Industrial Resource Extraction Research Articles

Improving Human Wellbeing and Ecosystem Health on BC’s Coast: The Challenge Posed by Historic Resource Extraction

Haida Gwaii and the Great Bear Rainforest (GBR) comprise the world’s largest intact coastal temperate rainforest. British Columbia has encouraged industrial logging of this region. As a result, ecological values have been eroded and natural capital has been drawn down. The logging industry has provided few local economic benefits. Colonization and industrial resource extraction have contributed to high levels of social distress in First Nations communities. Since 2001, logging companies, environmental organizations, and the provincial and First Nations governments have collaborated in developing an Ecosystem Based Management (EBM) approach. EBM is intended to maintain ecosystem integrity and improve human wellbeing. In 2006, the province began implementing EBM by setting aside one third of the GBR’s land base from logging and by proposing transitional EBM requirements. This paper draws on stumpage and forest cover data to analyze natural capital depletion. The analysis indicates that much of the GBR’s natural capital, as represented by timber, has been depleted. Industrial logging was already on the decline before the decision was taken to implement an EBM approach. Expectations for improved socio-economic outcomes under EBM may not be realistic given the constraints implied by past logging. If EBM performance is measured using conventional economic indicators without accounting for past depletion, it risks being found to have failed the goal of improving human wellbeing. This would create pressure to relax EBM provisions to allow more logging, an outcome that would fail both ecosystems and human communities in the long term. If much reduced extraction levels are to support local human wellbeing, a greater share of economic benefits must be retained locally.

Indigenous Peoples, Resource Extraction and Sustainable Development: An Ethical Approach

Resource extraction companies worldwide are involved with Indigenous peoples. Historically these interactions have been antagonistic, yet there is a growing public expectation for improved ethical performance of resource industries to engage with Indigenous peoples. (Crawley and Sinclair, Journal of Business Ethics 45, 361-373 (2003)) proposed an ethical model for human resource practices with Indigenous peoples in Australian mining companies. This paper expands on this work by re-framing the discussion within the context of sustainable develop- ment, extending it to Canada, and generalizing to other resource industries. We argue that it is unethical to sacrifice the viability of Indigenous cultures for industrial resource extraction; it is ethical to engage with indigenous peoples in a manner consistent with their wishes and needs as they perceive them. We apply these ideas to a case study in the coastal temperate rainforest of Clayoquot Sound, British Columbia, Canada. In this case a scientific panel comprised of Nuu-Chah-Nulth elders, forest scientists and manage- ment professionals, achieved full consensus on developing sustainable forest practice standards by drawing equally on Indigenous traditional ecological knowledge and Western science in the context of one of the most heated and pro- tracted environmental conflicts in Canadian history. The resulting sustainable forest practice standards were later adopted by leading forestry firms operating on the coast. Our analysis of this scientific panel's success provides the basis for advancing an ethical approach to sustainable development with Indigenous peoples. This ethical ap- proach is applicable to companies working in natural re- source industries where the territories of Indigenous peoples are involved.

Out of the Woods: Tsimshian Women and Forestry Work

T story of work on the west coast of Canada has traditionally been one of rugged (white) men in fish-boats, mines and forests. The experiences of Aboriginal peoples as laborers and producers in resource industries have rarely been the focus of mainstream historical accounts (Knight 1996: 5). While such gaps in historical and ethographic records are being tackled by contemporary scholars, many of the less conspicuous stories of resource work in British Columbia remain untold. Recent research has tended to focus on Native men's experiences as fishers (Menzies 1992, Stevens 1992) and on Native women's wage labor in salmon canneries (Newell 1993, Muszynski 1992). Aboriginal women's long and complex history of involvement with the forest industry in British Columbia remains largely unexplored. In this article we will discuss some of the key social and economic processes at work during the colonization and industrialization of western Canada that have affected Aboriginal women's involvement in the forestry industry. The experiences of women of the Tsimshian Nation on the north coast of British Columbia offer a case study that spans over a century and a half of involvement in forestry work. In this case study we describe an alternative, gendered history of forestry and also highlight the forces working to dispossess Aboriginal peoples and, specifically, to disadvantage Aboriginal women. Tsimshian women's early involvement as laborers and producers, and their subsequent exclusion from both wage work and independent harvesting, illuminates the way that colonialism and capitalism have cooperated in the economic marginalization of Aboriginal women. Drawing from archival sources and life history interviews, Tsimshian women's involvement with commercial forestry is traced from the establishment of a Hudson Bay trading post in Tsimshian territory in 1834 until the present time. The exclusion of women from forestry, coincident with the shift from an Aboriginal economy to industrial resource extraction, will be related to the social and economic changes encouraged by church and state and dictated by the needs of capital. The shifting position of Aboriginal women in the resource

Dynamics of a grizzly bear population during a period of industrial resource extraction. I. Density and age–sex composition

The characteristics of a grizzly bear (Ursus arctos) population in southeastern British Columbia were studied between 1979 and 1986, a period of timber harvest, gas exploration, and outdoor recreation, including grizzly hunting. I investigated the hypothesis that collectively these activities were detrimental to the grizzly population. I predicted a low density of bears compared with other interior populations and (or) a negative rate of increase. The sex ratio of cubs and yearlings captured was 50:50 and they represented 21.5 and 17.5% of the population, respectively. Although more adult males than adult females were captured, I estimated that there were more adult females than males in the population. I used two methods of population estimation and assumed saturation trapping : one method was based on home range characteristics and the other on the proportion of aerial locations in the study area. The average estimated bear density was 6.4/100 km2, which was high for an interior population, and increased from approximately 5.7/100 km2 in 1981 to 8.0/100 km2 in 1986, for an average annual observed rate of increase of r = 0.07.

Dynamics of a grizzly bear population during a period of industrial resource extraction. II. Mortality rates and causes of death

The causes and rates of grizzly bear (Ursus arctos) mortality in a radio-marked population in southeastern British Columbia were studied for 9 years during a period of timber harvest, gas exploration, and outdoor recreation, including grizzly hunting. During 110 bear-years of radio tracking 55 radio-collared grizzly bears and their dependent offspring, one bear with a functioning radio collar died from natural causes and eight others from human intervention; in addition, four dependent offspring were thought to have died. Excluding trap-related mortalities, the best estimate for the annual survival rates were as follows: 0.82 for cubs, 0.88 for yearlings, 0.93 for subadults, and 0.93 for adults. Of the eight bears killed by human intervention, two were killed by legal harvest, five by illegal harvest (one of these in a trap), and one was killed in a trap by another bear. No mortalities were directly attributable to industrial activities. Resource extraction industries do contribute to grizzly bear mortality indirectly through the construction of roads, which provide easy access to hunters, poachers, and settlers. Road access planning and postoperational control of vehicles are recommended management actions.

Dynamics of a grizzly bear population during a period of industrial resource extraction. III. Natality and rate of increase

Reproductive parameters and rate of increase were estimated for a grizzly bear (Ursus arctos) population in southeastern British Columbia during a period of timber harvest and gas exploration, 1979–1987.I hypothesized that these activities would be detrimental to the population and predicted a negative rate of increase. There was an average of 2.26 cubs in 31 litters. The average of nine interbirth intervals was 2.67 years, and the average age at which five females produced their first litter was 6 years. The population's annual reproductive rate calculated by three methods averaged 0.86 cubs per adult female. By iteration of the Lotka equation, the best estimate of the exponential rate of increase was 0.081. Industrial activities did not appear to have a significant detrimental effect on the grizzly bear population in the Flathead Valley during the period of study but the roads built provided easy access for hunters and poachers.

South China Sea: Present and potential coastal area resource use conflicts

Abstract Coastal areas of the South China Sea exhibit broad geomorphological, climatic, biological and physical oceanographic similarities. Conflicts between coastal area resource uses in this physical marine region are becoming apparent. These conflicts result from a combination of increasing coastal area population concentration and traditional dependence on the coastal area for livelihood, food, trade and waste disposal, recently supplemented by recreational, industrial and non-renewable resource extraction activities. This paper reviews the general present status of major competing coastal area resource uses and their conflicts, and delineates present and potential geographic areas of concern. Extractive industries, industrial water use, and estuarine discharge conflict with fisheries, tourism/recreation, and human health. Geographic areas of concern include the region's major coastal urban concentrations, the Malacca Straits, the Bight of Bangkok and the greater Gulf of Tailand. To ameliorate conflict resolution, governmental philosophies geared to Western models of growth development should also incorporate the concept of planned growth, i.e., optimum allocation of coastal area resource use designed to minimize conflict, so recently, and thus painfully, adopted in the West.