I’m writing to advocate for full protection for B.C.’s last remaining old growth forests. In the recent election campaign the NDP promised to fully implement the recommendations of B.C.’s Old Growth Panel. That is what I want to happen, starting today:
• Immediately stop harvesting all forests with trees 300 years old or older.
• Immediately stop harvesting the old growth in ecosystems with less than 10 per cent of their old forest remaining.
• Immediately defer development in ecosystems at high risk of irreversible biodiversity loss.
• Expand B.C. Parks to 30 per cent of the province, fulfilling Canada’s pledge and protecting the best old growth that’s left. I’m especially concerned about the inland temperate rainforest where I live, as it’s the habitat for the critically endangered deep-snow mountain caribou. These beautiful animals need protected habitat, not wolf culling. Implement the Selkirk mountain caribou park proposal.
Logging while discussing these proposals is a recipe for disaster, as we are already well down the road to extinction for both old growth and mountain caribou, especially the deep-snow ecotype.
Thus I support the Old Growth Panel’s recommendation to instruct B.C. Timber Sales to stop development and sale immediately.
I will be watching to see what this newly acclaimed B.C. NDP government does to fulfill its campaign promise to preserve our last remaining old growth, as well as to save the deep snow mountain caribou.
Pegasis McGauley
Harrop
