BC’s forestry workers are standing up.
And we’re getting noticed!
Sean Estabrook: Activists appropriating First Nations culture
Many First Nations on Vancouver Island are actively involved in forestry, working to balance the preservation of important areas of our traditional territories with the prosperity and healing that can come with good jobs and productive collaboration with forestry companies.
As a person of coastal First Nations heritage and a long-time logger, I’ve watched as local Nations have bought into tree farm licenses, partnering with forest products companies to harvest in some areas while setting aside other areas of cultural importance. We have opened our own businesses – as falling contractors, trucking companies, even mills.
After a long period of communities having government departments decide what we do with every dollar that comes in, forestry is one of the activities that is letting First Nations generate their own revenues, the use of which they alone control. The impact of this is being seen in areas like culture and language preservation.
New employment opportunities for First Nations members reinforce skills that many of us already have. When people are collecting a paycheque, they are happy and more confident, feel better about themselves and enjoy better health.
We’re seeing forest revenues flowing back to First Nations communities from the provincial government as part of reconciliation, supporting economic development agreements and creating jobs, prosperity, and partnership.
I feel it is necessary to address the activities of protestors blocking logging at several sites on southern Vancouver Island. Non-First Nations activists claiming to speak for Indigenous people are not helping or respecting us. They have mis-appropriated First Nations identities for their own purposes, using symbols and structures from our cultures as props.
I started work as a faller in 1997, rising through the ranks to become operations manager for Vancouver Island with a logging contractor owned by First Nations. We work with a number of larger forestry companies on Vancouver Island, and I can say wholeheartedly that every single company we’ve dealt with has been respectful.
I cannot say the same about protestors – they have not been respectful in our interactions. Activists blockading a logging road to stop fallers from going to work near Port McNeil recently installed a teepee at their site. Then, following a confrontation with those angry loggers during which one referenced the teepee, activists accused those workers of being racist. Their charges continue in social media, becoming more heated and strident as the days pass.
For these activists to say we promote racism is appalling. They were inappropriately using a structure from First Nations cultures as a prop, appropriating our culture as a weapon against the very industry we work in. The structure isn’t even from here, as the coastal First Nations have used longhouses for generations – never teepees.
I don’t condone the actions fellow loggers brought to the confrontation, but I understand their anger. They are workers trying to provide for their families, frustrated by years of pressure campaigns spreading misinformation, demonizing them, and stopping them from earning an honest living. Our frustration is further fueled by long strikes followed by poor markets and the unforeseen havoc that Covid-19 has caused. All of this has put a strain on workers, many of whom will never rebound financially from these circumstances.
If you have never been a faller, you cannot understand the brotherhood that is built from relying on one another to get home safely to our families. Hard work and safety are the components to earning respect in this dangerous profession. Skin color does not factor into whether a faller is accepted as a brother on any crew I have ever worked with.
First Nations are quite capable of managing their own affairs without dubious “help” from activists who seem to think they know better than we do.
Sean Estabrook is a Vancouver Island forest worker and a co-founder of the BC Forestry Alliance.
Carl Sweet: A realistic look at forestry in B.C.
Feb. 5th, 2021 in The Province.
“Could we take a deep breath, please, and take a fair and factual look at forestry in B.C.? Could we recognize and acknowledge that the only crisis is one manufactured by opponents of sustainable forestry? The truth is, logging in this age is highly regulated by government and carefully managed by forest companies.”
Photo: BIV. Vancouver's FYBR uses drones to provide forest inventory assessments.
Forestry’s Economic impact - Forestry worth $7 billion in B.C.: study
Oct. 8th, 2020 in Castanet.
“A supply chain study of forestry in B.C. concludes that it's not just rural sawmill towns that benefit from logging, sawmilling and pulp mills. The study, conducted by iTotem Technologies Ltd. on behalf of the Council of Forest Industries (COFI), identified $7 billion worth of supply chain spending in B.C.”
B.C. Forestry Alliance says more aid for forest industry and communities needed
Feb. 25th, 2020 in the Campbell River Mirror.
“The B.C. Forestry Alliance (BCFA) is calling on the provincial government to protect the current harvestable land base and establish a “working forest” that will sustain the forest industry now and into the future.
Log truck convoy arrives in Vancouver, driving home message about state of B.C. forest industry
Sept. 25th, 2019 in News 1130.
“Honking horns and demanding action — logging truck drivers have gathered outside the Vancouver Convention Centre to demand help for B.C.’s forest industry.”
‘They’re hearing us now’: Municipal leaders leave UBCM convention to cheer on rallying loggers
Sept. 25th 2019 in the Williams Lake Tribune.
”Convoys of logging trucks from across the province left their homes in rural B.C. in the dark Wednesday morning, some as early as 2 a.m., to travel together to reach their Vancouver destination.”