Industrial loggers are banned from clear-cutting the boreal forest near Grassy Narrows, leaders of the First Nation have declared in a land sovereignty claim meant to help the community recover from decades of pollution.There is currently no ongoing industrial logging in the part of the Whiskey Jack Forest that sits in territory Grassy Narrows leaders say is their peoples’.Though the provincial government has decided who can log and where, the community announced a moratorium in 2007 and there has been no harvesting since the company operating in the area agreed to leave shortly after. Then, in 2017, Ontario’s previous government promised no cutting for at least five more years.Grassy Narrows leaders fear the new Doug Ford government will re-open the forest to business. A spokesperson for Minister of Natural Resources and Forestry Jeff Yurek said “we cannot comment on a document we ourselves have not yet received.`“We are the Indigenous people of this land. ... Industrial logging makes our ongoing mercury crisis worse,” said the declaration signed by Chief Rudy Turtle and council. “We will make our own decisions and there will be no industrial logging on our Anishinabe Territory.”Between 1962 and 1970 a Dryden, Ont., paper plant dumped 10 tonnes of mercury, a potent neurotoxin, in the Wabigoon River. The site of the plant, now under different ownership, is upstream from Grassy Narrows. The mercury contaminated the fish and poisoned the people who ate the fish. They developed tremors, loss of muscle co-ordination, slurred speech and tunnel vision, and still suffer today.Read more: Landmark study reveals ‘clear evidence’ of mercury’s toll on health in Grassy NarrowsOpinion | Is Grassy Narrows poisoning a crime against humanity?‘I started to have seizures at the age of 2.’ Ontario residents describe the ravages of mercury exposureLogging could lead to more mercury being released to the environm ...
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