Dear Editor,
“The best time to plant a tree was 30 years ago. The next best time is now.” Anonymous
When Ajit Krishnaswamy writes about "checking our privilege" with regard to protesting the expanded Kinder Morgan pipeline and tanker port (Pipeline protesters are in a privileged position, Burnaby NOW, Dec. 1), it’s imperative to understand the underlying history, politics and economics of colonization before laying too much blame.
The original Coast Salish First Nations people never imagined they had privilege in the European sense of the word. For millennia, their populous societies cared for local ecosystems so they could live sustainably. Their Indigenous world view did not include a notion of "rights." Rather, it mandated a set of ‘obligations’ to respect and care for the land and water, which provided sustenance. Their value systems stressed the importance of all the living components of their home ecosystems.
By contrast, when Europeans arrived on the West Coast, they set to work clear-cutting the forests and overfishing the waterways. In their Western world view, the natural capital, which appeared abundant, was free for the taking. Resources such as trees and fish were only considered valuable for the sake of human commerce and this was fully supported by the politics and economics of the day. As the settlers took over the land, Indigenous people who did not die from European diseases were frequently pushed into reserves on the edges of the new colony. There was little thought for the devastation, pollution and waste the colonial world view had inflicted on the area and that not much would be left for future human generations and other species.
Meantime, over the Rockies to the east, European settlers were slowly turning grasslands into farms. As time went on, oil was discovered and used for local needs. When that was spent, greater attention was given to extracting the dirtier bitumen from the tar sands to the north. But this activity required much more water and energy for processing and the reserves were far from potential markets. Once more, local indigenous people were pushed out of the way while vast tracts of trees were cut down, the land, water and air were poisoned and animals were displaced.
Today, after hundreds of years of colonization, the whole world follows the neoclassical economic model that imagines common pool resources are mere commodities. The consequences of the resulting excess pollution, waste and climate change, ecosystem and species loss continues not be included in economic balance sheets. Regardless, governments favour large corporations who build resource extraction projects because they provide local jobs and contribute funding to important human endeavors such as hospitals. However, corporations are interested first and foremost in their own profit. And they are rarely required to replace trees cut down, return the animals to their original home and clean the air and water. Nor do they care much about fixing the negative social and environmental impacts their projects have on Indigenous and other human communities. Imagining that resource extraction can continue indefinitely in this manner is the ultimate – and very dangerous – privilege.
Speaking of fighting back, our local First Nations were the first to mount major protests opposing the pipeline and tanker port. As it happens, Indigenous people are on the front lines fighting resource extraction projects all around the planet because they often reside in resource-rich ecosystems. Local Coast Salish groups have so far spent a great deal of their own time and money countering the Kinder Morgan expansion because they strongly believe this is the right thing to do. They can picture a time before these projects existed, and they believe we must find other more sustainable ways to employ people. Check the Tsleil-Waututh Sacred Trust site to understand more about these landmark initiatives, https://twnsacredtrust.ca.
It would be wise to halt disproportionate privilege all around. Stopping a pipeline and tanker port means that Canadians must take the time to examine other ways of making a living. Humans are the only species on our planet who take more than their sustainable share with little regard to short and long-term consequences. However, as ecological economist Herman Daly says: "There is something fundamentally wrong in treating the Earth as if it were a business in liquidation."
Our planet is the only real value we have. We must learn to care for it or it will no longer care for us. Global climate change, massive ecosystem loss, extreme pollution and the human suffering this all causes should be enough of a wakeup call. The best time to stop fossil fuel expansion was 30 years ago. The next best time is now.
As the local First Nations say, “Many people, one canoe.”
We are all in this together. The time has come to stop the pipeline and look towards getting some real work done, together.
Celia Brauer, False Creek Watershed Society
