Editor:
While it’s always considered good form for celebrities to leave behind beautiful corpses, it’s less couth when trees on public greenspace do the same. I would concede without argument that half of the recently created logs and stumps on the Town of Gibsons land bordering the EagleView development look like they could credibly have been brought down as danger trees, but others look to have been sufficiently vigorous that some sort of published explanation from the Town is required as to why their time had come.
I thank Coast Reporter for including, in the online version of its story about the BC Supreme Court affirming limits to the Town’s liability for injuries caused by falling trees or branches, a link to the full text of the decision. The part which seemed particularly relevant to the recent logging beside EagleView was how Town policy recognizes snags as being of benefit to birds and other wildlife.
Even if one makes the assumption that each of the newly chainsawed trees on the Charman lands had branches that needed to come down, the question of why the healthier trunks couldn’t have been topped and limbed and left upright as creature habitat is an example of why council meetings used to leave space for public inquiries.
David Stow, Elphinstone
