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THE WORLD BANK’S TSUNAMI NEW FEATURE WILD Times by Joe Foy March/April 2005 Newstand Price $3.50 Environmental News from BC and the World BC Votes: What STV Means For You How to LIVE with Treated Lumber Principles of Sustainable 7 Economics Vol 15 No 2 ISSN 1188-360X Costa Rica’s Successful Ecotourism FROM THE EDITOR Watershed Beating the Messenger It’s the fashion, these days, to blame environmentalists for the Sentinel world’s ills. The popular online magazine Grist spearheaded the Editor Delores Broten latest round of green-bashing with a mantra on the sins of the Big Publisher Watershed Sentinel Green groups lobbying in Washington DC. A lot of organizations Educational Society Associate Editor Don Malcolm made sure we all got the message: “You guys are failures and you’re Cover and Graphic Design Ester Strijbos not nice people either.” Advertising Kathy Smail Special Thanks to Horizon Publications, The CanWest media gleefully joined the chorus, featuring arguments Hugh McNab, Maggie Paquet, Jim which claimed environmentalists lacked compassion, and then, in Cooperman, Julie Williams, Joan Sell, a 1-2, the infamous Patrick Moore, dissing an entire movement Norberto Rodriguez dela Vega, Francis Toms, Gloria Jorg, Susan Yates, Peter for being “unscientific.” (The Patrick thinks a “scientific” position Ronald, Clara Broten, Kathy Smail, the would support nuclear power as clean energy, but that’s another writers, advertisers, distributors, and all story!) who send information, photos and ideas. This magazine would not happen without The semi-hysterical blaming continues: “It’s your fault species are you. going extinct. It’s your fault there’s no solution to global warming. Print Run 5,000 Circulation est. 10,000 It’s your fault we won’t change and the sky’s not falling anyway.” Published five times per year Subscriptions $20 one year, Oh really? Truth is, it’s all coming down like a slow motion crash $30 two years Canada, $26 US one year and beating the messenger just isn’t going to make any difference. Distribution by newsstand sale through In a rational world, instead of one which confuses god and greed, the Disticor (Toronto), by subscription, and to members of Friends of Cortes Island and message about the need to change our destructive ways would hit Reach for Unbleached! Free at Vancouver thoughtful ears. In a spiritual world, it would be welcomed as a step Island and Vancouver area libraries and to enlightenment. We live in neither, just the slow mo crumble as a community centres, in BC colleges and universities, and to environmental groups. failed civilization crashes down. Member British Columbia Association Yet, “the dark night of the soul” does end. It is spring now, and of Magazine Publishers Canadian Magazine Publishers’ Association everywhere new shoots and buds emerge. All of us can steadfastly ISSN 1188-360X nurture these hopes for the future, and ponder the growth of the next For photocopy reproduction rights, contact cycle. CANCOPY, 6 Adelaide St. E., Ste. 900, Delores Broten, Whaletown BC, March 2005 Toronto, Ontario M5C 1H6 The Internet Bird gets the Word! Be the first on your block with the new issue of the Watershed Sentinel - Subscribers only can get an electronic copy at the same time as we go to press. That‛s FAST! Email [email protected] Publication Mail Canada Post Agreement PM 40012720 When you want your message to reach thousands Return Undeliverable Canadian Addresses to: Watershed Sentinel of concerned and active readers, please contact Box 39, Whaletown, BC, Canada V0P 1Z0 us for our rate sheet and media kit, at Ph&Fax: 250 935-6992 Email [email protected] [email protected] or phone our office http://www.watershedsentinel.ca at 1-877-421-6688. Watershed Forests & the Land More Subsidies 4 for logging companies Sentinel Bottom Line on Trade Panels 5 It’s the Parks, Stupid 23 Printed on 100% post-consumer recycled process chlorine-free Privatising parks with lodges newsprint, with vegetable inks Oceans Regulating the Offshore 8 o matter where on Earth we In Atlantic Canada, oil & gas rules Nlive, we are all residents of a watershed. Throughout history clans, Toxics tribes and all organized groups have endeavoured to protect their home Chromated Copper Arsenate (CCA) 12 watershed or territory. Sentinels were How to Live with Treated Lumber stationed throughout the highlands of a watershed to herald the coming Society & Technology of friends or of threats in the form of BC Votes 6 encroachment, floods, fire or hostile What STV Means for You armies. Tikal Magic 14 Threats to our watersheds exist to this Costa Rica’s Ecotourism day whether they come from careless Tsunami, Mangroves, & Economy 17 individuals or insensitive corporations. The World Bank & shrimp farms The Watershed Sentinel keeps watch and informs. Election Resources 23 7 Principles 24 of life-enhancing economics Much of our social change energy is spent campaigning against the smoke rather than clearly alerting people to the News and Regular fact that their house is on fire. Post-issue activism will not Letters 2, 10 replace single-issue politics — the people and ecosystems News Briefs 3, 5, 11 “closest to the smoke need relief now — but rather, it will strengthen Toxics Ink 9 ongoing struggles by providing a larger social-change context… We must find ways to articulate the connections between all the Friends of Cortes Island 21 Home, Sweet Home “issues” by revealing the pathological nature of the system. To do so we must rise to the challenge of going beyond (rather than aban- Wild Times 22 New column by Joe Foy doning) single-issue politics. We have to learn to talk about values, deepen our analysis, and direct more resources into creating politi- MillWatch 28 Making an issue of tissue cal space for a truly transformative arena of social change.” Cover Photo: Editor Delores Broten meets BC Premier — Patrick Reinsborough,”Decolonizing The Revolutionary Imagination: Values Crisis, the Gordon Campbell Politics of Reality, and Why There’s Going to Be a Common-Sense Revolution in This Generation,” originally appeared in David Solnit (editor), Globalize Liberation (San Francisco: City Lights Book, Correction: Photos on page 23 of “Watershed Down,” 2004), pgs. 161-211. From Rachel’s Environment & Health News #808 January-February 2005 represent (Top) Malloch Logging on Mt Baldy and (Bottom) Timberwest - southeast. Subscription Forms are on the back The Watershed Sentinel will be at the cover. Stay Connected - Subscribe. BC Book & Magazine Fair, Fernwood Thank you! Community Centre, 1923 Fernwood, Victoria, 1-5, Saturday April 23rd. Hope to see you there! LETTERS From Our Dear Readers Tokyo Weather Report The recent unusually severe weather isn’t limited to The Watershed Sentinel welcomes letters but reserves the Canada. I spent 8 weeks in Japan recently and witnessed right to edit for brevity, clarity, legality, and taste. Anonymous freakish weather events that left me very frightened. letters will not be published. Send your musings and your mis- I was in Tokyo on the first weekend of December. sives to: Watershed Sentinel, Box 39, Whaletown, BC V0P 1Z0 Saturday was cold and overcast and the rain began to fall [email protected] just around 5 pm. Gradually it became a violent storm. Sometime during the depths of the night, torrents of rain dumped down while the wind picked up until it reached Unfortunately, with the beauty seems to come unplanned typhoon strength. I was staying with a friend who lives in growth and a lack of regard for the value of clean water. I a small wooden apartment building. The old building rat- wish you the best in protecting your beautiful part of the tled and creaked and the wind whistled through while we world. tried to sleep. In the morning trains and other traffic were Richard Jennings, Earthwrights Designs, disrupted by fallen trees and debris. Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. The sun came out and the winds died down around The Watershed Sentinel two part series on rain- 10 am. By noon it was so hot that people were taking off water harvesting and treatment is now available at their jackets, some were even wearing tank-tops — in De- www.watershedsentinel.ca as a free pdf download. cember in Tokyo! You can ask any Japanese — this kind of weather is totally abnormal. It should be cold, crisp and Living the Lifestyle clear. The wind should come from the Asian mainland, not I just discovered your magazine - what a breath of from the south seas. fresh air. I’m a handicapped person, handicapped by pollu- Japan also had a very severe typhoon season this past tion in the food chain. year. While I was there an unusually late and exception- I spend a lot of my time at home and I don’t have a ally severe typhoon hit. Dykes and breakwaters were lot of reading material that really holds my interest. I’m breached and people were killed in landslides. A huge sail- watching the progression of environmental damage in ing ship was driven onto the rocks, a tour bus full of senior all areas but I too have specialized in issues concerning citizens was completely covered with flood water. Homes the changes affecting all aspects of global water. Global and businesses were destroyed, inventories and machinery warming is a top priority issue. were turned into useless garbage. Crops of winter vegeta- I vote with Green Money! With every purchase I bles were beaten down and then the price of vegetables make, I try to support businesses that care about the envi- doubled. ronment. Something is really wrong and what else could it be I practise on a daily basis an environmental lifestyle but global warming? I’m really afraid that our society - my son is the only other person I know who is doing this won’t have the intelligence to deal with this problem be- also.