never been covered by treaties,

where the claimant seeks a negotiated settlement on the basis of unextinguished Aboriginal title arising from traditional use and occupancy of the land.

Comprehensive land claims cover very large land areas; for example, the first was the 1975 James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement. First Nations have directed comprehensive land claims at Parks Canada concerning the Mingan Archipelago (Quebec), the Torngat and Mealey Mountains (Labrador), and Gwaii Haanas/South Moresby (B.C.). For much of the territory of northern Canada and much of British Columbia, comprehensive claims have now been settled or are in negotiation. Recently settled comprehensive land claims include Nunavut (eastern Arctic), Inuvialuit (western Arctic), and the Gwich'in lands (Yukon). Hundreds of millions of dollars have been paid out or committed for comprehensive claim settlements.

Specific claims deal with unfulfilled treaty promises or government mal-administration,

where the claimant seeks a negotiated settlement arising from unfulfilled government obligations under treaties, agreements or statutes, or the improper administration of Indian lands and other assets under the Indian Act.

First Nations have directed specific land claims at Parks Canada concerning the following parks: Banff (Alberta), Riding Mountain (Manitoba), Pukaskawa (Ontario), Bruce Peninsula (Ontario), and Point Pelee (Ontario). In addition to these federal parks, a number of provincial parks, including Algonquin and Quetico in Ontario, are also subject to native land claims and thus to fundamental change. To take positions on the hundreds of outstanding specific land claims in Canada, biocentric non-native environmentalists need to look at First Nations' fundamental values and assumptions, asking, for instance, "can treaty rights and land claims be supported?" and also at their own values and assumptions.

Why aboriginals generally oppose "allocations for nature" Native land claims, are often about the "harvest" of wildlife and "economic" opportunities. There seems to be little regard for sanctuaries—or what the Land Claims Work Group of the Federation Of Ontario Naturalists called "allocations for nature."

Working against allocations for nature are the following factors:

1. Aboriginal Canadians historically utilized and changed their natural surroundings.
2. Traditional native territories often include existing provincial and federal parks and other protected areas, or some portion of them.
3. Natives were often physically dislocated when parks or other protected areas were established.
4. The primacy of treaty rights and land claims is asserted in the Canadian Constitution.
5. Much crown, i.e. public, land covered in forests has been handed over to the forest industry, on long-term renewable leases.
6. At least in southern Canada, most land "unoccupied" by humans, is in some kind of park status.

For all of these reasons, in many parks indigenous rights to hunt, fish and trap as part of land claims are being pursued, and wilderness or wildlife sanctuaries closed to human "use" are being opposed. Governments at the federal and provincial levels seem increasingly willing to compromise the ecological integrity of the poorly defended parks system in Canada for native land claims. This is politically easier than changing or challenging the well-defended "allocations" of non-park crown land, which have been committed to the timber industry on a long-term basis. Generally, aboriginal peoples in Canada are asserting their "rights" to hunt, trap, and fish year-round, as in "traditional" times, but using modern technologies of destruction and transportation, and in a country now with a population of around 30 million people.

However, the situation in the 1990's, because of human numbers and the habitat and wildlife destruction caused by industrial society, demands large wilderness areas without any industrial exploitation such as clearcut logging, mining, and hydro projects, and without human "harvesting" of animal and plant life. The basic conditions of biological life have to be given the opportunity to continue evolving. The general vision outlined in The Wildlands Project: Plotting A North American Wilderness Recovery Strategy needs to be implemented on the ground. It is a necessary condition for ensuring the survival of all species on Earth, including Homo sapiens. This is the ecological context for addressing social justice for aboriginal Canadians.

Ecological Integrity Given Up

In Canada's National Parks and reserves for National Parks, north of the 60th parallel aboriginals have the legislated right to "harvest" wildlife by hunting, trapping and fishing. In the south, only Pukaskwa National Park in Ontario presently allows this. However ministerial discretion in the National Parks Act allows the federal government to authorize in any wilderness area "the carrying on of traditional renewable resource harvesting activities." Land claim settlements in northern Canada have accepted that aboriginal people can kill wildlife in protected areas.

A posting in the electronic network in September of 1994 announced that the Canadian government is seeking an amendment to the Migratory Birds Convention (MBC):

The MBC establishes a closed season between March 10 and September 1 each year. The intent of the closed season is to protect migratory birds from over-harvest by sport and commercial hunters, but the closed season also made certain traditional harvesting of migratory birds by Aboriginal people illegal. The primary amendment proposed by the Canadian government would provide for Aboriginal people in Canada to harvest, throughout the year, migratory birds for food, social and ceremonial purposes, subject to conservation and allowing for the existing Aboriginal and treaty rights protected in the Constitution of Canada.

The maintenance of ecological integrity, which is supposed to be the first consideration in any national park management plan, has essentially been abandoned. The following is stated in the current (1994) Guiding Principles and Operational Policies of Parks Canada:

In parks where there are existing Aboriginal or treaty rights, the exercise of these rights will be respected. As well, in some national parks, traditional activities by Aboriginal peoples will continue as a result of rights defined by land claim agreements and treaties, or by specific agreements negotiated during the process of park establishment. Given the legislative and constitutional basis of such agreements, they are expected to supersede Parks Canada policy and in some instances will consequently amend the National Parks Act.

An acceptance of the validity of land claims and treaty rights—based on the premise that aboriginal peoples in some way "owned" the land now called Canada and therefore must be compensated today—justifies aboriginal peoples' many assertions. If the logic is followed through, "inherent" rights, i.e. rights by virtue of being an aboriginal people, mean, that aboriginals do not need agreements with federal or provincial governments regarding hunting, fishing, trapping, taxes, education, or the like. From such a perspective, making agreements with the federal or provincial government means not recognizing inherent rights! Notwithstanding grievous historical wrongs, however, an endorsement of such aboriginal views today is at the expense of Nature as well as non-native Canadian society.

Fur Trapping and Parks

Access to furs was a major reason for European entry into Canada. The resulting introduction of the "fur trade" totally changed the aboriginal lifestyle away from self-sufficiency to one of dependency and subordination to the European colonizers for various trading goods. The fur trade undermined the self-restraint of the native deep stewardship relationship to wild animals. Fur bearing animals became "commodities" for a market. Also, many native people were killed in fighting over control of the fur trade between the British and French colonial powers. Given this history, it is bewildering that many native and non-native mainstream environmental spokespersons defend fur trapping as crucial to the indigenous way of life.

We should oppose commercial fur trapping, commercial hunting, and management of wildlife for commercial purposes. Personally, I do not oppose trapping or hunting or fishing by aboriginal Canadians, for personal or community use, as part of a traditional lifestyle—provided it is carried out in a context of the new awareness and knowledge being gained from conservation and restoration biology today.

Algonquin Park is one of Canada's many ostensibly protected areas now exploited by trappers. This much-loved Ontario park was established in 1893. Used in various basically harmless ways by hundreds of thousands of Canadians, and stamped in the contemporary Canadian soul by landscape painters like Tom Thomson, it is the last ecosystem in southern Ontario where natural processes have a chance of functioning normally. (Wolves crossing the park boundaries in winter in pursuit of deer regularly get shot, showing the need for extensive buffer zones surrounding parks, with controlled human, wildlife-friendly, land use.) The Algonquins of Golden Lake have made an extensive land claim—about 36,000 square kilometres, covering much of the Ottawa Valley, and taking over the administration and control of Algonquin Park. Greg Sarazin, spokesperson for the tribe has written (see the 22-page document "220 Years of Broken Promises", no date):

In 1954 a new regime of fur management in Algonquin Park arrived. The government realized that proper harvesting of fur-bearing animals would strengthen the populations and ensure their survival—something the Indians always knew. The entire eastern half of the park was opened to the trappers from Golden lake (and only to them) and, ever since, each trapline has been in full use and occupation.

The idea that trapping and hunting are needed to maintain the balance of nature is also repeated by non-native killers of wildlife in seeking to continue their practices. Native and non-native biocentrists need to step forward in unity and become vocal spokespersons for the wildlife of Algonquin, lest plant and animal 'voices' become drowned out in the carving up of this park.

Forestry

In forestry, natives and their non-native environmentalist allies seem to face these choices:

• Natives can seek a place within the existing industrial forestry model, which destroys ecosystems and and human communities, but which can disburse some economic benefits. Buffy Sainte-Marie has a line in her song "Disinformation" that seems appropriate here—"to make the same old mistakes in a brand new way."
• Aboriginals can define their own alternative forestry perspective.
• Aboriginals can unite with the deep ecology forestry alternative which is struggling to emerge in practice and theory.

Non-native forestry activists must be clear about their own path, and about which path potential native allies have embarked upon.

The dominant First Nations trend in forestry in Canada now, is participation within the industrial forestry paradigm. An article outlining an Aboriginal Forest Strategy, presented by Harry Bombay, the President of the National Aboriginal Forestry Association (NAFA), in the 1994 Spring/Summer issue of the trade magazine Canadian Silviculture, makes this quite clear. He offers no critique of clearcutting or forestry biocide use, but endorses 'sustainable development': continued economic growth in the forest industry.

NAFA made an August 1993 intervention to the Canadian Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, called "Forest Lands And Resources For Aboriginal Peoples." In it, NAFA argued for an "aboriginal forest industry" and sought "co-management" of "natural resources" with the timber and pulp companies and governments. The flawed assumption in their intervention was that the forest industry as it exists today can accommodate and respect aboriginal values. Other Canadian examples of native participation within the dominant industrial forestry paradigm, supported by some non-native environmentalists and organizations, include participation in the federal government's Model Forest Program, participation in the "Interim Measures Agreement on Clayoquot Sound", and the 'Sustainable Development' Agreement of the Algonquins of Barriere Lake in La Verendrye Park in Quebec. Corporations are interested in access to forests, not necessarily in ownership of forested land. Therefore when public pressure builds in support of "settling" land claims, corporations will accept such settlements provided they are permitted continuing access to turn trees into industrial commodities, as Clayoquot Sound.

The Aboriginal Forest Strategy evolved from within native thinking and is not official government policy. The Aboriginal Fisheries Strategy is federal government policy and is being implemented across Canada. Both Strategies assume participation within the industrial capitalist model— the very model that is destroying the forests and the fisheries in Canada.

The Deep Ecology Forestry Alternatives

There are two contrasting paths to follow. One is a reformist path, which defines some kind of eco-forestry and its certification, within the existing industrial system. "Renegade" foresters are active on this path. Journals like the International Journal of Ecoforestry serve as a vehicle to express the reformist deep ecology, "eco-forestry within the system" position. The other path, less well developed, and in the left biocentric camp, states that a "sustainable forestry requires a sustainable society." It calls for, and is working toward, the dismantling of existing industrial society as part of a deep ecology forestry strategy.

Conclusion

From an ecocentric perspective, we need total land reform in Canada and throughout the world, so that land, water, and air are seen as the common inheritance of all living beings. So-called private, native, or crown (state) property "rights" are ecologically meaningless. Non-native environmentalists seeking unity with aboriginal peoples to create a North American Wilderness Recovery Strategy need to make the distinction between a native rights agenda and a native land or land claims agenda. Native rights to full self-governed participation in Canadian society must be supported. But if one believes, as ecocentrists do, that the Earth "belongs" to no one, not even to aboriginal peoples, then often land claims and native views on non-human species must be opposed.

Final edited draft for publication, March 1995