Haida Gwaii court ruling against forestry giant is a win for Indigenous Rights

On March 31, the Supreme Court of B.C. released its decision on a historic case with implications for the future of resource management in Canada.

The judge sided with the Haida Gwaii Management Council and Province of British Columbia against logging giant Teal Cedar Products Inc., which argued its profitability had unjustly diminished due to the former’s sustainability regulations and improved forestry stewardship standards. In its defence, Haida Gwaii Management Council and the province pointed to Teal’s careless logging and business practices, which it continued despite expert, repeated advice from Haida and Crown governments. Proceedings involved numerous expert witnesses and took place over the course of 64 days in 2023. Almost exactly two years later, the judge dismissed Teal’s claims.

In a statement, Skil Hiilans (Allan Davidson), hereditary title holder of St’lang Laanaas and chair and founding member of the council, said, “We welcome this judgment that strongly affirms the [Haida Gwaii Management Council] has the mandate and authority to make the decisions that best maintains the cultural and environmental integrity of Haida Gwaii.”

Keith Moore, a forester and long-time Haida Gwaii resident, and a witness in the case, calls the decision “a great victory” for all the work the communities, the Haida Nation and the provincial government did to create the progressive land-use plan for Haida Gwaii. Though Haida leaders and conservation experts testified during the proceedings, Moore says the judgement is “purely based on the law” as the judge rejected all three of Teal’s arguments. “But it is great support for all the work that was done on Haida Gwaii and good news for the future elsewhere. Governments and First Nations can move forward to make the important decisions to change the way we manage forests with the full support of the law.”

The decision is not only significant for future conservation initiatives — it also affirms the Haida principle of Yahguudang (respect) and upholds the rights of First Nations to safeguard their homelands.

Haida legal perspectives on resource management stretch back millennia 

While hearings in this case were on the lengthier end by Canadian legal standards, it is rooted in questions that run more than 16,000 years deep. Then, Id Kuuniisii (our Ancestors) lived below looming walls of ice, before the arrival of trees in Haida Gwaii.

Haida ancestors thrived beside bountiful salmon rivers that drained expansive upland herb tundras and medicine bogs, and enjoyed all that the teeming eelgrass meadows and kelp forests provide. Id Kuuniisii understood how wisdom imbues the world around us and, by listening carefully over hundreds of generations, they derived the tenets of our philosophies. As they looked around them it became clear that the root of being is Yahguudang. This primordial law forms rich soil, within which Indigenous principles and practices intertwine like roots, keeping us firmly planted within the territories we belong to.

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In the Haida system, all these principles come together in ‘Waahl’ahl (potlatch): an international legal institution, wealth redistribution system and resource management regime. ‘Waahl’ahl enables Haida to make resource management decisions with extraordinarily high resolution, rooted in lifetimes of experience, collected intergenerationally over thousands of years. The dances, songs, stories and practices enacted through this legal system are recitations of the legal principles we have derived from the world around us.

According to K’iygang, the Haida canon of oral histories, the nations of the northeastern Pacific coasts have been practicing ‘Waahl’ahl from the moment of our arrival in this plane, preceding Canadian common law by at least tens of thousands of years.

When forests finally began to grow again in Haida Gwaii some 14,500 years ago, ‘Waahl’ahl — and our understanding of our world — grew along with them. In reflection of the living systems, ‘Waahl’ahl has grown in complexity, strength and vivacity with age. This accompanies a long-term vision for management that is naturally driven to prioritise sustainability and the enactment of policies that guarantee intergenerational prosperity. Id Kuuniisii managed forestry using ‘Waahl’ahl, successfully and sustainably, from the day of the first Haida until the annexation of our territories after 1862.

Modern logging in no way reflects our ancestral principles. The modern high regard for quick profits and the desperate drive to consume the wealth of our own descendants would seem wholly foreign to id Kuuniisii. However, with each additional legal decision to affirm the nature of inherent Indigenous Title and rights, the roots of Canadian law begin to find firmer footing in the deep soils of Indigenous legal perspectives. The classic colonial regard for the short-term spoils of the coming season is beginning to stretch into the millennia encompassed by Indigenous views.

Modern logging on Haida Gwaii

Starting in earnest during the 1970s, a series of logging corporations began removing billions of dollars worth of forests from Haida Title territories. Ruthless logging practices destroyed ecosystems of all kinds, depleted fish populations and exhausted soils. Teal arrived in Haida territories in 1997 as one of these many operations, later purchasing two forest licences from TimberWest Forest Corp. for $4.8 million.

Clearcut logging spread over the decades, eventually reaching the mountain peaks of K’amalang Gwaay (Talunkwan Island), ruining the masses of ancient tree roots that had held soils in place for thousands of years and causing huge landslides that are still visible today.

After witnessing the devastation of K’amalang Gwaay, with unifying leadership from Haida Elders, Haida citizens famously blockaded logging roads in 1985 at Tllga Kun Gwaay.yaay (Lyell Island). In response, RCMP officers arrested 72 Haida people, with courts later convicting 12 on a variety of charges. Despite the resistance of state and industry, this phenomenal effort led to the first of many agreements between the Haida Nation, B.C. and Canada to protect Haida Gwaii’s forests in 1988. This later grew into Gwaii Haanas Haida Heritage Site in 1993, now world-renowned for its gorgeous and sprawling old-growth rainforests and Haida monuments.

In 2005, sustained public protest forced B.C. to consider more responsible forestry standards. Haida and B.C. worked together to create the Haida Gwaii Land Use Objectives Order in 2010. The order established basic standards and limits that compel corporations to log more responsibly, including protecting cultural features, ecosystem-based management, sustainable harvesting practices, watershed and riparian protections and much more. Soon after, the Haida Nation and B.C. established Haida Gwaii Management Council in 2011 to implement these new logging standards.

The elevated standards significantly challenged destructive logging practices in Haida Gwaii, limiting the ways companies could exploit Haida Title territories. The land use objectives order reduced Teal’s annual allowable cut by 35 per cent in 2012, which prompted the company to file a lawsuit against Haida Gwaii Management Council and B.C. in 2016. Two months later, Teal sold its tenures to A&A Trading, another logging company, for $967,405. 

Teal damaged cultural and ecological features on Haida Gwaii, court hears

At trial, Haida Gwaii Management Council and B.C. argued Teal recklessly disregarded its stewardship responsibilities. Despite repeated and formal written precautions, Teal did not adapt its logging practices to harvest younger, second-growth trees, as other logging operations in Haida Gwaii have. Instead, it focused on the small portion of old growth that remained within one of its two logging tenures, burning through this valuable timber and leaving itself with nothing. As counsel for B.C. put it in court, “The manner in which they harvested the tenures was shortsighted, both in terms of the biophysical realities, particularly since they weren’t exporters, as well as their relationships with the Haida and the community.”

The defence argued that Teal disregarded respectful ecological and stewardship standards and damaged Diina and K’aasda (Copper) watersheds, which are home to treasured salmon spawning grounds, estuarine fish nurseries and harvesting areas. As counsel for B.C. summarized, expert witnesses “identified that Teal’s harvesting the Deena had devastating consequence[s], windthrow unlike any he had ever seen, entire parts of the bank mass wasted into the river itself, entire trees sitting inside the Deena Creek, trees 500 to 800 years old falling into a major food fishery stream on Haida Gwaii.”

Teal also damaged culturally modified trees and archaeological sites, despite an archaeological impact assessment prior to logging that identified significant features. Undeterred, Teal logged the area, damaging the features in violation of Haida law and the Heritage Conservation Act of B.C. With so much professional knowledge, purpose-written reports, widely-known legislation and supplementary communication, one has to question whether these were acts of disregard or incompetence. 

In court Teal argued the land use objectives order arose from B.C.’s commitment to reconciliation with First Nations. Teal asked the court “who should bear the cost of reconciliation,” the public or private enterprises? Teal’s line of questioning signals a readiness to acquit private enterprise of reconciliatory action, placing this duty singularly on the shoulders of the public.

The defence, however, argued that the order arises from far more than efforts towards reconciliation; it arises from community-based, strategic-level land use planning and is an example of ecosystem-based management. This approach places the myriad relationships within ecosystems at the centre of policy and decision-making.

In its decision, the court ruled that ecosystem-based management is “not a novel concept,” and that Teal should have been aware of its adoption in Haida Gwaii well ahead of the order’s implementation.

If corporations were to earn the power to sue governments any time they passed new legislation to uphold sustainable and ecologically sound practices, then we would witness a nation-wide proliferation of lawsuits arising from every sector. Fishing corporations could sue governments for reducing harvesting levels; oil corporations for changing where and how hydrocarbons should be transported; and mining operations for revising and improving water quality requirements.

Last April, Teal filed for creditor protection, the first step in the bankruptcy process. Teal-Jones Group, its multinational owner, owes creditors more than $300 million, with $500.8 million in capital assets.

The improved forestry standards within the land use objectives order are the new shoots on deep roots that have grown within the land and enabled Haida to thrive in our home territories since the time of glaciers. Thousands of years of Haida legal principles and intergenerational management still grow strong, and are now beginning to flourish anew.

To some degree, the co-creation of the land use objectives order reflects the will of colonial authorities like B.C. to adopt Indigenous philosophies and understandings, beginning with respecting our non-human relatives. To industrialized capitalism, however, respect and sustainability are completely new and revolutionary ways of relating to our world. Sustainable harvesting practices would seem to be the self-evident purpose of Indigenous governance systems like ‘Waahl’ahl (potlatch). Our beautiful relatives each diligently maintain their roles, obliging us to show equal diligence and to properly care for the living beings that provide for us.