"The way industry logs, the way the Forest Service allows and directs industry to log, has soured the majority of southern Albertans on timber harvest. Numerous public opinion surveys corroborate this, including the responses of most participants in the South Saskatchewan Regional Planning process. A mad rush to log all the sensitive watersheds, the ones containing “threatened” native fish, is a cynical attempt to get the last tree before public opinion finally awakens and overwhelms the rapacious, short-term treatment of our headwater water towers. Laurence Peter, famous also for the Peter Principle, said, “Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status.” So it is with the Forest Service that continues blindly to promote destructive logging practices long after the public has said other forest values are more important. Whether in the guise of local economic development, fire protection, a prophylactic for insect damage or the latest – “water harvest” – the Forest Service sticks to the consistent theme of “the answer is logging, what was the question?” Certainly one of the silliest, if not the most disingenuous of initiatives, given recent flooding is the Forest Service plan to log one of the unlogged, unroaded watersheds in the Crowsnest Pass to increase water delivery. We need more forest canopy, not less, given the recurring themes of heavy June rain storms and subsequent flooding."
Posted on: Mon, 02 Sep 2013 05:09:18 +0000
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