Well-Met!

Reasonable people can, after all, accommodate one another. And groups at odds with the plans of corporations who believe they can reap the benefits of withdrawing for profit natural resources without compensating for those activities - can find reasonable compromises with the good will to work together for the common weal. It can, and does happen. Often, concluding long struggles where ill feeling has resulted in controversial condemnations of activities on either side.

So it's good news that Canopy, an environmental NGO, part of an environmental coalition including also Greenpeace, have between them managed to persuade the Forest Products
Association of Canada, representing giants of the Canadian forestry industry, to call a truce and observe the necessity of preserving vast tracts of Canada's life-giving and -enhancing boreal forests from unheeding exploitation.

The agreement by the forestry industry to freeze logging on parts of the northern forest in exchange for the withdrawing of the very effective black-eye marketing campaigns denouncing forestry practises on the part of environmental groups, is a big victory, for both the corporations and the NGOs. And Canada wins, and so does its population, assured a future of ongoing boreal forest stability.

Co-operation between adversaries when each side has much to gain always speaks to the wisdom of accommodation, the rejection of uncompromising loggerheads between otherwise reasonable entities. Canada's vast green, growing, organically important boreal forests are vital to global atmospheric balance and the health of the environment. They represent a heritage, a natural treasure to be preserved.

There are many areas where continuity of forest growth have been disrupted through logging that has left fragmented areas which can continue to be logged sustainably, without incursions into pristine areas of old-growth forests in the boreal wilderness that require protection.

An industry specialist summed it up very well when he stated: "The environmental groups get what they want for now and the industry looks like good citizens." It's a good start, and there are other areas of environmental spoilation through exploitation of important natural resources that will also have to accommodate themselves to the necessity of better resource management.

In parts of Alberta people live with the effects of oil pollution, and where other ecosystems are threatened by oil extraction. From the West Coast of Canada to the East Coast of the country oil drilling rigs are ubiquitous. "We're addicted to oil, so the beat will go on", noted a Newfoundland-based environmentalist. "Oil companies will make absolutely sure we don't check ourselves into hydrocarbon rehab anytime soon."

Over half the petroleum product used in the United States, Canada's largest trading partner and customer for oil-based resources comes from foreign sources. Including Canada, which stands out as America's largest supplier of fossil fuel products. And environmental damage from exploration and drilling is often the result, an inconvenient one that the oil companies are now beginning to seriously address.

Director of external relations for the Pembina Institute, Dan Woynillowicz, points out that U.S. oil requirements is what is dynamically driving Alberta oilsands expansion development. And a lot of people living directly where those rigs are in operation are pretty emphatic about the diminishing quality of their lives as a result of their proximity to these areas.

Sour gas has been one of those human-health (and farm animal-health) problems, water contamination another, impacting deleteriously on the environment and peoples' health.

According to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers this is all manageable. "We will mitigate our impact on the land while maintaining regional ecosystems and biodiversity", is what the website of the group claims, reassuringly. Needless to say, this is not done on their own recognizance, it's done when environmental groups and concerned citizens complain and put the companies' feet to the fire of public opinion influencing government decision-making.

We're all of us far better off when the efforts of interested parties - which should be all of us, since we're discussing the country's natural resources - insist on accountability and respect for what we all rightfully hold dear, applying the needed pressure to focus corporate decision-making on being good citizens.