And a special hello to all those working to and returning Indigenous lands back to the people.
Today we continue our conversation about colonianlism with Waziyatawin, Dakato activist, author and feminist.
She also works as the Indigenous Peoples Research Chair and Associate Professor in the Indigenous Governance Program at the University of Victoria
Her books include -For Indigenous Eyes Only: A Decolonization Handbook; In the Footsteps of Our Ancestors: The Dakota Commemorative Marches of the 21st Century; and, her most recent volume, What Does Justice Look Like? The Struggle for Liberation in Dakota Homeland.
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And a special hello to all those building a community of resistance everyday.
Below are some of the answers to the question on Despair I posed a few posts ago.
Then follows my interview with Robert (Bob) Jensen. Robert Jensen is a professor in the School of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin.
His an author, activist and feminist. As usually I start with asking him to describe himself.
To quote Derrick Jensen “despair is an appropriate response to a desperate situation” . I really appreciate being able to be “real” and express my despair, but very few can understand. Those that do, support me, and I support them. And that’s the key, as we need the support of loving community to “normalize our despair”, turn it into fuel to put our love into action.
I’m constantly learning to embrace the collapse of industrial civilisation and make this collapse my fuel. It’s a crazy ride, I’ve been on it as an activist for 13 years. Tough going, hell yes! Would I want to be doing something else? Hell no! What an exciting time to be alive mate!
Kia Kaha (stand firm, stand in your power)
-T
____
“I don’t let despair stop me. It’s there, like gravity, or chronic pain, but I refuse to let it overwhelm me. I can’t let it win, because then power wins. That is what people who fight for justice have always been up against. I use their existence as inspiration. I also find great joy in being alive, and I find plenty of moments of grace that keep me sane and calm, even joyful. Today, a fledgling sat on my porch railing, soliciting food from her parent, right below the birdfeeder. Knowing that I helped make that tiny life, those perfect wings and that pounding heart, possible made me profoundly happy. The world is being killed and the world is still a miracle. We can’t give up.” -L
___
“Here’s my theory: When Bush II was president, we were outraged at the wars, abuse of the environment, torture, indefinite detention, etc. Then when Obama continues all of this, people realize that either nothing is real or nothing matters.
Nothing is real, meaning for instance, that if all the best scientists say global warming is real and an incredible danger, yet nothing is done about it. Are these scientists making it all up, is it real?
The newspapers glorify war, billboards show crying women hugging returning, happy soldiers. Yet we know there are thousands of suicides, thousands of Iraqi and Afghanistan women who no longer can hug their returning soldiers, thousands of brain injured requiring years of assisted living, at the young age of 23 or 24, atrocious destruction of the environment in war. Are the newspapers making it all up? Is it really true that we are winning the war in Iraq, when hundreds of Iraqis are still being killed and wounded monthly?
So, obviously torture, assassinations, and other killing is ok, even from an unmanned drone. Life is worth nothing, nothing matters. From this nothingness comes our despair. And everyone is terrified.
Maybe, as I get more desperate, I get more honest. I no longer tell people I am fine, when they ask me, How are you? I sit with my feelings longer and feel the tears and fears. I try to listen to the ‘still, small song inside’ more. So, in these ways, despair has motivated me. And I started back w/ the 2 hour walks.
I think lots of times though, I deal w/ despair with catatonia. Withdraw from pain and feel lost. Then something seems to save me, my cat wants to play, I hear the little wren’s sweet voice outside, a friend calls, I read Robert’s article, I remember Marianne Williamson’s quote,”as we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others”, I smoke a cigarette, I write a response to something I read on the internet. I remember that we all just want to be loved, and I play music. And I remember that today might be my last day. I start to care again.” -L
___
“Since the 1980s, my life’s main focus has been to work against imperialism
and exploitation. Much of that time was spent as a communist organizer;
the rest has been as a political cartoonist. When the US war on Iraq
started in 2003, I went through a period of deep despair for nine months.
I couldn’t believe or accept that the largest protests in the history of
the world had failed to stop the war. I lost hope that change was
possible. It seemed to me that we, the majority of people, were helpless,
completely at the mercy of ruthless exploiters and mass murderers.
I had already long known that the system was exploitative by nature, but
this war, for me, meant the falling away of any illusion or pretense that
those in power were going to be restrained in the slightest bit by
negative public opinion or pressure. They simply didn’t care any more what
anyone thought of them or wanted.
Once the war started, I gave up. I cried a lot. I stopped drawing
cartoons. I asked anyone who would listen how they could go on in the face
of this madness, what could possibly give their lives meaning now that we
had been utterly defeated?
One day I happened to be visiting a community garden with a friend, and I
asked the person who had organized it, “What keeps you going with this
garden when we all know the world is being killed?” He answered, “We’re
animals who evolved to have close relationships with plants. I’m just
doing what’s in my nature.”
I sat in the sun and thought about that, and felt my despair melt away.
His answer didn’t change the grim reality of our situation, but it did
make me think about human nature and how we respond to oppression. Our
nature as living beings is to resist being harmed and to fight for life. I
decided I was going to live in accordance with my nature as a human
animal, and to rejoin the fight to save our planet and destroy the
exploiters. I haven’t wavered since.” -S
___
“Despair has never acted as a source of motivation for me. If anything, personally, despair is an emotion I typically repress because of the overwhelming catastrophes behind it, supporting it. When I allow the entire scope of what is happening in the world into my immediate perception of the world, I feel that I vanish as an individual and am being washed away by some enormous tsunami-like force.
Although I don’t stand in despair at most moments, I can’t stress enough the importance of experiencing that grief at some point in your life. Despair — and the crises supporting it — must be integrated into the minds of peoples, shaping their perception of the world around them. Once you’ve established your own feelings on what you need to do, on what you know to be “right”, I believe you have the right (and in my case, the necessity) to push that despair out of your immediate experience. What motivates me instead is the simple, ethical response to the state of the world that I’ve come, through despair, to internalize.” -C
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Derrick Jensen – Despair
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Robert Jensen;Feminism and Masculinity, Minnesota Mens Action Network, October 2, 2009
And a special hello to all those fighting the systemic racism of civilization everyday.
Today on the show Waziyatawin, Dakato activist, author and feminist.
She also works as the Indigenous Peoples Research Chair and Associate Professor in the Indigenous Governance Program at the University of Victoria
Her books include -For Indigenous Eyes Only: A Decolonization Handbook; In the Footsteps of Our Ancestors: The Dakota Commemorative Marches of the 21st Century; and, her most recent volume, What Does Justice Look Like? The Struggle for Liberation in Dakota Homeland.
This is a great thought provoking discussion so we’ll get right to it.
I have divided our talk into two parts this being the first.
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Well Fed White People – Kathleen Yearwood
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And special hello to all those who love their land base.
Today is the first of my interviews with non-humans. My first interview is with river near my place, kisiskāciwani-sīpiy
I used to believe I was fairly good at being in touch with nature. When I walk though the forest I would walk around spider webs, careful not to step on mushrooms. Even in town I would step over ants on the sidewalk, which is tricky because ants are not very linear. I talk with chickadees, crows, and magpies; any bird that will hang around for a chat. I stop walking so a squirrel will not see me and cross the road safely. I talk with plants and yes even hugged a few trees which is a very calming feeling.
I was not until did the interview with kisiskāciwani-sīpiy that I realized that really much of my relationship the real world was, well, less than real. My connection with the kisiskāciwani-sīpiy was one of the most emotional experiences of my life.
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It has been very hard for me to figure out how I going to present this at the same time I believe it is important that I do.
As I was sat down (I slipped and fell in a sitting position so I stayed where I was) to do my interview with the river and record the sound it was making it become obvious, as it would to anyone who sits by a river, that a river is much more then water running over rocks. It is everything the lives in and around it. It is the beings that come in contact with no matter how briefly. I will play Derrick Jensen’s piece Pretend you are a River at the end of this as it is one of the best pieces I have every read and heard on what it is to be a river. Here is the story the river told me. The story was told to me through imagery and emotion.
The kisiskāciwani-sīpiy was born with the raise of the mountains and was shaped through the ice age. Now it told me it is dying. The glaciers that give it life are fading away.
I was shown images of a time when the forest and prairie crowded against the river when it had friends to talk with, not the strange yellow or green aliens of today.
Then it all changed.
Imagine you are being poisoned. Imagine that the life blood is being drain from you so the poison becomes stronger. Imagine that you are forced to pass this poison on to all your friends and those who live with you. Imagine you are forced to give this poison to everyone you meet one your path. Imagine that with very fibre of your soul you do not want do to this. You scream out for help but those who listen are gone. And the poison keeps coming.
I saw the death of kisiskāciwani-sīpiy friends, death of those who listened. At times the there was more blood then water, then the oldest of friends fell and soon came the strange and crazy ones.
During this time I cried as the river was crying. It seemed to becoming from a depth I have not been to before. I choked and gasped as if I was trying to rid myself of the poisons within me. At times I just writhed in pain.
Afterwards I lay there stunned by the emotions I had just witnessed. I felt as if I had just an inkling of what it must be like to be tortured or subjected to the worst concentration camp conditions.
I thought also that we who live in the dominant culture really have no idea what its doing to the world, to the living earth for the sake of comfort and ease of life. And I was going to say “those who are supposedly fighting for kisiskāciwani-sīpiy and other rivers really understood the pain the river are in would be working that much harder to protect them” but I am not sure for I have seen very little willingness on the part environmentalist to give up their comfort for any of the living world.
I also start to understand what it is to be alive in the world to feel connected to the place I live. I wonder if I came anywhere close to the connection listener and the river had. I will make every effort to does so.
After my talk with kisiskāciwani-sīpiy I have come to realize that we are meant to drink living water. The water that come form pipes is not longer living and is full of its own unknown concoctions. The problem is that the living water is now poison and we cannot drink it. Tap water is zombie water, zombie water for zombies.
We need desperately to heal the rivers, heal ourselves. We need a resistance that will make it so.
And a special Hello goes out to all those who believe there is a living world more important then the “market”.
This week we start our series on Colonialism, which in a lot of ways is corporatism today, too bad the ENGO’s that signed the CBFA did not and do not understand that. It is has been around for a long time and as any person of so called “third world” will tell you, it is more and more blatant everyday. Even Europe is being recolonialized by GM Foods, designer crops and unfair financial practices. Remember, unfair financial practices was the major reason for the American Revolution. Least so they say.
I have included on the site an excellent piece on Colonialism by Waziyatawin Below and she will be our guest on part 2 of Colonialism is Alive and Well.
On today’s show to my great pleasure we have Melina Luboucan-Massimo. She is a Lubicon Cree woman, Indigenous rights activist and Tar Sands activist. She points that it has been Indigenous people that have borne the real weight of environmental protection in North and South America. For me it time that this is stopped. It is time that people who benefit from stolen indigenous land stand up and put themselves between the bulldozers, guns, corporate theft of traditional territories and Indigenous people. It is important to remember this quote as well;
“If you have come to help me you can go home. But if you see my struggle as part of your own survival, then perhaps we can work together.” Australian Aborigine Woman
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If you would like to learn more about and support the Lubicon Cree here are some good websites
Colonialism on the Ground [pdf version] by Waziyatawin
At one time our ancestors would have had difficulty imagining living in a state of unfreedom. Now we have difficulty imagining living in a state of freedom. This is perhaps the most profound impact of colonialism in our lives. It reveals a limitation in thinking so severe that it prevents us from reclaiming our inherent rights as Indigenous Peoples of this land, even in our dreams.
Colonialism is the massive fog that has clouded our imaginations regarding who we could be, excised our memories of who we once were, and numbed our understanding of our current existence. Colonialism is the force that disallows us from recognizing its confines while at the same time limiting our vision of possibilities. Colonialism is the farce that compels us to feel gratitude for small concessions while our fundamental freedoms are denied. Colonialism has set the parameters of our imaginations to constrain our vision of what is possible.
To be sure, the brand of colonialism in the United States today differs from the brands of earlier times when imperial forces from Europe established colonies in the “New World” as a means of expanding the wealth and power of their nations while also battling with competing imperial nations over pieces of the global pie. Thus, in the United States American schools teach our children that the “colonial era” ended when the United States gained its freedom from Great Britain. However, this denial of itself is simply one of colonialism’s myths. This denial is so extreme that even today the United States government insists on the language of “possessions” rather than “colonies” to identify its holdings outside the contiguous land base it claims in North America, despite the fact that many of them fit classic definitions of colonies precisely because they have not been absorbed into the state. But, the interest in domination and control over territories was established even before the entity of the United States was born. As American colonies gained their independence from their Mother Country, they sought to further expand their wealth and influence through the continuing invasion and acquisition of other Peoples’ lands and resources and the subjugation of the Original Peoples. The shedding of the constraints of their Mother Country simply facilitated and hastened that project. The United States soundly expanded its empire and is now so deeply entrenched in its colonial acquisitions that to anyone but the most conscientious observer, those roots have been lost in obscurity.
Everything that’s wrong with this culture is in the story now pouring out of a broken oil rig 40 miles off the Louisiana coast. I don’t mean story as in fictitious. I mean it as a narrative, the account of successive events that builds into a history. That history is now washing up on the shore as oil-drenched corpses; nothing more than a quick, bracing glance is needed to know how those birds suffered. It’s also a history that’s waiting to turn cells toward the fierce hunger of cancer, settling into the lungs of children, erupting into blisters on the skin “so deep they’re leaving scars.”
We could find our beginning point, our once upon a time, in the first written story of this culture, the Epic of Gilgamesh, which chronicled the deforestation of Mesopotamia. The story hasn’t changed in four thousand years — it’s just quickened with the accelerant of fossil fuel. The pattern is basic to civilization, a feedback loop of overshoot, militarization, slavery, and biotic devastation, a loop that has tightened into a noose. That noose is planet-wide, encircling the earth in a siege beyond the wildest dreams of ambitious Caesars of the past. Nothing is safe, not the South Pole, not the strata 30,000 feet below the earth’s surface, not even the moon, which the power-mad had to “punch” last year. Ownership and entitlement have distilled into a sense of control so pure — and so rancid — that life itself is now being ransomed to the demands of the sociopaths at the top of a very steep, very brutal pyramid.
Where do we stand in that pyramid? Not where we were born — because anyone reading this is one of the globally wealthy — but where do we stand? That’s the question, baring the noblest values of which humans are capable: courage, moral agency, the loyalty that can slow-bloom into solidarity. Are we willing to face how corporations, on the steroids of fossil fuel, have gutted our democracy, our communities, our planet? That insight doesn’t require much intellectually, but it does require courage.
More great stuff from SubMedia TV and the END:CIV project
Some Responses to the Despair question
“I don’t let despair stop me. It’s there, like gravity, or chronic pain, but I refuse to let it overwhelm me. I can’t let it win, because then power wins. That is what people who fight for justice have always been up against. I use their existence as inspiration. I also find great joy in being alive, and I find plenty of moments of grace that keep me sane and calm, even joyful. Today, a fledgling sat on my porch railing, soliciting food from her parent, right below the birdfeeder. Knowing that I helped make that tiny life, those perfect wings and that pounding heart, possible made me profoundly happy. The world is being killed and the world is still a miracle. We can’t give up.” -L
___
“Here’s my theory: When Bush II was president, we were outraged at the wars, abuse of the environment, torture, indefinite detention, etc. Then when Obama continues all of this, people realize that either nothing is real or nothing matters.
Nothing is real, meaning for instance, that if all the best scientists say global warming is real and an incredible danger, yet nothing is done about it. Are these scientists making it all up, is it real?
The newspapers glorify war, billboards show crying women hugging returning, happy soldiers. Yet we know there are thousands of suicides, thousands of Iraqi and Afghanistan women who no longer can hug their returning soldiers, thousands of brain injured requiring years of assisted living, at the young age of 23 or 24, atrocious destruction of the environment in war. Are the newspapers making it all up? Is it really true that we are winning the war in Iraq, when hundreds of Iraqis are still being killed and wounded monthly?
So, obviously torture, assassinations, and other killing is ok, even from an unmanned drone. Life is worth nothing, nothing matters. From this nothingness comes our despair. And everyone is terrified.
Maybe, as I get more desperate, I get more honest. I no longer tell people I am fine, when they ask me, How are you? I sit with my feelings longer and feel the tears and fears. I try to listen to the ‘still, small song inside’ more. So, in these ways, despair has motivated me. And I started back w/ the 2 hour walks.
I think lots of times though, I deal w/ despair with catatonia. Withdraw from pain and feel lost. Then something seems to save me, my cat wants to play, I hear the little wren’s sweet voice outside, a friend calls, I read Robert’s article, I remember Marianne Williamson’s quote,”as we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others”, I smoke a cigarette, I write a response to something I read on the internet. I remember that we all just want to be loved, and I play music. And I remember that today might be my last day. I start to care again.” -L
___
“Since the 1980s, my life’s main focus has been to work against imperialism
and exploitation. Much of that time was spent as a communist organizer;
the rest has been as a political cartoonist. When the US war on Iraq
started in 2003, I went through a period of deep despair for nine months.
I couldn’t believe or accept that the largest protests in the history of
the world had failed to stop the war. I lost hope that change was
possible. It seemed to me that we, the majority of people, were helpless,
completely at the mercy of ruthless exploiters and mass murderers.
I had already long known that the system was exploitative by nature, but
this war, for me, meant the falling away of any illusion or pretense that
those in power were going to be restrained in the slightest bit by
negative public opinion or pressure. They simply didn’t care any more what
anyone thought of them or wanted.
Once the war started, I gave up. I cried a lot. I stopped drawing
cartoons. I asked anyone who would listen how they could go on in the face
of this madness, what could possibly give their lives meaning now that we
had been utterly defeated?
One day I happened to be visiting a community garden with a friend, and I
asked the person who had organized it, “What keeps you going with this
garden when we all know the world is being killed?” He answered, “We’re
animals who evolved to have close relationships with plants. I’m just
doing what’s in my nature.”
I sat in the sun and thought about that, and felt my despair melt away.
His answer didn’t change the grim reality of our situation, but it did
make me think about human nature and how we respond to oppression. Our
nature as living beings is to resist being harmed and to fight for life. I
decided I was going to live in accordance with my nature as a human
animal, and to rejoin the fight to save our planet and destroy the
exploiters. I haven’t wavered since.” -S
___
“Despair has never acted as a source of motivation for me. If anything, personally, despair is an emotion I typically repress because of the overwhelming catastrophes behind it, supporting it. When I allow the entire scope of what is happening in the world into my immediate perception of the world, I feel that I vanish as an individual and am being washed away by some enormous tsunami-like force.
Although I don’t stand in despair at most moments, I can’t stress enough the importance of experiencing that grief at some point in your life. Despair — and the crises supporting it — must be integrated into the minds of peoples, shaping their perception of the world around them. Once you’ve established your own feelings on what you need to do, on what you know to be “right”, I believe you have the right (and in my case, the necessity) to push that despair out of your immediate experience. What motivates me instead is the simple, ethical response to the state of the world that I’ve come, through despair, to internalize.” -C
I am interviewing Robert Jensen and the topic is Despair and collapse. Taking idea came from his article The Anguish of the Age: Emotional Reactions to Collapse and focus to be on the emotion of despair which I believe most if not all activist have to deal with one way or the other.
Derrick Jensen also has talked about despair and moving through it. As he has written and in his monologues, “we are not going to make it to any great new glorious tomorrow are we?” and the understanding that this is a normal feeling.
The premise is that as one goes down the rabbit hole, the awareness that there is something wrong with the way we are living our lives, one starts to realize where it is going, nowhere pleasant. At that point many people either start back peddling, as in they embrace The Call, zeitgeist movement or other right consciousness movements. Or they start looking for side doors, lifestyle choices or making deals, as many environmentalists have just done through agreements with Kimberly-Clark or Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement, or that say things like ”if only we had a green economy with wind and solar power things will be fine.” Attempts are made to void despair, despairing and negative feelings.
As part of this interview I would like to share people’s feelings on Despair.
The question is this: How do you deal with despair? Do you use it motivate your actions? Why or Why not?
If you are interested please send your response to – seymourlyphe@gmail.com
You can provide as much or little about yourself as you like, to provide context for the response.
Responses can be either written or as recordings (preferably in MP3 format and please keep recording under 3 minutes, recording may be edited for length ).
These will be shared with Robert and posted on the Website (names and address removed of course unless you want them shared.)
Thank you for your time and interest
Seymour Lyphe
R.A.G.E. (Radio Against Global Ecocide)
Coming to you from occupied Amiskwacîwâskahikan.
seymourlyphe@gmail.com
And a special Hello to all those who battling Human Supremacists everyday!
Yes the immortal words of Country Joe and the Fish “And its 1,2,3, what are we fighting for?” but instead of a Vietnam protest song I thought it would be a great way to remind ourselves in the environmental community just what are we fighting for.
It is obvious to me that those who signed on to the Canadian Betrayed Forests Action (CBFA) forgot who they were fighting for; the Boreal Forest! Instead they sold it out to chipping and chopping blocks euphemistically called the Market.
It is ecosystems we are defending not industrial human systems, which destroy all they touch.
I think this picture says it best of all. It is those whose voice is not being heard that we must give our support. For their lives are as valuable if not more so to the planet than ours. In my interview with Derrick Jensen he asked what would the boreal forest that in and near the tar sands do if they had opposable thumbs and could move? It is the right of every sentient being to defend itself and it is the right other those love them to defend as well.
Last Valentines I went ot places I love and did most recording so I thought I would do it again. So today’s show it just of those voices I am talking about. As I sat there into the sedge grass with the skullcap, mint, hemp nettle, stinging nettle, hyssop, saskatoons, poplar, cotton woods, red spruce white spruce willows, mosquitoes, bees, flies, deer flies, horse flies, chickadees, flycatchers, red winged blackbirds, crows, ducks and yellow warblers, I am thinking who is going to defend these voices, these lives against industrial civilization?
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I was doing some digging around and found this on the Canadian Government website talking about Forest Products;
Much of it reads like the CBFA as far as the industry is concerned.
“Log quality is declining, but higher prices for specialty products and increased competition for fibre are forcing the industry to maximize value recovery from each log.”
“Volumes per unit area and tree sizes will be smaller, requiring equipment modifications to retain productivity.”
“In light of declining timber availability, governments are encouraging value-added”
“”Green labelling” represents a non-tariff trade barrier that may be of major importance to the Canadian forest industry. This essentially requires the certification that wood products are produced from trees harvested in sustainable managed forests.”
So what is the CBFA really; one big Value-Add. Backed by the people that are suppose to be supporting the forest not selling it off the block. It is also interesting to note that the Government of Canada recognized 14 years ago, that forests were becoming smaller in height and size and that the health of the trees was become worst and worst; noting the loss of soil.
This is what industrial human systems do. This is what human “capital management” does. It destroys period.
Pew told his audience at opening ceremonies for the Great Canadian Oil Sands plant that “No nation can long be secure in this atomic age unless it be amply supplied with petroleum… ”
Then I found this Offsetting Resistance and it starting to make sense. It reminds me of the Art of War;
“All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.
To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.” -Sun Tzu, the Art of War
I have mixed feelings about what I said regarding those that signed the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement (CBFA). Though I feel it is a waste of time trying to humiliate them, I do think it is a mistake to just let them off the hook. So perhaps it is appropriate to react in the manner these ENGOs are reacting to the murder of the planet: a letter-writing campaign (this is both tongue-in-cheek and not). I have written an open letter which you can send to any and/or all of the ENGO organizations that have signed the CBFA. You can download the PDF here and let them know your disapproval.
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almost-there - Stephanie McMillian
Coastal BC First Nations public declaration to oppose Enbridge’s pipeline and tanker project.
First Nations in BC declare opposition against Enbridge’s Northern Gateway Pipeline
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Also go and listen to my interviews with Aric McBay as a number of the issues are highlighted in our talks
“…the popularity of stupid an idea doesn’t make it any less stupid.
…the world is full of very bad ideas that are accepted as conventional wisdom, so watch out for them and come to your own conclusions.” – Dmitry Orlov
Now more than every the resistance needs you!!We have been Betrayed!!
Betrayed by these organizations; the Boreal forest has been betrayed by these organizations:
Canadian Boreal Initiative, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, Canopy, David Suzuki Foundation, ForestEthics, Greenpeace, The Nature Conservancy, Pew Environment Group International Boreal Conservation Campaign, and Ivey Foundation
It is interesting that of the 5 footnotes 4 and 5 are the same.
Here is a sample:
3 For areas proposed as potential protected areas under the CBFA, it is the intent of the signatories that protected areas are areas free of industrial activity.Circumstances may occur where management activity (e.g. timber harvesting) is mandated by government to address forest health considerations. It is recognizedthat ENGOs do not support any industrial activity in protected areas and, as a result, may publicly oppose such management activity mandated by a government. At the same time, it is also recognized that as a result of potential implications of forest health considerations to timber values outside protected areas, FPAC and FPAC Members may publicly support such management activity mandated by a government. Neither ENGO opposition nor FPAC/FPAC Member support for such management activity mandated by a government shall be considered contrary to the spirit and intent of the CBFA.
4 When it comes to dealing with government processes, any principles, criteria, methodologies specified in the CBFA or developed by FPAC, FPAC Members, and ENGOs under the CBFA are intended as input only, are not intended to be determinative, and are intended as a piece of information that can be taken into consideration.
Here is some sample text:
a) Minimizing the effects on the supply and cost of fibre, as measured by all applicable factors including worldwide competitiveness, quantity, cost of harvesting, and transportation and logistics costs;
b) Minimizing the effects on cost competitiveness, production and employment at individual facilities and the indirect impact on suppliers, contractors, service providers and local governments; and
c) The ability to mitigate the effects on fibre availability and cost through other readily available measures through an exploration of current and new public policy measures.
(and acknowledge that a similar set of criteria need to be developed in relation to the interests of other stakeholders):
a) Minimizing the effects on the supply and cost of fibre, as measured by all applicable factors including worldwide competitiveness, quantity, cost of harvesting, and transportation and logistics costs;
b) Minimizing the effects on cost-competitiveness, production and employment at individual facilities and the indirect impact on suppliers, contractors, service providers, and local governments; and
c) The ability to mitigate the effects on fibre availability and cost through other readily available measures through an exploration of current and new public policy measures.
f ) In their work in the marketplace in relation to the development and implementation of procurement policies (this includes both general communications on procurement policies as well as any direct communications or meetings with individual customers regarding the content of procurement policies), ENGOs will:
i) Encourage those developing procurement policies to construct their procurement policy in a manner that does not preclude forest products from the boreal operations of FPAC Members (timing: effective immediately and ongoing thereafter);
ii) When meeting with holders of existing procurement policies in relation to procurement issues, encourage them to modify wording in their procurement policy when policies are acting as a block to procurement of products from the boreal operations of FPAC Members (timing: effective immediately and ongoing thereafter);
iii) Recognize and support forest products from the boreal operations of FPAC Members as ecologically responsible sources of supply (timing:
iv) Where FPAC, an FPAC Member, or ENGO solicits assistance under Goal 6, Section 3, and in a manner consistent with Goal 6, Section 4, FPAC, FPAC Members, and/or ENGOs as appropriate will communicate to specified current and potential customers that progress under the CBFA should be a positive consideration in procurement decisions (timing: effective immediately and ongoing thereafter);
Thank the Makers for these guys!
Fertile Ground Presentation @ The Great Unleashing (1 of 2)
The Oh No Canada version, Second largest Colonial institution (by Land Mass) in the World.
I am your host Seymour Lyphe.
Okay I have been gone for a while and time for a new show.
Let’s talk about colonialism; two of the largest colonial institutions in the world celebrated their anniversaries this past week. Can you guess who they are? As Waziyatawin said in her interview with me one cannot be decolonizing and still get teary eyed over the colonial national flag or anthem.
It is important to see this institutions for what they are; justification for genocide and continual destruction of the natural world.
There are atrocities committed each day under the name of national security, national economies and the people even when the atrocities are committed against the people themselves.
I will be doing a full show on colonialism and its effects on the environment.
So… let’s have a look at what been going on while I have been gone;
1) Well first off is the BP’s disaster in the Gulf. (regarded as the biggest oil disaster US history and with the most lack lustre response.)
It is incredible with all money and technology the US has they have yet stopped the flow of oil.
Also that there has not a more outrage form the general public. Sure everyone thinks it bad but very few understand this is really out right murder of the life in the Gulf. But then is not really not that surprising given how separated we are from that which truly keeps us alive.
http://www.gulfemergencysummit.org/ go help out the summit any way you can. One thing of note much of the demands are human centric. I do not have issue human concern, my concern is the fact humans are not the most important species on the planet. It is something we need to understand if we are going to make real strides in real change for the environment.
If anyone needs proof that Joe Public real does not care it is a perfect example.
Check out the video on the website from Wimp.com. Apparently this has happened before. http://www.wimp.com/oilspills
2) The Tar Sands are nearly back to 2008 levels of production before the time of Bails out and avarice ( hold it! … those time have always been with us; for at least 6000 years). Obviously my bumper stickers about the tar sand ain’t doing much. of course much of this is directed at investors so the rose story about the Tar Sands is design to get more of them specially with the reassurance that the grow will be mostly in-situ and thus less of an environmental impact (Wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more…).
3) The World People’s Conference on Climate Change- The Rights of Mother Earth.
Not answered: How do we deal those who do not recognize or willing ignore the rights of mother earth and all living beings? How do we deal with the Wetiko?
There is a good article on the Energy Bulletin Called Why sociopaths win & why, no, you don’t want to be one of them by Kathy McMahon http://www.energybulletin.net/node/53296 .
4) Oh Yeah speaking of Sociopaths there was the G8- G20.
And just in case there was doubt that Democracy is dying if not Dead already in the Western World check this out http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/2/david_vassey . Rules are always made for the rich and their lackeys.
Also note when it was held. During the World Cup on the final weekend of the group stage when most of the world would not be paying any attention. This too is not a coincidence. As a friend of mine says watch for the reasons things are done. They are reasons that are not always obvious.
5) And most importantly during this time – 3 months
3.3 million hectares of forest were lost (1 hectares =2.47 acres)
6,900 species went extinct
CO2 is at 390 ppm and rising not falling
And roughly 19.5 million people were added to the world population, more than half the population of Canada.
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Protecting nature should be more important than enjoying it
by Derrick Jensen
Published in the July/August 2010 issue of Orion magazine
I’VE ALWAYS kind of hated that quote by Edward Abbey about being a half-hearted fanatic (“Be as I am—a reluctant enthusiast . . . a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic”). Not so much because of the racism and misogyny that characterized some of his work. And not even because of the quote itself. But rather because of how that quote has been too often misused by people who put too much emphasis on the half-hearted, and not nearly enough emphasis on the fanatic.
The fundamental truth of our time is that this culture is killing the planet. We can quibble all we want—and quibble too many do—about whether it is killing the planet or merely causing one of the six or seven greatest mass extinctions in the past several billion years, but no reasonable person can argue that industrial civilization is not grievously injuring life on Earth.
Calling all people in South Florida, if you’re angry about the Gulf oil spill and all its associated crimes, please come to an organizing meeting for a new coalition to fight back against these atrocities and those responsible. I’ll be there — hope you will too!
Stephanie
Mass Organizing Meeting to Stop the Gulf Ecological Disaster
Date: Saturday, July 10, 2010
Time: 10:30am – 12:30pm
Location: St. Maurice Catholic Church (Hospitality Room), 2851 Stirling Road, Dania Beach, Florida
Go or send what support you can, it is important!!
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-Seymour Lyphe
Uncategorized | admin August 26, 2010 | 
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