Like it or not we live in an area that has its roots firmly planted in the forest industry. Chances are, if you don’t work in the forest industry, someone you know does. That’s just how it is here.
We all know that the mountain pine beetle hit our area hard. Local forestry officials are definitely concerned about the future of the ever dwindling timber supply and the effect this will have on our area.
I remember when I first visited Burns Lake a couple of years ago, I was struck by how many red pine trees there were. They were everywhere. These red trees are now grey, not as visible as when they were red, but they are still there ... dying or dead.
Being a tourist at this point in time and looking at the sea of red trees, my only thought was they are not very pretty, why don’t they cut them down?
I can’t speak for all tourists of course, but I can pretty much guarantee that most tourists passing through the area at the same time would have asked the same question.
Now however, I understand that cutting down trees is not such as easy task - there is a process to follow, especially where visual quality objectives are concerned.
Visual quality objectives are put in place to protect our view scape and have been put in place with the best of intentions, however, as with anything there is always an exception to the rule. We here in the Lakes District are now that exception.
We have an enormous amount of beetle killed timber that will rot and fall to the ground if left alone. This is a reality.
While this is somewhat of a natural process, it is in no way visually appealing ... to me, anyway. It is also a loss of huge amounts of money.
We have mills and pellet plants that are crying out for timber supply. It seems like a very simple equation to me - the mills need timber, we have dead and dying trees that are still viable .... seems like a win, win situation.
Better still, when the dead trees are cut down they are replaced with new, healthy green trees that of course will take a while to grow, but at least there will be new life, a new green future for the next generation.
At a recent visual quality objectives meeting the public were told that there are many different versions of ‘visually appealing’ based on personal opinion, especially if your livelihood relies on beautiful view scapes. In saying this however we can not hide away our main industry when tourists come knocking. We are a town that is built on forestry so we may as well embrace it.
There is always the option of explaining to tourists about the mountain pine beetle and the efforts being made to repair the devastation .... all terrible things aside, it is a pretty interesting piece of local history.
Tourists will then get a better picture of our province they have come to visit. I am not suggesting massive clear cuts by any means and neither is anyone else.
We all have to work together. Relaxing visual quality objectives will bring about more positives than negatives and it is just a temporary measure. Without the forest industry there probably would not be a Burns Lake.