Editor:
I learned yesterday that the government is currently engaging with forestry districts to establish the allowable logging quotas for the next 10 years.
I searched online for more information, but I found it impossible to get the whole story.
What I did find was that in each succeeding 10-year period (including the one just ended), the logging companies cut down more trees than in the period previous.
I also found that the amounts of timber logged are always higher than what the government considers sustainable.
Also, since there are fewer harvestable trees, the companies are now taking them from sites that are less suitable for logging – for example, the steep hillsides above Halfmoon Bay, where the logging of cutblock HM50 may have contributed to last November’s washout of Redrooffs Road.
I mention that because the SCCF, once it is finished logging HM50, is planning to log the adjacent cutblock (HM70), which is even steeper and more unstable (it is literally a mountain of small rocks held in place by the forest).
Logging should not be permitted there, and I join with ELF and others in calling on the SCCF to abandon that plan.
The current climate crisis requires a government that is committed to conserving our complex rainforest ecosystem. This is our planet’s life-support system. It requires a government with the courage to protect it; not one that is happy to sit back and lock us into another 10 years of the same destructive logging practices.
This is an all-important issue. The Ministry of Forests has asked for input by Feb. 25, after which it will make its commitment.
I urge everyone to email the ministry at: [email protected] and demand a broader, more public discussion of this issue before finalizing logging quotas for the next ten years.
Robert O’Neill, Roberts Creek
