5

The Environmental NGO Industry and Frontline Communities

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DAVE VASEY

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Introduction

There have been many calls for direct action against the tar sands. I heard my first of these during a gathering of grassroots Indigenous and non-Indigenous allies in the fall of 2008 at the Everyone’s Downstream conference in Edmonton. Since then, calls for direct action have been repeated by scientists, Hollywood celebrities, and respected leftists, among many others. There has been a growing consciousness of what the tar sands really are: ecocide and industrial genocide. Tar sands activism has helped create national debates, while bringing international attention towards environmental, political, and economic conditions in the nation-state of Canada. Given the scale of the global ecological crisis unfolding around Canada, it has been heartening to witness the tar sands move from an obscure “Alberta” issue to an international one. While it is impossible to quantify the effect tar sands activism has had, a sobering reality is clear: the tar sands had expanded approximately 0.6 million barrels per day (bpd) within five years of the gathering in 2008, and the Canadian state’s leadership is firmly entrenched in supporting further expansion from 1.9 million bpd in 2013 to 6.2 million bpd by 2030. Opposition is needed more than ever before.

Taking action is both a personal and political choice: people take action for different reasons. For some, this results from witnessing a family or community member die from pollution. Others are challenging the roots of capital expansion, colonialism, empire, migrant injustice, climate change, and undemocratic process. Some also seek to preserve endangered species, support Indigenous rights, and protect spiritual relationships with the land. The “why” behind direct action is infinitely complex, and so too are the “how” and “with whom.” But these questions are critical in translating any reluctance into collective action.

These also are grounds for much infighting among activists. In taking action, “how” and “with whom” often reflect resources, opportunities, locations, depths of impact, socio-economic status, and preferred tactics. The current activist culture is also significantly shaped by a history of uprisings, community organizing, civil disobedience, art, and popular and political education. My personal priority is to support community struggles and recognize how organizing reflects a deep historical narrative, in which tactics are in tune with the needs of people and the planet. I do not subscribe to the idea that there is any one path to achieving change; rather, I recognize the influence of a diverse history of activism.

In the nation-state of Canada, the complex terrain of environmental activism is heavily influenced by both capital and popular movements for change. Understanding the history of relationships within environmental organizing can help build the proverbial bridges required to create a movement that stops the expansion of tar sands, and protects people and the planet. Much has been much written by Macdonald Stainsby, Dru Oja Jay, Sandra Cuffe, Dawn Paley, and others about the influence of foundational funding on environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) and tar sands campaigns.1 This chapter is an effort to contribute to a historical understanding of ENGOs and grassroots relationships by looking at outcomes of those relationships for communities and larger movement building.

There is some speculation that a deal similar to the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement may be struck regarding the tar sands. ENGOs maintain that the tar sands are a “line in the sand” and that no deal will be struck with industry. Given the stakes involved for the climate and for people—particularly future generations—it is encouraging to hear ENGOs take such a stand on the tar sands. At the same time, it is important to recognize how, in 2010, ENGOs accepted and endorsed the logging of vast tracts of land when they signed the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement with industrial logging companies. In addition, they agreed to work with industry to “bridge the gap” between activists and industry, which involved opposing community struggles. Some bridges don’t need to be built, and prioritizing relationships with industry over frontline communities was a critical mistake for ENGOs. This helped industry create the social consent required for public relations, despite widespread opposition by many grassroots and First Nations activists.2

While Greenpeace and Canopy withdrew from the agreement, many saw the move as too little too late, and held that, had voices from the frontlines of the environmental justice (EJ) movement been included in decision-making, the agreement would not have been signed in the first place. In this chapter, I look at tensions and spaces of shared interest between the ENGOs and grassroots EJ models of organizing against ecological destruction. After a brief explanation of each model, I will sketch a path towards a renewal of the relationship between established ENGOs and grassroots activism.

Two Models of Environmental Organizing

Traditional environmental organizing tended to seek the protection of wilderness and endangered species, largely by courting support from white, upper-and middle-class conservationists. In conservation narratives, landscapes would be protected for recreation, biodiversity, and heritage, though the land-based relationships of Indigenous peoples were rarely considered in the heritage narratives. In contrast, EJ organizers have often attempted to integrate anti-colonial and anti-capitalist principles into their efforts, while ENGOs have maintained distance from these radical critiques.3 A grassroots social justice orientation has also distinguished EJ mobilizations from the lobbying orientation of conservation groups. Such divisions are part of a wider gulf between EJ activists and ENGOs.

To understand these tensions, we need to look at some of the changes in environmental organizing over the past few decades. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, a fundamentally different concept of environmental threats came to popular consciousness under the term environmental racism. In the early 1980s, the struggle of community members in Warren County, North Carolina, against the North Carolina government’s decision to locate a poly-chlorinated biphenyl dumpsite next to a predominantly black neighbourhood highlighted the relationship between environmental risk and race.4 Warren County residents merged tactics from the civil rights movement with environmental discourse as they responded to environmental hazards in their community as a form of racial injustice. These efforts helped to alert researchers to the pattern—soon to be widely documented—of disproportionate environmental burdens being imposed on the neighbourhoods of people of colour and low-income residents.5 This pattern has included the siting of toxic waste dumps and high-pollution industries. In 1983, the United Church of Christ commissioned the Fauntroy report, and in 1987, the Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States report.6 Both reports observed how race was the single largest factor in relation to the locations of hazardous waste sites in the US. These reports—with the subsequent Environmental Justice Principles at the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit in Washington, DC, in 1991—became the basis for environmental justice movements in the US.7

This activism demonstrated how grassroots EJ organizing could be grounded in local communities. It also indirectly revealed a gulf between established ENGOs and people of colour. In 1990, grassroots EJ organizers confronted the largest and most well-funded environmental organizations, known as the “Group of Ten,” regarding the exclusion of people of colour from staff positions in ENGOs. They also highlighted how some groups relied on funds from extractive industries that were having a direct impact on communities of colour. And they chastised ENGOs for participating in the annexation of Indigenous lands for conservation initiatives. The letter demanded that these organizations cease their organizing or fundraising in communities of colour:

Although environmental organizations calling themselves the “Group of Ten” often claim to represent our interests, in observing your activities it has become clear to us that your organizations play an equal role in the disruption of our communities. There is a clear lack of accountability by the Group of Ten environmental organizations towards Third World communities in the Southwest, in the United States as a whole, and internationally.8

In response to the EJ-based critique of the Group of Ten organizations, many ENGOs attempted to make changes to their approach. For instance, they began to talk about environmental racism, and, increasingly, they began to highlight Indigenous concerns as well as narrowly conservationist ones. In some cases, they began to seek partnerships with Indigenous organizations. A standing critique is that these changes were superficial: they were more a matter of updating their rhetoric, without necessarily becoming any less distant from grassroots struggles and frontline communities.

One side of the limitations of the dominant ENGO approach is the failure of mainstream environmentalism to challenge neo-liberal capitalism. Neo-liberalism is a type of capitalism with extensive government support, in the form of deregulation, privatization, and reducing government intervention, while expanding the role of markets in economic life. The logic of neo-liberalism holds that the free market will respond to the environmental and social needs of the public by creating new technologies or services. Both Rodriguez and McMichael contend that what they describe as the “NGO industrial complex” reinforces neo-liberal capitalism, as ENGOs fill a market role of assuaging public guilt for social or environmental destruction without challenging the root issue of capitalism.9 Simply put, many ENGOs profit from selling stories of environmental destruction and token reforms to the public. Rodriguez further notes that the appropriation of frontline voices reinforces colonial frameworks, where largely white actors dictate and influence campaigns, and frontline voices at times become campaign props.

Recognizing the significance of these ENGOs, Gereffi and colleagues associate the rise of environmentalism with increased corporate influence over regulatory frames, given how policy changes have been strongly influenced by industry lobbyists and business-friendly politicians.10 By grassroots standards, ENGOs can seem well resourced, yet they have little capacity to compete with big business for influence within the confines of lobbying efforts inside the official political process. When they buy into the lobbying process as the only game in town, ENGOs, in effect, allow corporate advocacy groups and industry lobbyists, with their massive budgets and unmatched capacity to buy influence with politicians, to shift the location of the debate over policy onto terrain that is especially favourable for corporations.

Health or environmental hazards are measured against “cost-benefit” models, and a heavy focus on generating profit allows for the sacrifice of communities and lands whenever doing so is deemed “economically necessary.” Hence, ENGO campaigns for renewable energies have been classified as “unprofitable,” while anti-wind turbine campaigns—organized by a vocal minority who are supported by the oil industry—have had more success lobbying governments about the health concerns of wind than anti–tar sands activists have done in the face of the ongoing ecocide and industrial genocide for downstream communities. It seems out of place for ENGOs to promote green energy in the face of long-term neo-liberal policy reform, and these organizations have failed to compete with fossil fuel industry lobbies. Moreover, when positive policy gains have been made, government and industry have largely abdicated responsibility for enforcement (even for weak targets), or they have treated pollution fines as a cost of doing business.

Today, ENGO campaigns have retained key features that are at the root of the tensions with grassroots campaigning: the bureaucratic and top-down organizing style; accountability to campaign funders rather than affected communities; the narrow focus on the official policy-making process; and the single-issue (non-systemic) approach to popular education. Below, I will discuss the case of the Great Bear Rainforest campaign in British Columbia. Throughout this chapter, I indicate how ENGOs have, for the most part, shied away from anything that might smack of anti-capitalism, and even from identifying corporate power and profit maximization as central to the problems that they claim to address. On the contrary, many have embraced the frameworks of “green capitalism” or “ethical consumerism”—no doubt, in part, to appease funders and reassure policy-makers of their respectability.

ENGOs’ Failure to Address Colonialism and Environmental Racism

In Canada, ENGOs have begun to recognize how resource extraction is a racialized issue, in which business priorities outweigh concerns about the pollution and destruction wrought on First Nations communities. In 2001, the Ministry of Natural Resources estimated that over twelve hundred Indigenous communities lived within two hundred kilometres of mining operations.11 Furthermore, the Assembly of First Nations reported that 36 per cent of First Nations communities lived within fifty kilometres of mining developments and associated pollution zones in 2001.12 As Haluza-DeLay and colleagues note, Indigenous peoples are the most oppressed group in Canada, and they have faced pressure to assimilate into capitalist economies and “develop” resources in ways that are antithetical to traditional values.13 Haluza-DeLay and colleagues discuss the complexity of issues facing Indigenous communities:

The specific history of resource development and its place in regional and national economies also makes for specifically Canadian forms of environmental justice issues…. Aboriginal peoples are faced with systemic environmental injustice in terms of treaty and land claims processes; … energy projects air, water and land pollution; … deplorable drinking water issues [and] resource extraction by outsiders on unceded territory by government sanctioned contracts … ; the failure by the Canadian state to recognize underlying and unalienable Aboriginal title and rights; and the unwillingness of the Canadian state to right historical wrongs to First Peoples.14

Despite increased awareness and the incorporation of EJ frames and community concerns into their messaging, ENGOs have been criticized for the appropriation of community voices and accountability to funders that are linked to Big Oil, among other questionable industries.15 At the community level, First Nations motivations for resisting resource developments tend to be highly differentiated from ENGOs. Given how traditional Indigenous lifestyles have been undercut or eliminated, many communities require consideration of socio-economic needs, and at times, associated dependency on industry funds. There are few resources for community activists, and many at the grassroots in tar sands-affected communities have questioned why the millions of dollars that ENGOs spend on tar sands campaigns have not been put towards mobilizing frontline and impacted FN communities, or advocating treaty rights, basic health studies, or reparations for ecological destruction.

During the 1980s and 1990s “war in the woods” in British Columbia, FN communities encountered difficulties when engaging with ENGOs to amplify their campaigns to protect forests from industrial logging.16 These campaigns succeeded in receiving international attention; however, during that time, local voices felt manipulated to fit ENGO narratives, which often positioned Indigenous peoples as spokespersons to press but not as organizers, and failed to recognize the socio-economic needs FN communities articulated.17 Stainsby and Oja Jay characterize ENGO organizing with FN people during the Great Bear Rainforest campaign as damaging, given how ENGOs, in collaboration with industry and the provincial government, negotiated settlements without community input or consent.18 Several ENGOs had been involved in blockading roads with First Nations, yet, in 2000, these same organizations were part of an about-face negotiation with government that excluded grassroots and First Nations activists, effectively terminating direct action capacity. The abdication of democratic process upset many community members, who felt they had been alienated from power and decision-making, and quite literally were left alone on the road.

Following the negotiated settlement between the BC government, industry, and ENGOs—known as the Great Bear Rainforest Agreement (GBRA)— some BC First Nations became involved in proposals for “decentralized governance.”19 A series of co-management projects was created to reconcile Indigenous-government relations throughout BC (and indeed, Canada). The earliest project created was the Interim Measurements Agreement (IMA) with the Nuu-chah-nulth First Nation and the BC government. ENGOs worked closely with the Nuu-chah-nulth community during the “war in the woods” in BC in the 1980s and 1990s. Prior to the IMA, the Central Regional Board was created as a “consensus-based” decision-making body representing both government and the Nuu-chah-nulth peoples to determine co-management recommendations. Decentralization ostensibly facilitates shared decision-making between communities, ENGOs, government, and industry interests. However, resources and structures to support communities through this process were extremely limited. Moreover, reaching “consensus” between industry and FN communities created scenarios in which industry simply withheld support for solutions until bottom-line economic objectives were met.

The term procedural injustice helps to explain how communities are marginalized in decentralized governance processes. Procedural injustice refers to the inequities of access to the resources and knowledge needed to participate fully in decision-making processes, where underfunded and understaffed communities are expected to keep pace with industry and government timelines. Often, discussions are framed in highly academic language, and community participation requires a “learn as you go” approach, with a further burden of translating academic discussions for community members.20 Mabee and Hoberg characterized the aforementioned decentralized governance in Nuu-chah-nulth territory as a failed strategy for FN political goals, reporting that “when asked whether First Nations were equal partners in decisionmaking, the majority of First Nations and government interviewees answered with a qualified ‘no’”21 (emphasis added). However, the GBRA has been heralded as a “model” for settling resource disputes by ENGOs, government, and industry.22 Despite widespread critique of the GBRA, the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement reinforced models of decentralized governance in a similar collaboration between ENGOs, industry, and government.

The aforementioned patterns can be expected to recur if ENGOs do not pose enough of a challenge to industries, or to capitalist economics more broadly. When operating within the structures of capital, there has been little incentive for ENGOs to challenge wealth accumulation. Instead, many have emulated “growth through profit” models. Many ENGOs working on tar sands campaigns derive substantial funding from Pew Charitable Trusts, a foundation with explicit links to tar sands giant Suncor.23 To expand ENGO budgets, campaign pitches must ultimately entice Pew board members—who include former oil executives—and there is a great paradox as Big Oil funds its own dissent. Thus, when they compete for funding, ENGOs are often limited to the terms set by funders, rather than the needs of larger social movements or frontline communities.

Even direct action has remained largely focused on media attention and accountability to funders, rather than community empowerment. Despite widespread environmental concerns in civil society, ENGOs have failed to advance a vision to structurally reorient the Canadian state’s economy away from ecologically destructive capitalism. Rather, ENGO mitigation strategies for tar sands tend to involve green energy, much as they did in the 1970s.24 Repeating this narrative for over forty years has done little to shift government or industry decisions away from resource extraction in Canada, or indeed globally. Moreover, the full scope of these issues is usually not recognized by ENGOs or messaged to ENGO supporters.

Reorienting ENGOs: Potential Collaborations

Mistrust and hostility between ENGOs and grassroots activists have been part of a rift between highly competent organizers, while expansion of the tar sands has continued under one of the most far-right governments in the world. In May 2012, David Suzuki suggested that environmentalism had failed because the “environment” has been framed as a special lobby pitted against economic interests. Suzuki notes that:

In creating dedicated departments, we made the environment another special interest, like education, health, and agriculture. The environment subsumes every aspect of our activities, but we failed to make the point that our lives, health, and livelihoods absolutely depend on the biosphere—air, water, soil, sunlight, and biodiversity. Without them, we sicken and die. This perspective is reflected in spiritual practices that understand that everything is interconnected, as well as traditional societies that revere “Mother Earth” as the source of all that matters in life.25

The structures of capitalism are so violent and irrational that attempts to gain appeal within them exclude advocacy for the dissolution of the state and financial system, despite how these core values are required to stop “growth” models and empower self-determining bioregional communities. Indeed, ENGOs generally are proposing “green capitalist” alternatives to the tar sands (such as industrial solar farms), which would not overcome the macro issues of wealth polarization, racism, sexism, food insecurity, or health issues (both mental and physical) that are products of both capitalism generally, and the destruction caused by the tar sands industry specifically. Moreover, by not responding to these issues, and failing to integrate them into their analysis, ENGOs have failed to tap into an array of motivations that could mobilize the public to take action for land defence and community autonomy.

Yet, while it is important to hold ENGOs accountable, it is also important to seek common ground with them. The scale of the ecological crisis necessitates that our collective focus remain on stopping industry and government from committing further ecocide and genocide, and not on tearing each other apart. ENGOs have contributed significantly to public education on the tar sands, and many have worked with community members seeking to bring attention to environmental injustice. Several ENGOs have had staff and volunteers on the frontlines of direct action, and others have adopted the principle that communities should tell their own story. Given that the Harper regime has eliminated most of the past legislative environmental victories in a few short years, arguments for maintaining credibility through participating in lobbying efforts are increasingly recognized as hollow. So where do we go from here?

Drawing from centuries of resistance, many FN activists frame their campaigns with an analysis of colonialism, capitalism, and environmental justice. Importantly, rather than excluding ENGOs, some First Nations and grassroots activists have sought to reorient relationships so that these organizations might recognize community self-determination and sovereignty. Clayton Thomas-Muller, of the Mathias Colomb Cree Nation (Pukatawagan) in northern Manitoba and co-director of the Indigenous Tar Sands Campaign, observes:

There is a potential now for a broad social movement that issues a challenge to Canadian capitalism, colonialism, and ecological destruction that is as profound as the broadest social movements of the past 40 years. Part of developing this movement is creating spaces for Indigenous communities to share experiences with each other and strategize together outside of government created bureaucracies. Also important is the creation of a large body of supporters who are able to articulate and understand the issues, and intervene in ways that support, rather than bar, the formation of a broader movement.26

Such synergies can be seen as part of the more radical and grassroots EJ critiques and mobilizing. In this chapter, I have focused on the orientation of the more promising forms of EJ organizing. However, one should not oversimplify the contrast between the two models I have focused on here. We should recognize how environmental justice language has sometimes been co-opted by bureaucratic ENGOs, as well as governments. For instance, in the early 1990s, documents from the Clinton administration in the US included nods to environmental justice language.27 Nevertheless, the EJ movement’s original community-based organizing has remained active and intact.

But we can also look to other promising examples of movement building in so-called Canada. The Toronto G20 mobilization, Occupy, Quebec’s student strike, and Idle No More movements have been consistent with radical grassroots EJ organizing principles, in that these mobilizations have favoured community-led decision-making, direct action, and popular education focused on issues of capitalism and colonialism (among many others). What was achieved by these movements in terms of raising consciousness has yet to be determined. These networks and campaigns have collectively mobilized hundreds of thousands against neo-liberalism (most strongly in Quebec), and have gained attention from millions. For example, the student strike opposed tuition increases, which amount to remaking students into consumers. It is also noteworthy that a significant portion of the supporters of these movements believes that direct action is necessary. Moreover, many supporters view police repression, deregulation, and corporate influence on policy and economics as attacks on democracy—politically, legally, and in terms of human rights. Tactically, grassroots organizers have engaged social and economic disruption in the spirit of the civil rights movement, as they have placed strong pressures on government to deal with crisis issues of poverty, treaty rights, and environmental destruction (among other issues) within the Canadian state through diverse tactics.

Popular movements, such as Occupy and Idle No More, have at times articulated explicitly anti-capitalist and anti-colonial goals and concerns, and they have often prioritized the inclusion of those who are most affected by neo-liberalism and neo-colonialism in both their messaging and decision-making. In addition, these movements have engaged in actions that have captured the popular imagination through complex frames that, at their best, seek the emancipation of all peoples regardless of race, class, ability, gender, and orientation, while contributing significantly to discussions about capitalism and colonialism. Moreover, strong stands taken in Elsipogtog in eastern Canada, and from many other First Nations in the wake of Idle No More, all have demonstrated that resolve, courage, and networks of support can stop projects.

However, in the face of state repression, grassroots movements have also been unable to overcome systemic conditions, even when they have attempted to challenge them. Nevertheless, it is still possible for us to collectively move towards the threshold of change. Integrating ENGO resources, experience, and knowledge with grassroots ideology, organizing structures, and narratives could provide the synergy needed to do the long-term organizing required to shut down tar sands projects. If ENGOs can bring their activities into alignment with popular movements mobilizing for environmental justice, we can better directly challenge and confront business and government. As Antonio Machado wrote, “Wanderer, your footsteps are the road, and nothing more; wanderer, there is no road, the road is made by walking.”28 To stop the tar sands, let’s walk together.