加拿大人的妥协

MAY 2010 is looking like a good month for forests. In a couple of days, on the 27th, the Oslo Forest Climate Conference is expected to mark another step on the road to a comprehensive deal on tropical deforestation. And last week, on the 18th, an unlikely-seeming collection of forest-products companies and environmental organisations announced the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement, which should drastically change the way in which huge areas of Canadian forest are managed.

2010年5月看起来像是森林的一个美好月份。两天之后的27日就要召开奥斯陆气候与森林会议（Oslo Forest Climate Conference）了，这标志着在达成全面解决热带森林砍伐问题的道路上人类又迈出了一步。上个星期的18日，一批林木产业公司与环保组织宣布达成了《加拿大北方森林协议》（Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement），这真令人不可思议，但这个协议将促使加拿大广袤森林的管理方式得到彻底的改变。

 
The forests wrapped around the planet at high northern latitudes (boreal forests, also called taiga) are second only to tropical forests in total area, and account for as much as 200 billion tonnes of stored carbon. About a third of the ring is in Canada, which has some 570 million hectares (1.4 billion acres) of boreal forest: only Russia boasts more. Only about 13% of that land is subject to the new agreement—but that is still an area greater than that of Spain and Portugal. The parties to the agreement, 21 companies which make pulp, paper and other wood products, and between them hold 70% of the boreal timber rights in Canada, and nine big environmental groups, ranging from the uncontroversial Nature Conservancy to firebrands like Greenpeace, say this is the biggest conservation deal in history.

地球北半球高纬度地区覆盖着的森林被称作北方森林（boreal forests），也被叫做泰加针叶林（taiga），在面积上仅次于的热带森林，储存于这片森林的碳高达2000亿吨。北方森林中大约有三分之一位于加拿大境内，其面积约5.7亿公顷（14亿英亩），只有俄罗斯号称拥有更大面积的泰加针叶林。虽然这片森林只有约13％的面积受新协议约束，但它的面积仍然超过西班牙和葡萄牙的国土面积。这项协定的签字方包括21家公司和9大环保组织。这些公司从事纸浆、纸和其他木制品的生产，它们一共拥有加拿大70％的北方森林木材采伐权；而这9个环保组织则形形色色，包括采取合作而非对抗策略的“大自然保护协会”（The Nature Conservancy）以及像“绿色和平”组织（Greenpeace）这样激进的团体，据说这项自然环境保护协议是历史上规模最大的一个。

The plan calls for an immediate three-year moratorium on logging on 29m hectares while conservation plans to protect woodland caribou are developed; the goal is eventually to distinguish those lands that can be logged using sustainable techniques and those that cannot be logged at all. In return environmental groups have agreed to cease campaigns against the forest-products companies and to work with them to determine which lands should be protected permanently. Canada’s provincial and First Nations governments, which own these lands, are not party to the agreement, although some have made statements in support of it.

这项协议要求在2900万公顷的森林立即实施一项为期三年的暂停商业性林木砍伐计划，同时推出对林地驯鹿的各种保护措施，最终的目标是要划分出哪些林地可以利用不破坏生态平衡的技术进行砍伐，哪些林区完全不能进行商业性伐木作业。作为回报，环保组织同意停止对林产公司的抵制活动，并与他们合作，以确定哪些林地应加以永久保护。这些林地归加拿大各省和第一民族政府所有，尽管有些政府声明支持这项协议，但没有政府组织加入其中。

The agreement is the final result of a decade of clever campaigning. In the 1990s protests by environmental groups upset about forestry practices—especially about logging in old-growth forests—were focused on the forest-products companies themselves. Inventive, rowdy “actions” in which protesters chained themselves to logging equipment or hung huge banners from highly visible landmarks surprised and embarrassed the companies, but did little to change actual practices in the woods.

这项协议是一个实施了10年之久的巧妙战略所产生的最终结果。在上世纪90年代，环保组织由于对森林产业的现状，特别是砍伐原生态森林的做法深感不安，因而举行了一系列抗议活动，抗议主要对准林产公司。抗议活动有声有色，花样不断翻新；抗议者们有时手挽手地组成人链围住伐木设备，有时在极招人眼的地标建筑上悬挂出巨大的横幅，这虽然使林产公司感到惊诧和尴尬，但对改变树林产业的现实却没有起到任何作用。

Around 2000, a few environmental groups began to switch their aim, no longer targeting the people making the pulp and paper that account for two-thirds of the value of Canadian forest-product exports but instead going after the people consuming them. Four-fifths of Canadian boreal forest products are consumed in the United States, and most of the purchasers there had given little thought to their paper’s origins. The emergence of alternatives like recycled paper and paper from sources certified as sustainable by the Forest Stewardship Council made it pretty easy for big paper users to switch to a supply that the environmentalists were happy with, so they had little reason to resist the environmentalists’ demands. “We shifted hundreds of millions of dollars of paper purchasing,” says Todd Paglia, Director of ForestEthics, one of the environmental groups behind the agreement last week.

在2000年左右，一些环保组织开始调整他们的目标，他们不再将目标对准制造纸浆和纸品的公司（这些纸浆和纸品占加拿大林产出口总值的三分之二），而是转向消费这些产品的消费者。来自加拿大北方森林的产品有五分之四最终都消费在美国市场，而这些产品的购买者压根就没有想过这些产品的来源。再生纸和用得到森林管理委员会(Forest Stewardship Council)认证为不破坏生态的原料生产的替代纸品的出现，使大用户很容易转而选择环保主义者感到满意的产品，因为他们没有任何理由抵制环保人士的要求。“森林伦理”（ForestEthics）是一家环保组织，该组织也在上星期达成的协议上签了字。该组织的执行主任托德•帕格里亚(Todd Paglia)说：“我们使价值数亿美元纸品采购转变了方向。”

In 2007, at the urging of Canopy, another of the environmental groups involved, Scholastic, a publisher, printed all 12m American copies of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” on eco-friendly paper. The decision meant little more than feel-good greening to Scholastic, but at 15,000 tonnes it was one of the largest single paper orders in history, with a value Nicole Rycroft, Canopy"s director, estimates to be about $20m. Victoria’s Secret, a lingerie brand that sends out around 400m catalogues each year, switched to alternative paper for its catalogues and took a public stance on caribou conservation. “If you want to talk to the logging company they will laugh you out of the room in two minutes,” says Mr Paglia, “but if you bring Victoria’s Secret, Office Depot, or Staples, everything changes.”

“树冠”组织（Canopy）是另外一个在该协议上签字的环保组织。2007年，在该组织的敦促下，美国学者出版公司（Scholastic）将其印刷的所有1200万套美国版《哈利•波特与死圣》（Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows）书都改用环保纸张印刷。这项决定对美国学者出版公司而言不过是自我感觉增点绿色罢了，但1.5万吨纸张的单笔订单可是创了历史记录。“树冠”组织的执行主任妮科尔•罗克罗夫特（Nicole Rycroft）估计其价值约为2千万美元。“维多利亚的秘密”是一个女性内衣品牌，其生产公司每年要发送约4亿份产品目录，其产品目录也改用替代纸张印刷，并在驯鹿保护问题上采取与公众一致的立场。帕格里亚说：“如果你想与伐木公司谈一谈，他们会在两分钟内将你嘲笑出屋。但如果你搬出“维多利亚的秘密”、欧迪办公（Office Depot）或史泰博（Staples），一切就都两样了。”

At the height of the boycott campaigns, Avrim Lazar, the head of the Forest Products Association of Canada, a trade group, began to make private overtures to some of the foundations and advocacy groups which eventually became party to the agreement. “There was a general feeling”, he recalls, “that our differences in reality were smaller than the differences we presented in the public debates. We had fallen into cultural role-playing that wasn’t getting either side the outcomes we were looking for.”

在抵制运动的高潮中，加拿大林产品协会（Forest Products Association of Canada）的主席拉泽尔（Avrim Lazar）私下里主动向最终在这项协议上签字的一些基金会和环保组织提出建议。这家协会是加拿大的一个林产品贸易集团。他回忆说:“总的感觉我们之间的实际分歧并没有在公开辩论中展示出的那么大。我们过去陷入扮演各自的文化角色之中，这导致任何一方都无法达到所追求的目标。”

How much of this agreement can be replicated elsewhere is hard to say: Canada combines a big forest-products sector with green sensibilities, and the environmental groups involved, for all their sometimes rowdy tactics, are mature and disciplined negotiators. Mr Lazar notes that in the United States timber companies and environmental groups are usually busy suing one another.更多信息请访问：http://www.24en.com/

这份协议在多大程度上可以被其他地方所仿效还很难说。加拿大拥有巨大且具有环保意识的森林产业，签署协议的环保组织尽管有时吵吵闹闹，但都是些成熟的团体机构，他们的成员遵守纪律，愿意谈判解决问题。拉泽尔指出，美国的木材公司和环保组织通常忙于起诉对方，在法庭上分个输赢。

Nonetheless, there do seem to be some clear lessons. One is that calling on government to approve the deal only after the fact, rather than having it involved throughout, made the process more palatable to both industry and environmentalists. In the past, mediation by governments constrained by political considerations had left nobody satisfied. This approach requires that environmentalists work on the basis of a smart analysis of the economy of influence, finding companies that can make decisions that matter, but for which the issue is not of primary importance. But it also required an industry clear-eyed enough to understand when the game had changed.

然而，这样做弊病很大，确实应该引以为戒。教训之一是，只有在协议的结果得到企业和环保组织双方的认同后才要求政府予以批准，而不是要求政府参与谈判与协议执行的全过程。在过去，政府的调停受到政治考虑的制约，结果双方都不满意。眼下这种协议的方式要求环保人士能够根据经济影响的敏锐分析找出做出问题决策的公司，但对公司而言，这个问题又不是最优先考虑的事项。同时也需要企业方头脑清晰，明白何时需要调整游戏的规则。