Newfoundland River Could Be 'Clayoquot East'ST. JOHN'S, Newfoundland (Reuters) - The Main River in the eastern province of Newfoundland is about as a far as one can get in Canada from British Columbia's Clayoquot Sound on the West Coast, where bitter protests against clear-cutting of old-growth forests erupted a decade ago.
But new concerns over a paper company's plans to log 200- and 300-year-old balsam fir trees along the Main threaten to turn one of Newfoundland's last wilderness rivers into Clayoquot East.
The battle lines are already drawn, with Corner Brook Pulp and Paper Co. and a promise of continued employment for several hundred workers pitted against a coalition of scientists, environmentalists and the head of one of Canada's world heritage sites, Gros Morne National Park.
People who have canoed or kayaked on the Main on Newfoundland's rugged Northern Peninsula say it is one of the most beautiful rivers in Canada, with its rapids and deep pools that are home to Atlantic salmon.Nominated in 1991 as a Canadian heritage river, it is surrounded by an untouched old-growth boreal forest, which scientists say is rare if not unique in North America -- and which Corner Brook Pulp and Paper wants to clear-cut.
'Captain Canada' Caught In The Middle
Caught in the middle of the dispute is Newfoundland Premier Brian Tobin and his reputation as a conservationist. Tobin gained worldwide fame in 1995 when, as Canada's federal fisheries minister, he stared down the Spanish deep sea fishing fleet on the issue of overfishing on the Grand Banks off Newfoundland and was dubbed ``Captain Canada'' for his efforts.
Previous provincial governments have given the company permission to log in the Main River watershed, but its application to cut an additional 4.2 million cubic feet (120,000 cubic meters) of timber, almost to the riverbank, has triggered an outpouring of opposition.
``If you are going to hold something back, then this is the one,'' one government scientist said.
The company says the price of holding back is shutting down a paper machine and laying off workers at its mill in the town of Corner Brook, which processes the equivalent of up to 33.5 million square feet (950,000 cubic meters) of timber a year. Newfoundland's forests can no longer meet that demand.
Company forest management superintendent George Van Dusen says there is no alternative to harvesting in the Main River watershed. To keep the mill operating at maximum levels, the firm already imports recycled fiber from the U.S. East Coast.
Newfoundland's other two mills, operated by Abitibi-Consolidated Inc. in Stephenville and Grand Falls, face similar shortages of raw material. Abitibi imports wood from the other Atlantic provinces.
Oliver Langdon, Newfoundland's minister of labor and environment, is feeling the heat. ``There is more public concern about this than anything else I've experienced in the last 10 years,'' his spokesman Sean Kelly said.
Langdon told the company this month he wanted more information about its application, and when he got it he would give the public 30 days to respond, then make his decision.
Jobs Versus Trees
The problem for the company -- and a government that rarely says ``no'' to paper companies -- is that the opposition continues to grow.
Questioned in the legislature, Premier Tobin said there was a ``fiber gap'' in the Newfoundland forest industry and several hundred jobs will be lost if a paper machine is shut down. A cutback or closure of the Corner Brook mill could devastate the economy of the west coast of Newfoundland, the province that has long suffered from Canada's highest unemployment rate.
But if Tobin expected business groups on the Northern Peninsula to rally around his call for ``jobs,'' he was mistaken. Loggers, many of whom have lost jobs to mechanical harvesters, have been surprisingly silent on the issue rather than backing the company's plan, while tourist operators in the region contend there is more sustainable employment from protecting the Main River watershed than from harvesting its trees.
One of the most serious challenges has come from the superintendent of Gros Morne National Park, which 130,000 people visit annually to see its towering fiords.
The Main River watershed is just outside the park's eastern boundary and Chip Bird of the Parks Canada agency wrote to Langdon saying, ``Implementation of the harvesting plan as proposed would likely pose a serious threat to the ecological integrity of the national park.''
Corner Brook Pulp and Paper has already clear-cut on the Upper Humber River watershed right up to the southern border of the park. If the Main proposal goes ahead, critics say, Gros Morne will be like ``an island in a sea of clear-cut land.''
Wildlife Oasis
Ironically, the Main River watershed was included in initial plans for the park, but when the boundaries were finally set in 1975 the stands of some of the oldest balsam fir in Canada were left out and left unprotected.
People who want to save the old-growth forest make several arguments. Laura Jackson, head of the provincial Protected Areas Association, calls the Main a ``wildlife oasis,'' home to such threatened species as woodland caribou and pine marten.
When the Main was nominated to be a heritage river by the province in 1991, it was described as providing a ``critical habitat for a variety of wildlife and vegetation in an area of superb natural beauty.''
Nine years later, the government has still not filed the management plan needed to secure the permanent heritage river designation that would ensure its protection.
Although Langdon has to sign off on the Corner Brook logging application, the final decision is expected to rest with his boss, Tobin, whose public battle against Spain's fishing fleet took him to the United Nations in New York and showed the world his conservationist stripe.
Now environmentalists are asking him to be a conservationist at home. It is a hard choice for a politician who was elected with a mandate to create jobs.