Editor:
In all the numerous articles in local papers and ads for the public hearings now taking place, the question always asked is, how can timber supply in B.C.’s central interior be increased? The questions, should the timber supply be increased is not asked and nothing is ever mentioned about what the negative effects will be of continuing a completely sustainable timber harvest into the foreseeable future.
The Liberal Party’s forest management policies of reckless abandonment over the last decade has brought us to our knees - no timber inventories, few replanting/restocking requirements for a decade, doubling and tripling the sustainable harvest and underfunding/gutting the forests ministry.
Now we are faced with a double tragedy; our mill burns down and our forest landscapes are in ruin and not all caused by the mountain pine beetle.
Our MLA John Rustad makes a public statement in his promotion of increasing the cut by saying they are looking at relaxing the rules of mule deer winter range. He further states, “I know the farmers would say we’ve got too many deer around.” Since when do we manage wildlife populations by logging their winter ranges?
I thought hunting regulations were used to control wildlife populations.
In the public discussions over the past several months, nothing has been said about the effects of aggressive salvage beetle kill logging over the past decade and the current almost yearly flooding over the past five years in the watersheds of the Fraser and Skeena rivers.
This is the gorilla in the closet. The government have known about it for several years.
In 2007, The Forest Practices Board (FPB) studied Baker Creek, West of Quesnel, to see what effects the pine beetle kill and the subsequent aggressive salvage logging had on the flood risk in 2007.
Their study showed that the mountain pine beetle kill increased the flood risk by 60 per cent, increasing to 92 per cent after salvage logging and representing a major shift in hydrology.
Four more independent studies were completed in 2011, which came to the exact same conclusions.
In our quest to salvage as much beetle kill as possible over the past decade, we have set ourselves up for a catastrophic future of epic floods.
As we speak, the Fraser River is flooding in Prince George and south to the Fraser Valley.
So now in that quest to increase the cut levels in several communities in the B.C. Interior to feed an unsustainable harvest for several mills, we are promoting even more aggressive salvage logging ... logging around rivers and lakes, accelerating timber availability, shifting to more area based tenures and associate more intensive forest management and increasing the level of intensive forest management. And yes, the logging of mule deer and other species winter ranges.
Can you imagine what the landscapes ravaged by the above aggressive salvage logging techniques and recurring 40 year floods over the next several decades will look like?
Not to mention the havoc and grief severe flooding will bring to many, many peoples’ lives.
Judy Stratton