A couple of points about the discord within the Mount Arrowsmith Biosphere Reserve (MABR)and the UN delisting crisis.
We probably will never know the extent of the discontent and the whole story within the membership.
I believe that their philosophy of sitting on the fence when it comes to the environment is wrong. They need to be more pro-active.
Right now the trademark Mt. Arrowsmith and its trails within forest-companies holdings are being tagged and prepared for further cutting and heli-logging, the bulk of which are slow growing high altitude old growth trees.
And those are just about all gone up there.
Surely there is a solution.
And what of the UN? Can they not put their money where their mouth is and put up some money for this diminishing watershed and snowpack?
I am also perplexed by all the anti-coal-mine signs that are planted on all the lawns and boulevards.
The perplexing part is that nearly 100 per cent of the signs and people that do not support the coal mine are using gas powered and heavy steel and alloy lawn machines and riding mowers to cut and trim their grass, instead of using non-mechanized mowers on postage stamp-sized yards. They could be growing food or hay instead of weekly cutting of the bigger fatter yards — and cut back on the water consumption for this grassy lifestyle.
It seems a wee-bit-hypocritical to me.
MABR could get proactive and point out that this fuel addicted lifestyle doesn’t add up to long-term needs nor quality of peace and food security, or air quality.
Seems that a lot of people don’t care and nobody is willing to put out a welcome mat for quiet, low-fueled using people focused on the future and the environment and physical health.
I was hopeful that the local communities & businesses were going to sing a new tune and MABR getting off the fence and taking input from many of us, and forwarding it thru the media and RDN.
And just trying to get the UN biosphere’s e-mail sites to speak to head-directors somewhere in the world seems to be non-doable and unanswerable.
Wow, and now Fairwinds area wants to have another 1,800 to 2,300 new homes put in place, still doing the same old habits and not a whisper from anyone involved within the growth strategy department.
How this could be a template for a new lifestyle?
Peter Bolten
Parksville
