Speak to the Earth by William Bell Read Free Book Online Page A

preserved.”
    Red-faced, Jimmy smashed his chair against the table, upsetting his untasted bottle of beer. Amber liquid cascaded to the floor. Bryan could see the jaw muscles flexing beneath Jimmy’s skin. “And I need to work!” he shouted, slamming the kitchen door as he left the house.
    Iris rushed to the door and grabbed the knob, but did not turn it. She faced Bryan. “I’d better get on the phone to the committee,” she said quietly, almost to herself. “We’ve got to get organized, fast.”
    “Mom,” Bryan said, “you were pretty hard on him.”
    She let out a long sigh. “This can’t be allowed to happen.”
    “Why not? I mean, half the people around here work in the logging business, one way or the other,” he said, thinking of Ellen’s family as well as his own. “It’s not like there aren’t enough trees.”
    “That’s just it. There aren’t.”
    “Are you kidding? Jimmy’s right, Mom. You’re exaggerating. The whole island is a blanket of trees. Who’s going to even notice? Besides, MFI replants the areas they log. We learned all about it in school.”
    “Listen, Bryan. In the first place, the sound is public land. Or, if you’re First Nation, it’s native land. Either way, it doesn’t belong to MFI.”
    “Yeah, but they’ve got the tree farm licence, the rights to —”
    “They buy those TFLs for a song because their goons in the legislature help them out. Then when they cut, they pay ridiculously low stumpage fees.” Iris laughed bitterly. “And if the government changes its mind and cancels the TFLs, they have to pay the company millions of dollars in compensation. To get back the so-called rights to our own land! It’s all as crooked as hell. Look, son,” Iris said, calming down a little, “this isn’t just another logging project. Everybody seems to think the rainforest is limitless. That’s the way we treated the ozone layer, the air we breathe, the rivers and oceans. But those ancient stands of timber aren’t limitless. When they’re cut down, they’re gone. All I’m saying is let’s preserve what’s left.”
    “But, Mom —”
    “Take Vancouver Island,” Iris interrupted. Bryanknew that when she was on a roll like this, the best thing to do was stand back and let her wind down. “There are about ninety watersheds bigger than five thousand hectares, okay? You know how many of the ninety
haven’t
been logged out?” Without waiting for his reply, she pounded her fist into her palm. “Five! There are five left, Bryan, and three of them are in Orca Sound! Some of the trees practically within sight of Nootka Harbour are a hundred metres high, way older than a thousand years. They can’t be replaced. MFI wants to turn them into logs to sell to the States and Japan!”
    When his mother paused for a breath and a pull on her beer, Bryan said, “But, Mom, the government makes sure that the forests are protected, doesn’t it? I mean, look at the parks.”
    “The government is at the beck and call of the big corporations. The government allowed the streams to be polluted by mining and pulp companies. The government doesn’t even follow its own laws. There are First Nation reserves right here on the island, which are under the control of the government, whose sewage systems don’t meet government regulations! These are the officials you trust to protect the forests? The
people
have to protect the environment
from
the government!”
    Putting down her beer, she repeated, “I’ve got to make some calls,” and rushed into the family room.
    Bryan sat at the kitchen table, staring at three plates of cold, untouched stew.

SEVEN
    M r Calder, whom his students called Nose Hairs because of the untrimmed sprouts that poked from his nostrils like reeds through the surface of a pond, told Bryan’s Science class one day about Isaac Newton. That physicist, famous for allowing an apple to fall on his head and thus demonstrate the immutable law of gravity, had announced to