The Tyranny of the Present "The present moment is a powerful goddess" - Goethe The short term economic and political bias that pervades our society restricts our perception of the relative importance of environmental problems and limits solutions, options and actions, to address these problems. Long term damage caused by ecologically damaging forest and fishery management and by the use of fossil fuels, etc., is not considered as real or as important as maintaining business as usual today. A decade of forest science and policy debate has established that redesigning forests for elusive timber sustainability risks continued forest health and function and therefor risks all forest services and human use opportunity including timber harvesting. Ecosystem-based management, where maintaining ecological health and function is the primary goal not timber sustainability, should now be the basis for forestry in B.C. The Clayoquot Scientific Panel reports, ecosystem management in the U.S. Pacific North-West, and the ecosystem based alternative plan for the Slocan Valley, all recognize the damage done by our present liquidation - conversion forestry. Forestry in B.C. remains 70 million cubic metre plus, old growth eliminating, clearcutting forestry because the NDP government insists that change must not impact industry and related economies by more than 10%, even though forest science has established that present cutting rates are at least three times ecologically sustainable rates. And just as present forestry harvesting levels are a bloated legacy of a fifty year old sustained yield approach to forests, so current salmon fishing harvesting levels and methodologies are still based upon a sustained yield fisheries philosophy from that same post-war era, a fisheries philosophy that is now blamed for collapsed fisheries all over the world. The controversies over the Mifflin Plan and the U.S. - Canada fish war, which are about allocation under this faulted management, totally ignore the sustainability problems of indisciminate ocean fishing seine and gillnet methodologies, and the ecologically sustainable river mouth fishwheel and weir solution. Neither the NDP fisheries strategy nor the U.S. - Canada salmon treaty negotiations even address the fundamental problem of indiscriminate ocean fishing methods, even though fishwheel and weir fisheries could be efficient, profitable, easily regulated and, above all, sustainable. Short term economic interests, and threatened political fallout, do not allow for change to a sustainable salmon fishery, even for debate about what a sustainable salmon fishery could be. Period. As wierd weather impacts fisheries, agriculture and undoubtedly forests, even as every major science association recognizes the reality of global warming, watch this year's belated international initiative to finally start limiting greenhouse gas emmissions falter over this same short term bias. Even though there is more than enough hard evidence that green- house gas emmissions today are causing immense environmental problems, even though global warming is proved beyond reasonable doubt, expect no substantial reduction of fossil fuel use, not even the proposed fossil fuel taxes or trading permits. The reality is that even though informed opinion is clear on changes needed to ensure sustainability in forestry and fisheries or to reduce greenhouse gas emmissions - these changes are not possible in our society as presently structured and governed. Short term economic interest is too powerful - every family that lives cheque to cheque; each overbuilt service or retail industry business one short step from bankruptcy; each multi-national business obsessed with the need for capital investment to survive global competition; every stressed-out union; every cash strapped government, retired investor, or twentysomething trying to begin a career or buy a home; etc. etc. etc. - if the needed change to sustainability means a negative impact on business as usual today, then needed change isn't possible. Period. |