Wilderness Or Working Forest? British Columbia Forest Policy Debate in the Vancouver Sun, 199 1-2003
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Wilderness or Working Forest? British Columbia Forest Policy Debate in the Vancouver Sun, 199 1-2003 Mark Christopher John Stoddart B.A., Athabasca University, 2002 A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS in the Department of Sociology O Mark C.J. Stoddart, 2004 University of Victoria All rights reserved. This thesis may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without the permission of the author. Supervisor: Dr. W.K. Carroll ABSTRACT In this thesis, I use discourse analysis as a tool for examining four distinct environmental policy debates, as they have been represented in the Vancouver Sun. I examine the Protected Areas Strategy and the Forest Practices Code, which were introduced by the New Democratic Party government (199 1-2001). I also examine the Working Forest and the Results-based Forest Practices Code, which were introduced by the Liberal government (200 1-present). Drawing on Gramscian and Foucauldian theory, I argue that the network of powerlknowledge constructed by the Vancouver Sun limits debate over environmental policy to the hegemonic alternatives of "ecomanagerialism" and "eco-capitalism." This network of power/knowledge is constructed from three major organizational standpoints: government, industry and environmentalists. The voices of First Nations and labour are marginalized from the media construction of reality, as are environmental discourses that present a radical alternative to the ecological and social justice impacts of the "treadmill of production." TABLE OF CONTENTS .. Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ..n ... Table of Contents.. ................................................................................................................ .nl List of Tables .........................................................................................................................iv Acknowledgements.. ..............................................................................................................v Dedication ..............................................................................................................................vi Chapter I: Introduction......................................................................................................... .1 Chapter 11: Context ...............................................................................................................17 Chapter 111: Theoretical Orientation .....................................................................................46 Chapter IV: Methodology .....................................................................................................74 Chapter V: Results ................................................................................................................100 Chapter VI: Discussion & Conclusions ................................................................................154 Bibliography .........................................................................................................................-173 Appendix I: Articles from the Vancouver Sun .....................................................................I91 Appendix 11: Content Analysis .............................................................................................199 LIST OF TABLES Table 1: News Sources by Organizational Affiliation ..........................................................204 Table 2: News Sources by Organizational Affiliation. All Data Sets................................... 206 Table 3: News Source Representation by Gender ................................................................207 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge the invaluable assistance of my thesis supervisor and committee: Dr. William K. Carroll, Dr. Martha McMahon, Dr. Jeremy Wilson and Dr. Michael M'Gonigle. In addition, I would like to thank Dr. R. Alan Hedley, Dr. Alison Thomas and Dr. Susan Boyd for their input during the development of this project. Finally, my peers and classmates at the University of Victoria provided valuable feedback throughout the research process. DEDICATION This work is dedicated to Mary Gertrude Euphemia Stoddart (191 1-2003), in memoriam. She was a strong spirit. We were lucky to have her for so long. CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION If the consciousness of men [sic] does not determine their existence, neither does their material existence determine their consciousness. Between consciousness and existence stand communications . (Mills 1951,332-333). Framing the Problem The news media are an integral part of our communication system. By repeatedly telling us who and what are important to think about, the media help construct our perceptions of the social world beyond the borders of our daily lives (Tuchman 1978). As such, the media are an important force in the creation and maintenance of hegemony, the broad consent of the public for systems of political and economic domination and subordination (Gramsci 1971 ; Gitlin 1980). Through the news, speakers from government, industry and other "important" news sources work to structure the social world beyond our daily experience. This textual reality consistently privileges a selective group of media sources, while marginalizing countless other voices fiom public debate. As such, news "offers a perpetual articulation of how society is socially stratified in terms of possession and use of knowledge" (Ericson, Baranek & Chan 1989,3). In short, a sociological analysis of the news media is important because the discursive reality created by the news is linked both to the maintenance of hegemony and to struggles to transform the political, ideological and economic structures of society (Fairclough & Wodak 1997). As Gaye Tuchman writes, "It seems trite to observe that knowledge is power. Yet that rationalist dictum is both a tenet of our society and a ruling premise of newswork" (Tuchman 1978,2 15). The media have been central to the social construction of environmental conflict and environmental policy debate. Through the media activism of environmentalists, deforestation, global warming, and recycling have become social problems that cannot be ignored by the state or capital (Hannigan 1995). The media construction of environmental conflict can serve to bring environmental problems and conflict to public attention, or to enlarge the ideological impact of environmental groups. Simultaneously, the media can construct a textual reality that constrains the political impact of the environmental movement. If we wish to understand how environmentalism, environmental conflict, or environmental policy are constructed and disputed, then the news media should be treated as a key site for sociological research. In the case of British Columbia, forestry conflict has been a lynch-pin of the environmental movement. As George Hoberg writes: Forests are an essential part of the heritage and identity of British Columbians, and forest policy has long been central to BC politics. In the past several decades, forest policy has become increasingly controversial, and in the early 1990s the issue erupted into one of the most dominant concerns of government (Hoberg 1996,272). Beginning from the centrality of forestry conflict, I have examined how the Vancouver -Sun has framed parks and forestry legislation, under both the present Liberal government (200 1-present) and the previous NDP government (199 1-200 1). In 199 1, the NDP introduced their "Protected Areas Strategy," whereby twelve per cent of the provincial land-base was protected as parkland. During their time in power, the NDP also introduced the Forest Practices Code, which increased the regulation of logging on crown land. While there are ecological critiques of both of these policies, they did place meaningful restrictions on the power of resource corporations over provincial forestry resources(M'Gonig1e 2000; Wilson 2001 ;Hoberg 200 1b). By contrast, the Liberal Party has introduced a "results-based" Forest Practices Code, which has created more space for "self-monitoring" by the forest industry. The Liberal government has also introduced plans for "Working Forest" legislation. In a sense, this legislation is the inverse of the Protected Areas Strategy. When implemented, the Working Forest will define forestry as the primary use of all forested Crown land not currently in parks or other protected areas. Originally, the Liberals had planned to initiate the Working Forest in early 2003. However, it was not until October 2003 that the government passed Bill 46, which enables cabinet to bring the Working Forest into law. The Western Canada Wilderness Committee predicts that the Working Forest will not actually be legislated until June 2004 (Western Canada Wilderness Committee 2003a). This legislation has severe implications for the status of Crown land in British Columbia. According to the Western Canada Wilderness Committee, the Working Forest legislation makes resource extraction the priority use of crown land and precludes the possibility of creating new protected areas, or protecting watersheds for domestic water use (Western Canada Wilderness Committee 2003b). Between the two different policy initiatives, the Liberal government appears to be working towards re-inscribing the control of forestry capital over forest resources. Overview of the Method In attempting a paired case study of four distinct