Staff
Resolute Forest Products Inc. said it is disappointed negotiations under the auspices of the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement have broken down, but will remain committed to sustainable forestry.
After three years of collaborative efforts, parties were unable to reach mutual agreement on a workable plan to jointly further conservation efforts while balancing environmental, social, and economic considerations in the Canadian boreal forest.
“We put forward a number of different proposals for the ENGOs [environmental non-governmental organizations] to consider, and after three years of negotiations, what it amounted to was what they were looking for was wholesale land withdrawal,” Seth Kursman, vice-president of Corporate Communications, Sustainability and Government Affairs for Resolute Forest Products, said in an interview yesterday.
“It would have cancelled the Ignace restart,” he noted. “It would have cancelled the Atikokan project.
“It would have put in peril the Fort Frances mill.
“And they were clearly not willing to balance the environmental, the social, and the economic aspects,” Kursman added.
“We stood firm as a company and said, ‘These draconian measures would impact thousands of people’s lives. And if that kind of thing is going to happen, then First Nations, mayors, unions, others need to have a seat at the table,’” Kursman stressed.
“We, as a company, cannot unilaterally sign off on such measures, and so the negotiations broke down.”
Kursman noted that what the company offered during CBFA negotiations was “not insignificant.”
“But we were not willing to compromise the social and economic aspects,” he reiterated, adding northern communities already have been hit hard in the past decade due to market and economic challenges.
When ENGOs believe that more land should be set aside, beyond the 500,000 additional acres that Resolute was willing to support, the company had no choice but to break off talks.
“We’d announced a project with First Nations in Atikokan and they said, ‘Well, you’ll have to cancel it,’” noted Kursman.
“We said, ‘We have a restart of a $50-million plant in Ignace, they said, ‘Well, it’s not operating today, so what’s the difference?’
“That’s the kind of the thing we were dealing with,”
Kursman said. “And we finally said, ‘You know what, this is not good-faith negotiations and it’s time that we move away.’”
The Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society held a news conference yesterday to discuss the collapse of negotiations, at which it said that Resolute is in “expansion mode” and appears unwilling to do conservation efforts because of this.
But Kursman took exception to this.
“I guess they’re referring to the fact that we want to restart idled Igance and we want to do a new project with First Nations at Atikokan,” he remarked.
“Somehow, though, since restructuring two years ago, I don’t think they realize . . . that we shut down a paper machine and a pulp line at Fort Frances, we shut down a paper machine and a pulp line at Thunder Bay, we shut down a paper machine at Laurentide, we shut down a paper machine at Kenogami.
“We shut down a paper mill entirely in Nova Scotia, we shut down a saw mill in Nova Scotia, we closed several saw mills in Quebec.
“Do you want me to keep going?
“That’s expansion mode?” wondered Kursman. “The things they’re saying are outrageous.”
The CBFA was signed by members of the Forest Products Association of Canada (FPAC), including Resolute, and a group of environmental organizations to establish a common framework to further support boreal conservation efforts while safeguarding the livelihood of thousands of citizens in communities that depend on healthy working forests.
Over the past several weeks, negotiations took place leading up to the third anniversary of the CBFA.
FPAC had described the CBFA as the largest and most complex deal of its kind ever reached anywhere in the world.
According to a Canadian Press story yesterday, FPAC said it regretted that environmental groups have suspended the talks with Resolute, but was pleased they remain committed to the overall agreement with the industry.
“Forest companies belonging to FPAC remain committed to the principles of the CBFA and want to continue the hard work necessary to protect the environment, including threatened species such as woodland caribou, while also protecting the forest products industry and the communities and jobs that depend on it,” the association said.
Several environmental groups said the commitment to ongoing work with other forestry companies remained strong—despite the decision to suspend talks with Resolute.
“We are very pleased with the ground-breaking solutions for conservation we have forged under the CBFA with companies such as Tembec, Alberta Pacific Forest Industries, and Millar Western Forest Products in Northeastern Ontario and Alberta, respectively,” said Janet Sumner of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society.
The groups said they have suspended work with Resolute “until it can commit to scientifically-defensible conservation plans that would give caribou a reasonable chance of survival.”
“We believe that Resolute is not meeting its commitments to ensure caribou survive on the forests it manages,” said Todd Paglia of Forest Ethics.
“In our opinion, it has so far proven itself unwilling to strike a balance between its economic interests and the local survival of a nationally threatened species.”
Resolute said it made a series of proposals during intense final negotiations, including setting aside an additional 204,000 hectares of forest in Northwestern Ontario for conservation.
That was on top of about two million hectares of Ontario forests that already have been protected over the last 15 years.
Resolute also agreed to protect 12 percent, or 692,000 hectares, of Quebec forest, focusing on the best habitats for caribou conservation.
The two sides last year crafted a joint recommendation to government about establishing a caribou conservation area covering 835,000 hectares in Northeastern Ontario.
