UNNATURAL CONSTRUCTIONS - Making Sense of Nature - page 114

Study Task: We've just seen how two different groups represented the
same area of forest in contrasting ways. Focus now on what the otherwise
divergent representations have in common. First, think about which of the
four meanings of 'nature' itemised in Chapter 1 they share: is one most
prominent? Then, consider how these meanings are spatialised and tem-
poralised. Finally, consider if there's anything similar about how nature,
so defined, is represented, notwithstanding the genre differences between
Beyond the cut and Clayoquot: on the wild side .
Each document, in its own genre-specific way, made a claim to 'realism'.
Both sought to reveal a 'truth' about Clayoquot Sound, albeit by using
different discursive, rhetorical and visual tactics. Both sought to sway pub-
lic opinion in BC and Canada, and government opinion too. Despite its
emotive, moralising, pro-nature stance, Clayoquot: on the wild side seemed, if
anything, the more authentic of the two (at least at first glance). After all,
it was speaking of, and for, a forest ecosystem that was, undoubtedly, in
need of representatives able to give voice to its rare and special qualities.
If trees could speak, then one might reasonably presume they'd speak the
language of green ethics, not the instrumentalist, anthropocentric ethics of
a logging company intent on their removal. Without environmentalists like
Dorst and Young, much of Clayoquot's forest could well have been clear-
cut. Instead, it was made into a UNESCOWorld Biosphere Reserve in 2000
and continues to enjoy protection from commercial logging firms.
Interesting as all this (hopefully) is to readers, it may appear to contradict
a major argument of Making sense of nature . It implies that, while there were
different representations of nature (in this case Clayoquot Sound), nature
nonetheless existed outside them as their referential basis. For, though Beyond
the cut and Clayoquot: on the wild side differed in how they depicted Clayoquot,
I may seem to be suggesting that 'the forest' was a pre-existing entity onto-
logically available to be re-presented in different ways. It was an 'external
nature' whose essential qualities were simply being described in print and
images. However, this is not what I am arguing. Here I follow the lead given
by Braun. In his book The intemperate rainforest (2002), he points out that
both MacMillan Bloedel and its environmentalist critics together presup-
posed the existence of something that their representations then failed to
question. Notwithstanding their differences, what documents like Beyond
the cut and Clayoquot: on the wild side shared, Braun argues, was the convic-
tion that Clayoquot was a forest ecosystem in which people were largely
absent and which, to date, had barely registered any meaningful human
imprint.
This conviction was, in fact, highly contestable (though neither party
hinted at it at the time). More pointedly, Braun argues that it was neo-
colonial: that is, a form of colonial thinking still evident (even) after the