Stop Logging the Benny Forest

May 12, 2015

Dear Hon. Mauro,

My husband Clyde McNichol’s ancestral home near Benny Ontario is being destroyed by logging giant Eacom and your Ministry’s current ten year plan.  Toxic waste dumping at the Cartier dump and mining operations not far away are aggravating the matter. Please help me stop this destruction and protect all the beautiful life here that we stand to lose.  My husband and his people I know in my heart were given this land as a home by God, our Creator. They became stewards over it, protected it, and carefully taught their children to respect it, not to destroy it, and not to take more than they or their family needed from it. They were taught to pray to the Creator and thank Him and the being they took and its relatives, be they trees, plants or animals. Their practice was to put down tobacco or another offering in thanks for any life they took from plants or animals for their needs. I know He has always appreciated this and rewarded them.  Clyde and other Native leaders I have met have gifts from Him that have helped me and others I know, both Native and non-Native, in extraordinary ways spiritually, emotionally, mentally and physically.  These people too will be lost to us if we keep destroying their forests and homes.

With assimilation we are losing their important teachings. Some Native people themselves no longer think twice about the problem. Nothing Canada has done has replaced the kind of protection and balance the animals and plants and people previously had here. The trees do not grow back in 20 years or ever in an adequate way.  Come and look at them. Loggers aren’t even interested in some of it cut decades ago, but look to new places now to cut, rather than waiting any longer for some kind of restoration of the land that was lumbered in Clyde’s father’s day. It is hard to imagine that humans or much else will want to live on the clearcuts around us again. Chemical processing at the mills is making the water all around so toxic. No one will be coming to hunt, fish or gather after the animals' homes and food supply are destroyed.  Aboriginal and Treaty rights to do so will become meaningless as a result of the current Forestry Management Plan that you have approved without consent from those who have lived here from time immemorial. Neither Canada nor Ontario has a right to do this. Our integrity is on the line. Please give more say to the families here who love the land and who will ensure its ongoing well-being for the sake of a long term home for their children and grandchildren, and for the sake of all the Indigenous plants, animals, and medicines which are part of the family too. Big business forestry operations have no place in Benny. Tree farms at the mercy of head offices in Toronto, Montreal or New York are no comparison to the ecological balance and respect that previously existed.  Enough is enough! I pray you will listen and help us.

Sincerely,

Barbara (Guillet Ronson) McNichol

705-822-6244