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New Brunswick chapters participate in Peace & Friendship Alliance meeting in Rogersville

The Council of Canadians Kent County, Saint John, Fredericton, and Moncton chapters attended a Peace and Friendship Alliance meeting in Rogersville on Sunday.


Kent County NB Environment Watch reports, “[On June 12], more than 60 residents from communities and groups in all four directions in New Brunswick gathered in Rogersville. …It was the monthly gathering of the Peace and Friendship Alliance (P&FA), which moves around the province. The P&FA brings together Mi’kmaq, Maliseet, Acadian, Anglo, and Newcomer New Brunswickers, to protect the natural environment that sustains all life on this planet. This meeting was jointly hosted by the Kent County Chapter of the Council of Canadians and the Rogersville Lumberjacks, with support from Kopit Lodge at Elsipogtog. All four New Brunswick chapters of the Council of Canadians were present, as were many other groups and individuals, especially concerned woodsmen from the Rogersville area. Both Kopit Lodge and Maliseet (Wolastoq) Grand Council were also represented.”


The article highlights, “Rogersville is a community where the forest is close to everyone’s heart. Throughout the day, there were six reports on our special theme: protecting the the natural indigenous Acadian forest life from clearcutting and the use of poisonous herbicides. Of greatest concern to Kopit and EFN [the Elsipogtog First Nation] is the poor way that the province is caretaking the environment, especially the devastation of clearcutting and spraying in the forest. For more than a year, [Elder Kenneth Francis of Kopit Lodge] said, ‘We have been trying to get the provincial government to come to the table and consult with us on these issues. They keep ignoring us so we have to go the next step.’ Recently Kopit/EFN served notice to the provincial government that they intend to file a claim for Aboriginal Title, to protect the environment for future generations.”


And it also notes, “Between 2001 and 2012, New Brunswickers lost 1.7 times more of our public forest than has been replanted into the problematic industrial softwood tree plantations. It has not gotten better. Anyone living in or near the forest knows that the losses have gotten worse under the 2014 Forest Management Agreement signed by the Government of New Brunswick with JDI of the Irving group of companies, and now ratified by other major lumber corporations in the province. It is clear that we are losing good, indigenous mixed forest at a much greater rate than it is being replaced. The replanting is of only one species, which will not be climate change adaptable. Both the type of tree and the fact that it is monoculture makes our woods more susceptible to pest infestations which kill the trees and add to wildfire risks.”


In terms of continuing work, both the Kent County and Fredericton chapters are members of the New Brunswick Environment Network and have participated in a first discussion to set up a Spray Caucus network that will hold regularly scheduled meetings by teleconference.


To read the full report by Kent County NB Environment Watch on this past weekend’s Peace and Friendship Alliance meeting, please click here.

Further reading
New Brunswick chapters defend the forest (May 18, 2014)