UNB Woodlot Watch

Who speaks for the beavers?

Published Thursday July 3rd, 2008

Chris McCormick

CRIME MATTERS

The Daily Gleaner

After development began, nesting trees were felled throughout the fall and spring during wildfowl migration. Contractors were hired to clear the land and large numbers of white tailed deer were driven onto nearby roadways and killed.

“Hundreds of burrowing mammals including beavers were buried alive, and one bulldozer operator said he had to continually stop and empty his bucket because rabbit and squirrels were leaping into it as he ploughed through their burrows.”

This paraphrase is from a public consultation document describing what happened during a particular development in British Columbia.

It also shows what happens to animals during development, an issue much discussed lately in the local media.

When it comes to controversial issues, people line up and state their positions. In the debate, some voices usually dominate while others are silenced.

For example, in a debate over gun control in the United States, news media, newspaper articles, editorials and letters to the editor came to be dominated by a “cosmopolitan worldview.”

This worldview or way of looking at and talking about the world emphasized risk avoidance as well as the government’s responsibility to reduce risk.

The end result was the marginalization of gun owners.

How contentious issues are framed in the news media will privilege some points of view while silencing others, as is the case with environmental conflicts.

More importantly, it can hamper efforts to find common ground on those issues.

However, seeing that the conflict is about worldviews gives us a way to approach the discussion of resource management.

In another example, researchers looked at how protests against the World Trade Organization held in Seattle in 1999 were represented.

Stories in the news drew largely from official sources and public opinion, sponsoring viewpoints critical of the protestors, as in, “a furious rag-bag of anti-globalization protestors converged on downtown Seattle.”

This characterization worked to marginalize and demonize anti-WTO protestors, while adding credibility to those people and organizations supportive of the WTO.

In my favourite example, during the fishing conflict at Burnt Church natives were described as “setting out on the water in defiance of the DFO,” despite the fact that the Supreme Court had already ruled in their favour.

Imagine how different the reading would be if the line had read “native fishers set out on the water and were challenged by the DFO, who were acting in defiance of the Supreme Court.”

From my point of view, it is obvious that socially responsible news media should allow a variety of ways of looking at the world to play out in an effort to promote public debate.

However, the very opening up of debate is often where these different worldviews are found.

For example, in a study of how environmental issues were discussed, researchers found that different stakeholder groups stereotyped others’ points of view and disparaged their motives, while also justifying and privileging their own reasoning.

Those in the dominant, development-oriented group tended to construct their opponents as naive, idealistic, paranoid and fanatical.

On the other hand, environmental activists constructed their opponents as sinister, political, untrustworthy and deceitful.

As each group took a position in the media to criticize the others, those who were criticized could claim victim status and take action to promote their own identity because of the other parties’ criticisms.

In the recent debate over woodlot development in Fredericton, activists have been criticized for being naive, told to get a life and were accused of butting in on the university’s legal rights.

The university, on the other hand, which has played a major role in this development and which could have pioneered green technology, has been criticized for contributing to environmental degradation and for avoiding an important environmental assessment.

When environmental issues are discussed in the media, the dynamic relation between humans and the world they inhabit is revealed.

Articles, commentaries and letters to the editor act as a forum for public dialogue on perceptions of land use and the environment.

Upholding democratic process as a determinant of land use policy is difficult, however, because the voices have unequal amounts of power.

Voicing an alternative environmental discourse is portrayed as a fringe interest. This is particularly dangerous because when a less powerful party is portrayed as “crazy,” it effectively stops the conversation.

When this happens, as the opening paragraph so vividly portrays, it is the wildlife itself which ultimately loses in the debate.

Chris McCormick is a criminology professor at St. Thomas University. His column on crime and criminal justice appears every second Thursday. Comments can be sent to letters@dailygleaner.com.