Archive

CWA Blog

A few years ago I showed some Finnish foresters round a community woodland: the trip went well and I was impressed at how quickly they grasped the transformation of objectives and purpose that had taken place alongside the tweaks in silviculture. However, they were keen to ask my opinion on the previous visit on their itinerary - they had been shown around a large, upland clearfell site, and wanted to know if their host had been taking the p*ss. Apparently he had had spent the entire visit bemoaning the poor peaty soils, the high exposure and the inadequate drainage, the impossibility of crop improvement by thinning, the lack of markets for small roundwood, the very distant markets for sawlogs, the high cost of diesel, the poor road network and diminishing contractor base…all of which conspired to ensure that his recently completed clearfell didn’t even cover the costs of the restock.
"Ah" said the Finnish visitors "so what have you planted for the next rotation?"
"Exactly the same again" came the reply…

This failure to recognise fundamental flaws has been the most disappointing aspect of the general election campaign currently clogging up our media. The world’s economic system turned itself inside out less than 2 years ago, and the effects: unemployment, massive public debt, are only starting to be felt. Many of us have argued for years that unrestrained, unregulated capitalism would be a disaster socially and environmentally…now it transpired that it’s a disaster economically too. And yet none of the main parties even begins to challenge the economic status quo: having given all our money (for the next few decades) to the bankers who caused the mess in the first place, they are reduced to squabbling over where the subsequent cuts in public services and public spending should be.

The global economic downturn was a disaster, but it was also a once-in-a-generation opportunity to effect radical change: the chance to use state control of the banking system as a force for good, and in particular to drive the transition to a low carbon economy - no such luck, apparently. CWA is one of a number of NGOs trying to sketch out a programme for a Scottish Green New Deal, and there are of course any number of Government initiatives at least pointed in the right direction, but I can’t help feeling that we’re only scratching the surface of what needs to be done, and that none of the major parties really have any radical vision for change. Hope i’m wrong…

Next entry: More commiserations...

Previous entry: More colonial anthropology...

Add Your Comment Here