The pillage of a province
Manitoba: past and present
Jeff Chorney
Manitobans live in one of the most diverse, splendid regions of our planet. With 1,177,800 people (647,600 Winnipeggers), our population density of 5.5 people per square mile assures ample resources for our populous, allowing our residents to lead a quality of life that is the dream of citizens the world over. But to continue enjoying a life of relative privilege, we must preserve and protect our province from exploitation by countries that have squandered their natural wealth and now depend on regions such as our province to provide their overpopulated, consumption-driven societies with fresh resources. We must not let economic interests get the better of us. We must refuse to supply these societies with our resources while carefully regulating our population, if possible preventing further increases. Manitobans must not be coaxed into destroying our resources, for it will lead to our impoverishment.
To the north, Hudson’s Bay, the world’s 14th largest sea, provides access to the Arctic Ocean, allowing west bound freighters access to North America’s interior, preventing mega tons of emissions as coastal trucking is no longer necessary. Hudson’s Bay also supports a large fishery, but foreign demand dwindles our supply. Sustainable, carefully calculated culling means natural rates of increase replenish fish stocks before future harvesting. However, exports increase, stocks vanish, and our bay is stripped of its wealth. These exports should be diverted from foreign markets into the stores of local Manitoba businesses until our bellies are filled with healthy, homegrown, protein-packed seafood and fish. Only when our citizens are satiated and our stocks strong do we dare trade these precious forms of life.
Lake Winnipeg, at 9,417 square miles, and Lake Manitoba, remnants of glacial Lake Agassi, are the 13th and 35th largest freshwater lakes in the world. The lakes’ commercial fishermen catch 29 million pounds of fish, generating $30 million, making them the second largest inland fishery in North America (the Great Lakes are first). Once thought impossible to deplete, the fishery operates via quota, which may be obtained only through purchasing existing quotas from commercial fishermen. The strategy fails to increase our lakes’ fish populations and overfishing continues to deplete our resource. It is no surprise the United States imports most of the fish caught, leaving less for Manitobans and forcing us to pay higher prices to keep fish from leaving our border.
The boreal forest comprises the northern two-thirds of our province. Black spruce, white spruce (our provincial tree), balsam fir, tamarack, jack pine, the occasional deciduous birch and poplar, among other varieties, are our least molested and abused resource. In 1996, 60 square miles of forest was cleared to generate $418 million and employ directly 9 000 people. Of the $593.4 million we exported in 2001, 99 per cent went to U.S. markets, clear-cutting forestry into the fifth largest manufacturing sector in the province. Irresponsible management by companies like Tolko and Tembec guarantee regrowth will provide poorer quality lumber, lower cubic metres of harvest, and inferior habitat as rows of monocultures replace mixed stands, preventing decomposition of fallen timber and diversity of tree varieties necessary for healthy forest ecosystems. To protect our vital habitat, lumber exports must be priced higher and policy put in place to assure proper selective cutting and reforestation plans are followed as clear cutting is phased out.
The Canadian Shield, mostly Precambrian granite, hides gold (mined in Bisset), nickel and copper (mined in Thompson), and zinc (mined in Flin Flon and Snow Lake along with copper). Generating $2.1 billion annually, mining is our second largest primary resource industry. From this region world fur markets were once supplied with beaver, muskrat, mink, wolverine, red fox, lynx, bobcat, gray wolf, and weasels among others. Fur-bearer populations are so depleted, if not extinguished, that soon this economic activity will not be viable.
Aspen parkland, once flourishing with black bears, elk, woodland caribou and cougar, lies below our lakes. Forests of oak, elm and ash, targets for furniture-makers, were cleared as farms sprouted. Along riverbanks, including the Red, Assiniboine, and Seine, reaching circumferences of nearly 30 feet and towering 100 feet high, is the eastern cottonwood, our oldest trees at nearly 500 years. The last of this ecosystem remains preserved as Riding Mountain Provincial Park.
Buffalo, horses, antelope, deer and other animals roamed the southern eighth of our province, which used to be prairie covering the North American interior. Europeans settled, replacing larger, hardier buffalo with cattle: easy targets for predators and poorly suited to our climate. Mechanized agriculture and monoculture crops fragmented grassland to create pasture and produce grain, displacing all but the white-tailed deer. Manitoba’s farmers make 13 cents per dollar profit and are given close to $20,000 annually in subsidies. Supplying over five million barrels of oil per year, 25 per cent of our fossil fuel needs, a sedimentary rock basin stretches from the southwest prairie portion of our province into Saskatchewan, down to North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana. Unfortunately, when the oil is depleted, the plains will cease to exist, as this is the last remaining feature of the once great grassland.
Manitoba is one of the few places on earth where people can hunt a wild animal in a natural forest, catch a fish in an unpolluted body of water, or just breathe fresh air, but Manitobans are rapidly loosing these opportunities. The perceived benefits of economic growth and materialism tempt us into destroying our natural world. Preserving, conserving, and enhancing our natural heritage and biodiversity is continually subordinated as we export our sacred biodiversity. Selling our resources to countries that have depleted their own stocks due to over consumption and overpopulation will lead us closer to our own impoverishment, and this is why we must fight to prevent our population from increasing and also demand that our resources stay within our own province.
Jeff Chorney is a sportsman and dutiful citizen determined to increase awareness about the dangers of human actions on our fragile biosphere.
