Fredericton – The Conservation Council of New Brunswick is joining with transparency and conservation groups across the Maritimes to demand an end to secretive giveaways of our natural resources following the release of the provincial government’s forest plan last week.
“The province says the new forest plan is about jobs and ‘more boots in the woods’ but it’s not. It’s about more profits filling J.D. Irving’s pockets by giving them access to the little that is left of our forest. There are no guarantees that J.D. Irving will create the number of jobs that they say they will in exchange for a guaranteed access to Crown timber,” says Tracy Glynn, Forest Campaign Director at the Conservation Council of New Brunswick.
Donald Bowser is an expert on transparency and accountability in the extractive resource sector. He has recently worked in South Sudan and Afghanistan. Bowser has returned to his native New Brunswick and says he believes his home province is more secretive about their resource extraction deals than places in the developing world known for their corruption and corporate capture.
“It’s one grand giveaway of our forest resources just before the election. With the selling off the Crown land forests and reducing the royalties for oil and shale gas, essentially the New Brunswick
government is shutting the door on any future economic viability for New Brunswick,” says Bowser, President of Integrity Management, Promoting Transparency and Accountability.
Bowser also noted that “without transparency in its extractives industries, New Brunswick places itself as less accountable than Afghanistan, Azerbaijan or Nigeria and outside the new international norms for mandatory reporting of all payments in oil/gas, mining and forestry.”
The new forest plan promises to give away 20% more wood from New Brunswick’s public lands each year. “The plan contains vague language about the increased timber supply coming from steep slopes and rocky areas or low volume harvest sites. Areas previously managed to provide habitat for wildlife will be clearcut. Our scientists are saying that we will see declines in wildlife populations if this forest plan is implemented,” says Glynn.
“I am concerned that the provincial government is entering into a contract where we either are forced to deliver the wood or pay compensation to the industry for breaking the contract. Managing solely for the fibre interests of J.D. Irving is taking us further down the path of disaster. We are denying ourselves a resilient economy and meaningful employment for our people by failing to invest in value-added forest products, eco-tourism, recreation and outfitting and other more sustainable options for our forest and workers,” argues Glynn.