Old Massett Village: A Proactive Community #HSRC

February 4, 2013 – 11:32 am

I had the pleasure of meeting John Disney late Friday afternoon at the HSRC offices. We ended up chatting into the evening, as he recounted story after story about life in Old Massett and the challenges they have faced to proactively participate in their economic development. I don’t have a full list here, but John told me of numerous projects they have undertaken in, and around, the village. All of these projects have been designed to align with Haida culture and territorial traditions of stewardship and a deep, abiding connection to the land- and sea-scapes that have sustained their communities for thousands of years.

John made an interesting point, with regards to Haida history, and the people of Old Massett Village, and rising sea levels. There is evidence that the people of Old Massett Village have been aware of, and adapting to, rising sea levels much longer than most recent (the last 40-50 years) reports. These people have stories and empirical evidence that their villages have slowly been moving inland, as sea water levels rise. In terms of the people of Old Massett Village and their efforts to restore ocean salmon pastures while reducing atmospheric CO2 and making their small contribution to slowing rising sea levels, the kinds of statements made by Jim Thomas of the ETC Group, and reported by the CBC, appear ludicrous. Jim Thomas and the CBC (and other publications) would have us believe the people of Old Massett Village are somehow ‘primitive’ in their science, technology and culture. They would have us believe these people were naive, and were somehow swindled or tricked into doing their iron restoration project on the high seas of the North Pacific.

If any of these people had conducted even the most basic inquiry into the life of the people of Old Massett Village and their continuing efforts to create sustainable, environmentally and ecologically balance, economic well-being for their community, they would quickly find published statements made by Jim Thomas, the CBC, the Guardian, the New York Times, and the Globe and Mail (to name a few) as ludicrous. Their statements are unethical in the extreme, publishing false portrayals of these people designed to promulgate negative public opinion. It is shameful that they have been able to get away with it. Where is the inquiry and reportage into the networks of collusion between non-government environmental groups publishing defamatory fictions about the people of Old Massett Village, and the mainstream media? Why was there so little real investigation, and even with first hand statements from John Disney, why were these fictional, false, and defamatory statements allowed to go forward?

This question doesn’t even begin to look into the pseudo science, and the false authority to impose judgements of legal and illegal accusations against the village. Would someone with real journalistic ethics please examine these issues:

1. non-governmental environmental organizations colluding with mainstream media to promulgate negative public opinion against targeted entities – polarizing opinion and contributing to fundraising for the non-governmental organization; causing a spectacle, and raising readership for mainstream media;

2. tautological pseudo-science promulgated as scientific fact produced by an incestuous conflict of interest amongst so-called ‘scientists’, non-governmental environmental organizations, and non-elected government bureaucrats;

3. accusations of illegal activities based on self-interested interpretations of non-binding international resolutions in a self-serving effort to assume legal authority where none exists, these assumptions of legal authority by non-government environmental groups, non-elected government bureaucrats, and non-elected international entities.

The activities of non-governmental environmental groups, in collusion with mainstream media, non-elected government bureaucrats, and elected government representatives have been unethical in the extreme. The case of the people of Old Massett Village, the Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation, ocean stewardship, atmospheric CO2, ocean acidification, international marine politics and science, tautological conflicts of interest amongst non-government environmental organizations, scientists, non-elected government bureaucrats, climate change, and disinformation, defamation, and propaganda, is a complex web with a history that demands critical inquiry and examination.

If we are unable to trust a people who have continuously resided and survived on their territory for thousands of year, adapting, inventing and innovating to ensure their survival the survival of the territories under their care, why should we trust those whose mindsets, and ethics have been forged in corrupt, complicit, and colluding 20th century industrialism?

We have innumerable examples of media manipulation to construct false narratives and work to foment public opinion against certain individuals. What we don’t have is honest portrayals of all the facts of this situation, a thorough representation of all the individuals and institutional entities, and their vested interests in the kinds of webs of constructed fictions they might disseminate about this story.

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Standing up for Old Masset in the face of false controversy #CBC

January 21, 2013 – 9:17 am

Last October the CBC participated in promulgating a false controversy about the people of Old Masset Village and their project to restore iron to ocean salmon habitat. The CBC reported false and misleading statements about the project, the participants, and the science, and then, having put the people of Old Masset Village on the defensive, questioned them about these false and misleading statements. When John Disney, Economic Development Officer for the Village of Old Masset, and President of the Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation, attempted to set the record straight, the CBC treated him as if he was the one making false statements, even though they had manipulated the interview to put him on the defensive, pushing him to respond to the false and misleading statements the CBC had previously reported about the project, rather than focusing on reporting the actual facts about the project.

Unfortunately, rumour has it that the CBC is at it again. They have been putting pressure on the village to talk to the CBC so they can ‘tell their side of the story’. However, any thinking person would have to be extremely skeptical of the CBC’s motivations in this instance. If the CBC truly wanted to tell the story of the people of Old Masset Village and their project to restore ocean salmon habitat, they would have shown more interest in the well-being of these people, and their story. The fact is that the CBC has reported false and misleading statements about this entire story, as initially orchestrated by Jim Thomas of the ETC Group and Martin Lukacs of The Guardian. There was no controversy before Jim Thomas of the ETC Group made his false statements about the project. The CBC has chosen to continue to promulgate false and misleading statements about the Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation, instead of admitting they have been part of a campaign of disinformation and propaganda that has caused real harm in the lives of the people of Old Masset Village and their project.

If the CBC intended to behave in an ethical manner with regards to these manipulations, they could demonstrate their journalistic integrity investigating the following questions:

1. Why did the CBC report Jim Thomas’ false and misleading statements about the Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation without checking their veracity first?

2. Why didn’t the CBC investigate the basis of Jim Thomas’ charge the Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation’s project was illegal and report the truth of the matter, that in fact, no laws were broken?

3. Why didn’t the CBC investigate Canadian bureaucrats illegally writing and applying Canadian environmental law, outside the proper protocols and procedures for actually legislating Canadian environmental law in Canada?

4. Why hasn’t the CBC investigated and reported on the problem of authoritarian non-government environmental groups, led by non-elected individuals, who are seeking to control and manipulate ocean research and marine politics at the international level?

5. Why hasn’t the CBC investigated and reported on the scientific and political issues surrounding iron fertilization, iron enhancement, and ocean acidification? In particular, why hasn’t anyone investigated the tautological arguments promoted by a small group of scientists-environmentalists, who interests and intentions reveal an unhealthy conflation of science, international maritime policy and authoritarian environmental ideological positions?

I hope the people of Old Masset are able to stand up to the CBC and demand they account for their behaviour in these matters. It is very easy to trace the false and misleading statements that have been made against these people and their project to Jim Thomas and the ETC Group, in collusion with Martin Lukacs at the Guardian, all instigated on October 15, 2012. It is much more difficult to bring to light the complexities and entanglements of ocean science, the politics of ocean science, the environment, Canadian environmental law, First Nations sovereignty in Canada, international maritime policy, environmental anti-humanism, and authoritarian environmentalism,  that have been played out at the expense of the people of Old Masset Village.

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The legal status of Old Masset Village in Canada #HSRC

January 4, 2013 – 9:46 am

A new article has been published on the National Review Online by Robert Zubrin, titled, “The Greens’ Attack on Mariculture”. It is a refreshing analysis of what happened last fall when the ETC Group, in collusion with Martin Lukacs at the Guardian, launched a smear campaign against the Old Masset Village project to restore iron on the open ocean in hopes of feeding salmon and improving the number of salmon returning to spawn.

Zubrin cites the comments of a senior high-seas adviser, an ETC Group representative, and a journalist, each of whom charge the Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation (HSRC) project as being 1) illegitimate scientific research; 2) an excuse to avoid reducing fossil-fuel emissions; and 3) natural events become unnatural and sinister when they have been influenced by human agency. Zubrin accurately describes the smear campaign that focused on this project as “rage drawn from every corner of the community of those seeking to use global warming as a pretext for curtailing human freedom.”

Let us examine the accusation of illegitimacy charged by Kristina Gjerde, of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. She is quoted as saying, “Even the placement of iron particles into the ocean, whether for carbon sequestration or fish replenishment, should not take place, unless it is assessed and found to be legitimate scientific research without commercial motivation. This does not appear to even have had the guise of legitimate scientific research.” Leaving aside the ridiculous stipulation that all scientific research must be done without commercial motivation, Ms. Gjerde is making an assumption about who and how legitimacy is conferred. According to Ms. Gjerde, the legitimate authority of the people of Old Masset Village is an uncontested system of governance that is not legitimate to themselves, but resides in other systems of government, such as the federal government of Canada and the International Marine Organization.

However, these assumptions do not take into account the legal position of the Haida Nation as a sovereign entity within Canada. The people of Old Masset Village have occupied their lands, and the surrounding seas for millennia. Their right to govern their own Nation was contested by the Government of British Columbia and the Haida of Old Masset and Skidegate joined forces to fight back with a court challenge. What came to light was that the people of Old Masset and Skidegate had never entered into any treaty relationships with any government in Canada. The Haida people had retained their own sovereign status, and their own lands, the islands of Haida Gwaii. The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the Crown (the federal government of Canada) had a duty to consult with, and in certain circumstances accommodate First Nation interest. The duty for the Crown to consult arises when the Crown has knowledge of the potential existence of an aboriginal right or title and contemplates conduct which may adversely affect it.

When Ms. Gjerde seeks to impose laws that adversely affect First Nations stewardship of the ocean pastures that have been the livelihood of their culture for far longer than any of the institutions, Ms. Gjerde seeks to invoke as authoritarian government over the people of Old Masset. This action contravenes the ruling handed down by the Supreme Court of Canada. The federal government of Canada does not have unilateral authority to impose lawfully, or unlawfully, invoked regulations on the people of Old Masset Village, particularly if these laws impinge on their right or title to their territories.

The greatest irony of the attacks on the people of Old Masset Village and the Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation is that the people who position themselves as superior in judgement, to make accusations against the Haida and their project, are themselves breaking ethical, moral, and even legal standards of duty.

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HSRC governance and due dilligence #HSRC #Popular Mechanics #HSRC

November 29, 2012 – 12:45 pm

An egregiously erroneous article was published yesterday on the Popular Mechanics site, mis-representing the people of the Haida Nation and Old Massett Village with regards to the Haida Salmon Restoration Project.

The article implied the project was undertaken by mad scientists, without permission, stating that Russ George launched the project, when in fact, it was the work of a people, and a village, that deserve respect and admiration for their effort.

The article states,

“He [Russ George] just went out and did it, with the backing of the Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation, a First Nations group in Canada that was hoping an improvement in the ocean would also improve the salmon numbers they depend on.” The headline says that Russ George undertook this project “without permission”.

What the article does not say is that the people of Old Masset Village Council, through their own legal processes of consultation and public deliberation, spent six years bringing this project to life. It does not say how many government agencies and institutions were consulted in the process of designing the project, and the research methodology that was developed to track the efficacy of the project.

The article does not elaborate on the processes of governance that guide the Old Massett Village Council as a matter of course, nor of the specific research and consultations the Council undertook to determine the viability of this project.

The article does not describe the catastrophic depletion of salmon stocks over the course of one generation, and the many successful projects the people of Old Masset Village have implemented to restore these fish.

In fact, the article barely mentions the people of Old Masset Village, the Council, nor the governing structure of citizens from Old Masset Village Council, who have been involved in overseeing the implementation of this project. For the purposes of this article, the role of an indigenous First Nations peoples in undertaking this venture is barely mentioned.

The article does not elaborate on the tremendous courage the people of Old Massett have shown in the subsequent onslaught of media attack that has rained down upon them. They have fought to bring the truth of their activities to counter slanderous, unsubstantiated, conjecture on the part of a small, powerful, media-savvy group who hope to use the Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation, their hard fought project, and their future, as well as the future of salmon in the North Pacific, to further their own self-interests.

Well, there are people who care about what is happening to this project, to the people of Old Masset Village, and to salmon ocean habitat.

The publishers of Popular Mechanics, and those ‘experts’ who allowed their names to be used to abuse this project and valorize an absolutely ridiculous premise for the article, should be ashamed. Whatever credentials they have acquired that allow them to post such harmful and destructive texts should be examined and possibly removed. We are not going to find a way out of our CO2 trap, ocean acidification, and the decline of the ‘lungs of the sea’ through this kind of behaviour.

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First Nations presence and environmental/ecological impacts

November 14, 2012 – 8:49 am

I am really getting tired of the way First Nations perspectives and practices are dismissed in the media. We have done a huge disservice to indigenous cultures worldwide, and Canada has a terrible history to account for. For example, the people of Old Masset Village have taken a courageous step to restore the ocean pastures for the salmon.

We have to find a new way to balance our human existence with sustainable resources in the environment and the diverse ecological systems that sustain life. Our current expectations of what it means to be a ‘successful’ society are not in alignment with these realities. Good leadership takes into account all parties whose lives will be impacted by government policy and industrial practices. After decades of government management of fisheries resources, we have longtime (now retired) fisheries professionals,

Al Wood & Ron MacLeod, November 2012

speaking out about the epic fail of government fisheries policies on the west coast of Canada. We need to ensure indigenous communities have an equal opportunity to contribute to these processes. The people of Old Masset Village have taken it upon themselves, at their own risk, to do just that.

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