Bruce Vincent is a third generation logger who helped create “Communities For A Great Northwest” in 1988. It’s a non-profit education and information group dedicated to the intelligent use of our natural resources. Bruce has provided testimony to Congress on resource issues and speaks to groups throughout the United States and the world.

According to his website, Bruce’s activities represent a family commitment to responsible environmentalism.

I met Bruce when he came to Juneau to speak to the annual gathering of Southeast Conference in April. He introduced us to an Alaska enterprise we knew existed but never really thought of as a business. This industry has attracted millions of dollars in outside money to our state to fund PR campaigns, support “citizen” initiatives, bankroll candidates and “educate” our youth. This industry collects millions by peddling gloom.

Bruce calls it the “conflict industry.” Its predecessor was the American environmental movement which he says was both timely and necessary. Its problem was it failed to mature beyond a three-word vision of ‘Stop Doing That’ and now impacts just about every aspect of life in America from pork production to global warming initiatives.

Alaska has provided the conflict industry with a beautiful home and fertile fundraising ground to plow for years. The demise of Southeast Alaska’s timber industry was its first success. The effort to shut down logging was sold as a noble undertaking to save the Tongass National Forest.

At the time, our Congressional delegation did their best to save the jobs of Alaskan families who made their living in that forest. But momentum was on the side of the conflict industry and as jobs disappeared, Ketchikan and adjacent Prince of Wales Island eventually lost nearly 2,000 residents and much of their economic activity.

The conflict industry’s most recent Southeast targets have been cruise ships, the Kensington Mine and the Juneau road. Inciting fear always seems to do the trick: Cruise ships, we are warned, pollute the air and water, mines poison people and fish and a road will only invite crime and death by avalanche. The end goal is less about protecting the environment than sterilizing it.

Bruce Vincent insists that, “America is ready for a new environmental vision built on hope instead of fear, science instead of emotion, education instead of litigation, resolution instead of conflict, and employing rather than destroying human resources.”

Until politicians on both side of the political aisle decide to explore, if not embrace, this evolved vision, it won’t be long before Southeast is nothing but a vast wildlife sanctuary, its people driven out by the absence of any real economy.