I apologize to Barry Penner if I got the timing wrong and assigned him too much blame for the parking charges his government imposed on provincial parks. He claims credit for reducing the parking fee but, by then, the damage had been done and park utilisation never recovered.
The imposition of charges for firewood has had a much deeper negative impact on these parks. The forest needs every fallen branch to decompose and provide nutrition for the trees in a constant cycle of renewal. Since the free firewood has been replaced by $7 bundles, you’d be hard pressed to find a twig within 1,000 metres of any campsite as the forest floor has been picked clean of anything which will burn.
Those woods are now slowly starving to death while Victoria greenwashes the province. Did somebody say “sustainable?”
John Allen
