Under pressure from Canadian and U.S. mining companies, the Ghanaian government seems ready to pass legislation in June 2003 which will open the country's protected forest reserves to mining. The companies' bulldozers are ready to rip apart thousands of hectares of rainforest in the Ashanti, Eastern and Western Regions if the government gives them permission. The targeted areas include the Subri River Forest Reserve (the biggest in the country), the Supuma Shelterbelt, the Oppon Mansi, Tano Suraw and Suraw Extension Forest Reserves.
Environment and sustainability
(Vancouver) Numerous opportunities to generate jobs from coastal forests are routinely squandered and in the absence of much-needed reforms the situation will only worsen, says a new study released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
The study focuses on two troubling trends plaguing the coastal industry: rising log exports and mounting wood waste. It finds that the combined effect of wood waste and log exports was a loss of an estimated 5,872 jobs in 2005 and 5,756 jobs in 2006.
Cookie-cutter responses to big problems have a way of
backfiring, with the cure often proving worse than the disease. The
response to the mountain pine beetle attack is a classic case in
point.
The beetles' shocking tear through our forests is often portrayed
in apocalyptic terms and with good reason. The pine tree-killing
bugs have ripped through British Columbia, are now well established
in Alberta, and on the cusp of entering the continent-wide boreal
forest.
Jointly issued by: BC Federation of Labour; BC Government and Service Employees’ Union; Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives BC Office; Communications Energy & Paperworkers Union of Canada Western Region; ForestEthics; Pulp, Paper and Woodworkers of Canada; Sierra Club of Canada BC Chapter; Sierra Legal Defence Fund; United Steelworkers District 3 - Western Canada; the Valhalla Wilderness Society and the Western Canada Wilderness Committee.
George Perkins Marsh, in his 1864 book Man and Nature, warned a world even then dominated by business that “We are breaking up the floor and wainscoting and doors and window frames of our dwelling, for fuel to seethe our pottage.” Presciently, he observed that, “Joint stock companies have no souls; their managers, in general, no conscience.” He saw the proper role of humankind as co-workers with Nature, re-developing an equilibrium that would sustain life in modest abundance.
In the many conversations I’ve had about gasoline prices since a short report I wrote for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives was released in early May (Gas Price Gouge), I’ve heard just about every justification for high gas prices one could imagine.
Controversy has erupted in British Columbia over the Campbell government's claim that the province is running out of electricity and that the solution is to encourage coal-fired power generation. Overlooked in the debate is the mistaken assumption that coal, particularly using current combustion technologies, represents a low-cost source of power for the province. The argument then becomes whether B.C. citizens should sacrifice their health and the environment for allegedly cheap power. Nothing could be further from the truth.