Tzeporah Berman (born 5 February 1969) is a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

environmental activist The environmental movement (sometimes referred to as the ecology movement), also including conservation and green politics, is a diverse philosophical, social, and political movement for addressing environmental issues. Environmentalists advoc ...

, campaigner and writer. She is known for her role as one of the organizers of the logging blockades in

Clayoquot Sound , image = Clayoquot Sound - Near Tofino - Vancouver Island BC - Canada - 08.jpg , image_size = 260px , alt = , caption = , image_bathymetry = Vancouver clayoquot sound de.png , alt_bathyme ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

in 1992–93. In 2009, Berman served on British Columbia's Green Energy Task Force. The task force, appointed by Premier

Gordon Campbell Gordon Muir Campbell, (born January 12, 1948) is a retired Canadian diplomat and politician who was the 35th mayor of Vancouver from 1986 to 1993 and the 34th premier of British Columbia from 2001 to 2011. He was the leader of the British Co ...

, was charged with making recommendations on the development of

renewable energy Renewable energy is energy that is collected from renewable resources that are naturally replenished on a human timescale. It includes sources such as sunlight, wind, the movement of water, and geothermal heat. Although most renewable energy ...

for the province. Berman was one of the experts in the environmental documentary ''The 11th Hour'', produced by Leonardo DiCaprio. She was named as one of six Canadian nominees for the

Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship is a Swiss not-for-profit organization founded in 1998 that provides platforms at the country, regional and global levels to promote social entrepreneurship.Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneu ...

social entrepreneur of the year award, one of "50 Visionaries Changing the World" in ''

Utne Reader ''Utne Reader'' (also known as ''Utne'') ( ) is a digital digest that collects and reprints articles on politics, culture, and the environment, generally from alternative media sources including journals, newsletters, weeklies, zines, music, and ...

'' and as "Canada's Queen of Green" in a cover story by ''

Reader's Digest ''Reader's Digest'' is an American general-interest family magazine, published ten times a year. Formerly based in Chappaqua, New York, it is now headquartered in midtown Manhattan. The magazine was founded in 1922 by DeWitt Wallace and his wi ...

''. She was included in the

Royal British Columbia Museum Founded in 1886, the Royal British Columbia Museum (sometimes referred to as Royal BC Museum) consists of The Province of British Columbia's natural and human history museum as well as the British Columbia Provincial Archives. The museum is loca ...

permanent exhibit of "150 people who have changed the face of British Columbia." In 2015 Berman served on the British Columbia Governments Climate Leadership Team and was appointed in 2016 to serve on the Alberta Governments Oil Sands Advisory Group as co-chair. Berman was listed of one of the 35 Most Influential Women in British Columbia by BC Business Magazine and awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Law from University of British Columbia. Berman is an adjunct professor at the Faculty of Environmental Studies, at York University in Toronto.

Early life and education

Berman grew up in

London, Ontario London (pronounced ) is a city in southwestern Ontario, Canada, along the Quebec City–Windsor Corridor. The city had a population of 422,324 according to the 2021 Canadian census. London is at the confluence of the Thames River, approximate ...

, the third of four siblings in a middle-class

Jewish family Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...

. Her father owned a small advertising company and her mother had a business that made promotional flags and pennants.Glave, James (1 November 2009)
"Tzeporah Berman's Green Idea."
''

Vancouver Magazine ''Vancouver Magazine'' is an English-language lifestyle magazine focused on Vancouver, British Columbia and the Lower Mainland. ''Vancouver Magazine'' describes its mission as informing, guiding and entertaining residents of a "dynamic, internati ...

''. Retrieved: 2013-08-06. The family spent summers at her mother's family's cottage in

Lake of the Woods Lake of the Woods (french: Lac des Bois, oj, Pikwedina Sagainan) is a lake occupying parts of the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Manitoba and the U.S. state of Minnesota. Lake of the Woods is over long and wide, containing more than 14,55 ...

. Her father died when Berman was in her early teens and her mother died two years later. After high school, Berman moved to Toronto to attend Ryerson University's fashion arts design program. While she was successful in design— Harry Rosen, who judged the school's final show called her a "bright light on Canada's fashion scene," Berman left the program after a year to pursue environmental studies going on to obtain a BA with Honors from the University of Toronto Innis College (awarded Douglas Pimlott award) and then a Master's in Environmental Studies from York University. In 2013 Berman was awarded a Honorary Doctorate of Laws from the University of British Columbia in recognition of her work to strengthen environmental laws and policy in British Columbia, Canada.

Career and research

In 1992, Berman travelled to the

Carmanah Valley Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park, originally Carmanah Pacific Provincial Park, is a remote wilderness park located inside traditional Ditidaht First Nation (also spelled diiɁdiitidq) ancestral territory. The park covers a land area of immediate ...

Vancouver Island Vancouver Island is an island in the northeastern Pacific Ocean and part of the Canadian Provinces and territories of Canada, province of British Columbia. The island is in length, in width at its widest point, and in total area, while are o ...

to do fieldwork on threatened seabirds. The following year when she returned to continue her survey, she found that a logging crew had clear-cut the hillside. In 1993, the Clayoquot Sound Land Use Decision had granted pulp-and-paper giant

MacMillan Bloedel MacMillan Bloedel Limited, sometimes referred to as "MacBlo", was a Canadian forestry company headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia. It was formed through the merger of three smaller forestry companies in 1951 and 1959. Those were the Po ...

rights to clear cut two thirds of a 650,000 acre lowland coastal

temperate rainforest Temperate rainforests are coniferous or broadleaf forests that occur in the temperate zone and receive heavy rain. Temperate rain forests occur in oceanic moist regions around the world: the Pacific temperate rain forests of North American Paci ...

, the largest of its kind in the world. Berman joined with Valerie Langer and members of

Friends of Clayoquot Sound Friends of Clayoquot Sound is a Canadian grassroots non-profit environmental organization, based in Tofino, British Columbia. It focuses on protecting Clayoquot Sound’s globally rare ecosystem of temperate rainforest and ocean (designated a UNESC ...

in the growing Clayoquot protests. That summer, Friends of Clayoquot Sound and

Greenpeace Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning network, founded in Canada in 1971 by Irving Stowe and Dorothy Stowe, immigrant environmental activists from the United States. Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth t ...

launched blockades against the logging. Berman came to national and international attention as one of the spokespersons for the protests, which employed nonviolent

civil disobedience Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal of a citizen to obey certain laws, demands, orders or commands of a government (or any other authority). By some definitions, civil disobedience has to be nonviolent to be called "civil". Hen ...

tactics taught in a series of peace camps in

Tofino Tofino ( ) is a town of approximately 2,516 residents on the west coast of Vancouver Island in the Canadian province of British Columbia. The District of Tofino is located at the western terminus of Highway 4 on the tip of the Esowista Penins ...

and in high-profile locations such as

Stanley Park Stanley Park is a public park in British Columbia, Canada that makes up the northwestern half of Vancouver's Downtown Peninsula, surrounded by waters of Burrard Inlet and English Bay. The park borders the neighbourhoods of West End and Coal ...

in Vancouver.Berman, Tzeporah, with

Mark Leiren-Young Mark Leiren-Young (born 1962) is a Canadian playwright, author, journalist, screenwriter, filmmaker and performer. He lives in Saanich, British Columbia. Early life Mark Leiren-Young was born in Vancouver, British Columbia. He spent two years at ...

. (2011). ''This Crazy Time: Living our environmental challenge''. Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf Canada. Saunders, Doug (24 May 2011)
"Greenpeace: tactics not so clear cut anymore."
''

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...

''. Retrieved: 2013-08-06. The blockades lasted for five months and became the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history; over 850 people were arrested.The Canadian Encyclopedia
Clayoquot Sound
Historica Dominion. Retrieved on: 2012-11-08. Tzeporah-kk-1

Berman played a key role in the negotiations between MacMillan Bloedel (now owned by

Weyerhaeuser Weyerhaeuser () is an American timberland company which owns nearly of timberlands in the U.S., and manages an additional of timberlands under long-term licenses in Canada. The company also manufactures wood products. It operates as a real e ...

), the activists and local First Nations. MacMillan Bloedel agreed to hand over its logging rights in Clayoquot Sound to Indigenous-controlled companies who would keep the

old-growth forest An old-growth forestalso termed primary forest, virgin forest, late seral forest, primeval forest, or first-growth forestis a forest that has attained great age without significant disturbance, and thereby exhibits unique ecological featur ...

s intact. By the late 1990s, Greenpeace had been successful in Europe using ad campaigns against companies engaging in practices considered damaging to the environment. In 2000, Berman co-founded ForestEthics, a group devoted to using tactics that would convince companies to change their ways or risk loss of sales. One of Berman's first successful actions was the

Victoria's Secret Victoria's Secret is an American lingerie, clothing, and beauty retailer known for high visibility marketing and branding, starting with a popular catalog and followed by an annual fashion show with supermodels dubbed Angels. As the largest ret ...

campaign. The company had been printing a million copies per day of its glossy catalogues using paper from old-growth timber. The ForestEthics campaign initiated street-theatre demonstrations and fake fashion ads to force the undergarment manufacturer to consider changing its practices. After a few weeks, Berman was able to negotiate different wood-pulp sources with company management. Similar campaigns targeting Staples and

Office Depot The ODP Corporation is an American office supply holding company headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida. The company has combined annual sales of approximately $11 billion, and employs about 38,000 associates with businesses in the United States. ...

led them to reconsider using old-growth timber. The strategy was not just to tell companies what they should stop doing, but rather "what they should continue doing and start doing in order to stay in business but avoid protests." Berman went on to be one of the lead negotiators in the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement. In 2004, Berman switched her focus to climate change, founding a nonprofit environmental organization called PowerUp Canada that worked successfully to create greater support in Canada for

carbon pricing Carbon pricing (or pricing), also known as cap and trade (CAT) or emissions trading scheme (ETS), is a method for nations to reduce global warming. The cost is applied to greenhouse gas emissions in order to encourage polluters to reduce the co ...

and defended the BC carbon tax from critics threatening to "axe the tax." In 2010 Berman was hired to Co-Direct Greenpeace International's Climate and Energy program in 40 countries. In that capacity she was the team leader for the creation of the Arctic campaign, contributed to the campaign to get Volkswagen to support vehicle efficiency regulations in the EU and ran a successful campaign against Facebook, on Facebook, to encourage the company to demand renewable energy in its procurement for data centers. Before leaving Greenpeace she helped to design and coordinate the "Clean Our Cloud" campaign that encouraged the largest IT companies in the world such as Apple and Google to demand and invest in renewable energy. In 2012, Berman moved back to Canada and began consulting with philanthropic foundations, environmental organizations and First Nations on climate and energy policy and to design campaigns on oil sands and pipelines. In 2015 Berman was appointed by the British Columbia Government to the Climate Leadership Team to make recommendations on climate policy in British Columbia. In 2016, she was appointed to be co-chair of the Oil Sands Advisory Group by the Alberta Government to make recommendations on implementing the new Climate Leadership Plan, reviewing cumulative impacts of oil sands operations and design climate recommendations for the pathway to 2050. In 2018, Berman came on board with Stand.earth, formerly ForestEthics, as International Program Director. In 2020 she launched the

Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative The Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative is a civil society campaign to create a treaty to stop fossil fuel exploration and expansion and Fossil fuel phase-out, phase-out existing production in line with the targets of the Paris Climate ...

, of which she is the chair.

Selected works

Books

* Berman, Tzeporah, with

. (2011). ''This Crazy Time: Living our environmental challenge''. Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf Canada. * Berman Tzeporah, Christopher Hatch; Maurice Gibbons; Ronald B. Hatch; Gordon Brent Ingram; Loys Maingon (1994). ''Clayoquot & Dissent''. Ronsdale Press.

Articles

* Tzeporah Berman, Peter Newell, Matthew Stilwell (4 February 2020
Cold War lesson for the climate change era: Why we need a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty
''

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists The ''Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists'' is a nonprofit organization concerning science and global security issues resulting from accelerating technological advances that have negative consequences for humanity. The ''Bulletin'' publishes conte ...

''. * Berman, Tzeporah (19 February 2013
Washington is right: Canada must confront its climate neglect
''

''. * Berman, Tzeporah (2 May 2012)
Oil, dissent and the future of Canada
''The Globe and Mail''.

References

External links

Official website
* * Hamilton, Gordon (24 May 2013)

''

Vancouver Sun The ''Vancouver Sun'', also known as the ''Sun'', is a daily broadsheet newspaper based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The newspaper is currently published by the Pacific Newspaper Group, a division of Postmedia Network. Published s ...

''. * Hampson, Sarah (3 October 2011)
"Activist Tzeporah Berman steps out of the trees and into the boardroom."
''The Globe and Mail''. * Langlois, Christine (November, 2009)
"The Queen of Green."
''

''. * Ross, Nicola (30 November 2011)
"Reflections of a determined environmentalist."
''The Globe and Mail''. * Saunders, Doug (24 May 2011)
"Greenpeace: tactics not so clear cut anymore."
''The Globe and Mail''. * Braid, Don (15 July 2016)

Calgary Herald ;Video *Business and Climate Summit 2016 with Steve Williams CEO of Suncor

* Amy Goodman, Goodman, Amy (24 September 2013)
Corroding Our Democracy: Canada Silences Scientists, Targets Environmentalists in Tar Sands Push
''

Democracy Now! ''Democracy Now!'' is an hour-long American TV, radio, and Internet news program hosted by journalists Amy Goodman (who also acts as the show's executive producer), Juan González, and Nermeen Shaikh. The show, which airs live each weekday at ...

'' * Stromboulopoulos, George (10 October 2011)
Guest Interview: Tzeporah Berman
''

George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight ''George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight'' (originally known as ''The Hour'') is a Canadian television talk show hosted by George Stroumboulopoulos that aired on CBC Television from 2005 to 2014. As ''The Hour'', the show was so named, as it was a dail ...

'',

CBC Television CBC Television (also known as CBC TV) is a Canadian English-language broadcast television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster. The network began operations on September 6, 1952. Its French-l ...

. * Kiefer, Fanny "Tzeporah Berman on Studio 4 with Fanny Kiefer
(Part 1)(Part 2)
''

Shaw TV Shaw Spotlight (formerly Shaw TV) is the name of locally based community channel services operated by cable TV provider Shaw Communications. The channels are available only to Shaw Cable subscribers and are produced in communities throughout w ...

'' * Gregg, Allan (22 October 2011)
"Tzeporah Berman on past and present environmental challenges."
'' Allan Gregg in Conversation with...'',

TVOntario TVO Media Education Group (often abbreviated as TVO and stylized on-air as tvo) is a publicly funded English-language educational television network and media organization serving the Canadian province of Ontario. It is operated by the Ontario ...

. ;Audio *

Anna Maria Tremonti Anna Maria Tremonti (born July 2, 1957) is a Canadian radio and television journalist who has been featured on a variety of radio and television programs on the CBC. She has served as a senior reporter for '' The National'', where she won two G ...

(19 September 2011)
Game Changer: Tzeporah Berman
'' The Current'',

CBC Radio One CBC Radio One is the English-language news and information radio network of the publicly owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. It is commercial-free and offers local and national programming. It is available on AM and FM to 98 percent of Ca ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Berman, Tzeporah 1969 births Canadian conservationists Canadian women non-fiction writers Non-fiction environmental writers Writers from London, Ontario Living people Sustainability advocates University of Toronto alumni Jewish Canadian activists Canadian public relations people Canadian civil servants Canadian women civil servants Canadian climate activists 21st-century Canadian non-fiction writers 21st-century Canadian women writers Jewish Canadian writers Climate Breakthrough awardees