Into the Wild

The Amazon: vast, beautiful, and mysterious. The Amazon River is an artery of Earth’s fresh water system, and lung to its air supply. The world is drawn to her as media, scientists, and environmentalists rail on the exploitation of de-forest/jungle-station. There is another artery and lung of Earth’s life source (water/air), little known, but nestled in the bosom of North America, reaching around the Arctic Circle, making up 29% of the Earth’s forest and is the largest land biome on the planet.

The bulk of this area is known as the Taiga, or more commonly referred to as the Boreal Forest, it runs across Canada, Alaska, Russia and Mongolia and reaches around to Finland, Sweden and Norway, extending down into the northern edges of the United States. This expansive region contains 85 species of mammals, 130 species of fish, and approximately 32,000 species of insects. This is also home to our Great Grizzly. The Boreal is more threatened than the Amazon. Vast expanses of oil reserves, tar sands (sand filled with oil), timber, fur trade, gold, diamonds and other minerals, as well as being located next to the vast consumption machines of 300 million Americans, 140 million Russians with a billion Chinese and another billion Indians just to the south of its Asian frontier all threatening its existence with a continuous assault on it riches.

The Boreal is being exploited by a confluence of governments, industries, corporations, and even Aboriginal groups (who can exploit resources based on ancestral treaty rights) all working hand in hand to pillage vast portions of the Boreal as they have been doing for a hundred years. But, now the Boreal’s onslaught is greater than ever, as rampant unchecked global population expansion, closing towards 7 billion people, placing greater demands for more and more resources grows. With new modern technology allowing the vast exploitation in the most frigid and inhospitable areas, even these regions are no longer safe from the shredding, cleaving, tearing and destruction by man.

Now is the time to unite to fight the assault upon these lands. It has been well documented that it is never enough to trust governments to do the right thing, as they are influenced and controlled by lobbyists, bribery, and jobs in the industries they regulate upon their retirements, and the vast power of huge corporations. The veil of secrecy was lifted just a bit for all to see when in 2010 the Deep Water Horizon deep offshore oil rig blew out in the Gulf of Mexico, poisoning the waters as it spewed millions of gallons of raw oil, destroying sea life and polluting the waters, shore line and beaches, while planes laden with toxic chemicals sprayed the ocean surface to try and break up the vast oil slicks with chemicals banned in Europe. We saw the cozy relationship that oil companies share with government officials running all the way to the White House resulting in regulators’ lack of oversight of the oil industry, with safety standards waived, oversight waived and regulators moving into jobs with the very companies they are charged to oversee. If we want to protect these lands we cannot hope to stop the exploitation unless a new radical change is made, because there is too much money to be made, and we cannot rely on governments to protect these lands.

Now is the time for a revolutionary approach to oversight. We seek to have an independent watchdog, outside of governments, industries, corporations. All these players would contribute to a fund on a proportionate basis as to their exploitation and profits. This fund would be used to pay for the independent oversight, with the oversight provided by truly altruistic groups like Green Peace, World Wildlife Fund, The Audubon Society, Defenders of Wildlife, etc. Environmental groups must recognize that there will be exploitation, however, if they gain the power to oversee and place observers in the field and have the power to shut down and fine for violations on every project, it could be a game- changer for protection of our lands. As for the industries, they would certainly balk because their power to influence, and bribe would be vastly curtailed, they would complain that costs would go up. But if everyone has to abide by the same rules, then there is no cost disadvantage.