There is likely nobody in the B.C. Liberal government’s caucus than Cariboo-Chilcotin MLA Donna Barnett better equipped to be a positive force on the new Special Committee on Timber Supply.
This is the committee that is going to seek the public’s input on how to deal with the seriously declining fibre supply in British Columbia that was caused by the ravenous mountain pine beetle.
The forest industry is in serious trouble and changes have to be made if it’s going to survive – even if it’s a scaled-down version of what we see today.
When the pine beetle started munching its way across the province around the turn of the century, government didn’t respond to alarms that were going off about the fact that if the beetle invasion weren’t nipped in the bud, it would expand beyond our control.
Within a very few years, it became abundantly clear B.C.’s number 1 revenue generator was in serious trouble.
Ms. Barnett was one of the first municipal politicians off the line when it became a reality the Cariboo communities, which relied so heavily on the good-paying forest-extraction and lumber-producing jobs, were going to have to prepare for leaner times.
She was a charter member of the Cariboo Chilcotin Beetle Action Committee whose members studied the situation, formulated a plan and worked so hard in the early years to educate and grab the attention of the general public.
Few listened because the beetle-killed pine was being hauled out of the forest as a first line of defence in the hope of stopping the devastating loss of whole forests.
Now, almost everyone realizes the forest industry is running out fibre to harvest and mill, and we have to make some adjustments.
However, we have to be careful about the changes we allow the government to make.
We know for instance, the big forest companies would like to start cutting in areas that have, up to now, been time off limits. Their argument would be to keep the mills open.
It’s obvious the status quo is not sustainable, so changes have to be made.
It’s in our best interests to pay attention and study what’s going on in our forested land, and then offer informed input to Ms. Barnett and the rest of the committee.
The decisions made this year will be felt by our great, great grandchildren.
