Newfoundland premier holds key to resolving dispute over old-growth forest
Copyright © 2000, Canoe Limited Partnership
September 11, 2000
ST. JOHN'S, Nfld. (CP) -- Brian Tobin's reputation as a conservationist, earned when he fought an international battle to end foreign overfishing in the mid-1990s, will soon be put to the test.
On Monday, a coalition of scientists and environmentalists presented the Newfoundland premier with a plan to protect a unique, 7,000-year-old forest from the ravages of clear cutting.
The fate of western Newfoundland's Main River watershed, which has been likened to British Columbia's lush Clayoquot Sound, is now in Tobin's hands.
But the premier isn't expected to jump to the rescue the way he did in 1995 when, as federal fisheries minister, he cast himself as an ecological warrior during the so-called Turbot War with Spain.
This time, the bad guys aren't so easy to spot.
Corner Brook Pulp and Paper Ltd., which started clear cutting in the area last June, employs 1,700 in a region where the jobless rate is hovering around 20 per cent.
Company managers have warned of layoffs if they're prevented from harvesting along the Main River, a wild waterway that boasts some of the best salmon fishing in the world.
The premier has acknowledged the dilemma.
"I do have a well-earned reputation as a conservationist," he said in a recent interview. "But I also have a responsibility to look at the availability of wood fibre ... to keep three pulp and paper mills going in a province that still has the highest unemployment in Canada."
However, members of the Main River Coalition, a group that includes environmentalists, scientists, outfitters and tour operators, say they have a solution.
They released a proposal Monday that would allow for cutting in 46 per cent of the 1,000-square-kilometre watershed.
Their plan calls for a number of woodland corridors and buffer zones that would help preserve the area's old-growth forest, which is home to the Newfoundland pine marten -- an endangered species.
"This compromise, as we've designed it, is a bare minimum," said Laura Jackson, executive director of Newfoundland's Protected Areas Association.
But Corner Brook Pulp and Paper, owned by Montreal-based Kruger Inc., has already agreed to a tentative plan that would give it access to about 76 per cent of the pristine area.
A company spokesman said Monday it was too early to predict how the newsprint maker would respond to the environmental group's proposal.
Tobin, who was in Ottawa talking about health-care funding, couldn't be reached for comment.
The Newfoundland government has come under intense pressure to protect the watershed. The province's environment minister has said the Main River issue has generated more mail than his department has ever seen.
It's not hard to see why.
The headwaters of the 60-kilometre long river are adjacent to the eastern boundary of Gros Morne National Park, a natural gem that has become Newfoundland's most popular tourist spot, next to St. John's.
"Corner Brook Pulp and Paper must recognize the need of the tourism industry to maintain the ecological integrity of ... Gros Morne National Park," said Roger Jamieson, head of Hospitality Newfoundland and Labrador.
"The reality is, Gros Morne cannot survive as an isolated island of wilderness."