I‘m a few minutes late to meet with Tamara Lorincz, but she’s still standing when I arrive at the cafe. “It gave me a chance to put up some posters,” she says.
Never a wasted moment.
After five years as executive director of the Nova Scotia Environment Network, Lorincz is moving on. The tragic death of her mother has handed her a mountain of emotional logistics to deal with, and sharpened her desire to be with her own children. “I’m going to be a stay-at-home mom for a year,” she says. Later she hopes to complete a Ph.D. in corporate social responsibility.
But the British Columbia-raised Lorincz is not giving up the eco-fight in her adopted home. “I love it here,” she says. “People have a sophisticated response to environmental and economic issues.”
When she started at NSEN Lorincz, who has an MBA and an environmental law degree from Dalhousie, spent her first week reviewing the province’s environmental legislation. “We have these rights under the Environment Act that environmentalists don’t take advantage of.”
For example, Nova Scotia mandated itself to have an environmental trust fund for research, management and conservation. Yet no such fund existed until NSEN and its member organizations demanded the government meet its commitment. The new trust fund is only about $60,000 (New Brunswick’s is about $4 million), but it’s a start.
Realizing that a little legal knowledge goes a long way, Lorincz went around the province with a group of lawyers giving workshops to any environmental group that would listen, no matter how small or remote. The tour led to the creation of the East Coast Environmental Law Association.
She has used legal issues to “unify, equip and expand” Nova Scotia’s environmentalists. She stresses that NSEN’s raison d’être is collaboration, that she has done nothing alone. But she has been a driving force behind the creation of a provincial natural resources strategy, the use of meaningful targets in the Environmental Goals and Sustainable Prosperity Act and an improved Environment Act. Lorincz has been a master mobilizer to these ends.
During her tenure, NSEN started polling political parties on their environmental platforms during elections. Now we have a tool to hold winning parties accountable to their environmental promises.
Lorincz also tackled specific issues such as uranium mining. “I asked the minister of Natural Resources every year to let environmentalists attend the Mining Matters conference,” she says. “I went to the 2006 conference and there were uranium companies from around the world. Their plans for mining across-province included uranium mining. I put out a red alert that a category five hurricane of uranium mining was on the horizon, and there was no mention of environmental responsibility or sustainability.”
Many of the issues she worked on, and sparked controversy over, have since become mainstream. In 2009, the theme of the Mining Matters conference was sustainability.
Lorincz has also taken a softer approach to building a stronger, more connected movement. NSEN holds an annual roundtable to discuss pertinent issues, and gives awards for successes like designating a new wilderness area. Because social connections are as important to a movement as professional connections, Lorincz started an environmental book club.
Through her tireless efforts Lorincz has gained a reputation for political outspokenness. It’s what drew her to what she figured was the most progressive political party. She took a leave of absence and ran for the NDP in the 2008 federal election. Little did she realize how tongue-tied a good politician has to be when towing the party line.
“I left the party completely in the fall,” she says. “I wanted complete liberty in speaking.” She has taken full advantage of that freedom, writing op/eds in the Herald and railing on our NDP government for its failure to meet environmental expectations.
While other environmentalists have treated the NDP with kid gloves, Lorincz has made her disappointment clear.
“This government,” she says, “hasn’t made sustainability a big priority.” But even as the face of NSEN, there is much she couldn’t say. “It may not seem like I’ve been holding back but when you speak for an organization you have to.”
Now she can tell us what she really feels. Nova Scotia’s political leadership better brace itself.
This article appears in Jun 3-9, 2010.
Let er’ rip Tamara! You are an inspiration to all the ethical Nova Scotians out there who are fighting to make a difference. I am continually amazed at how much of your being you put into your work, and how you never fail to turn the other cheek when attacked by ignorant Nova Scotians who can’t even begin to understand how right you are.
A quick question; why don’t you try running for the Green Party?
A loose cannon with lots of book smarts but no common sense. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
Bravo Tamara! You’re doing important work. Keep fighting the good fight.
‘….when towing the party line.’
In which direction was she trying to tow it ?
Left, further left, so far left as to be out to lunch ?
Did she use a tow truck or a harbour tug ?
Where do you get a PhD in CSR ?
How many pages of cliches comprise a suitable dissertation ?
Count me in as one of her examiners, I don’t toe the line on this CSR stuff.
CSR means delivering sustained appreciation in value to the shareholders, and nothing else.
If she can write less than 1,00 words on what that sentence means and how a business meets the definition I will give her a PhD.
You know you’re doing something right when you piss off the assholes.
She’s leaving for money and less work. “Corporate responsibility” posts are vacuous, and usually without any power unfortunately. Good money though.
In my opinion she detracted from her effectiveness as an environmental campaigner by also being a prominent peace activist. Now, don’t get me wrong – even though I personally support a strong military it doesn’t mean I’m in bed with the military-industrial complex either. I think she made some valid points. But doing things like protesting the air show is misguided and distracting. I always had the question, is her mindset more that of a member of the Halifax Peace Coalition or that of a member of the NS Environment Network? People are allowed to have opinions on everything but I think the environment movement in the province deserves and expects leaders who are single-minded on environmental issues, and try to keep their mouths shut on distracting issues during their tenure as environmental leaders.
If she needs to have a strong public activist opinion on everything – environment, militarism, corporate social responsibility – then she’s best off being a politician.
I’m not sure why Chris feels environmentalists have treated the NDP government with kid gloves. All the ones I know are quick to disagree with the government when they feel they misstep.
Most environmentalists are passionate people, but also have a sense of balance and fairness. They give credit where credit is due, congratulating the government for steps like the non-essential pesticide ban, the hard cap on greenhouse gas emissions, and the impressive new renewable energy targets. They also work with the government, going to public input sessions to have their voice heard and shape debate and policy, instead of just screaming and shouting. Then, their voice is known to be a reasonable and measured one – when they speak out against a policy, they’re listened to.
Railing against the NDP for not meeting environmental expectations, when they’ve actually made huge progress beyond anything they committed to during the election, would be ridiculous.
@Realist in Dartmouth, there is a direct tie between militarism and environment, see
http://www.thecoast.ca/halifax/war-on-eart…. Let me sum it up for you, militaries are the biggest consumers of fossil fuels on the planet, they routinely (albeit illegally) dump munitions and chemical weapons at sea, and create and spread nuclear waste/depleted uranium. In the bigger picture, $20 billion dollars per year goes to the military not counting the additional money allotted for the Afghanistan war and this amount is growing annually. Less than $1 billion goes to the environment and this amount is decreasing annually. The money we need to convert our economy from carbon based to sustainable is instead being spent on the military. If you are serious about the environment then you need to wake up about the impact of militarism.