A Rant
Several times a week I have to drive from Nanaimo out to Yellow Point along the Inland Island Highway. I used to see four or five fully loaded logging trucks. Lately, I’ve been seeing ten or more. You can’t tell me that’s a sustainable rate of cut.
I’m certainly not anti-logging. I grew up in a logging town and the forest industry put food on our table. My step-dad was a faller until he broke his back on the job, then he was a kiln-manager at a local mill. My brother Trevor is a millwright. My brothers Aaron and Scott are furniture makers. My aunt and uncle were both in forestry. But when the logging companies, with the blessing of the provincial government, are destroying not only the forests, but the communities around them, it breaks my heart.
If you ask any logger in a thoughtful moment what they think about the rate of cut in BC forests you’ll find out that they aren’t comfortable with it either. A friend of mine who works in the industry described what they are doing, out of sight of the highways and prying eyes, as “nuking” the forest. People go to work in the bush because they love it. Big city environmentalists would do well to remember that. But we are all caught in a trap when government regulation makes greed the priority.
Most of the logs I see on those trucks on the highway aren’t staying in B.C. to be milled or processed. Those bad boys are headed straight overseas or to the U.S. That’s why you see those stickers: “Stop Raw Log Exports”. When all the timber is gone, the forests destroyed, the logging companies will move on. Head offices aren’t located in logging towns. They are located in places like Toronto and Seattle. Our railroads have been sold, and most of B.C. Hydro. And by the time the next election comes around, I’m willing to bet the damage from this round of deregulation in the forests will be irreparable.
As the weather gets hotter and drier, partly as a result of deforestation, new seedlings die in the ongoing drought and whole communities, human and otherwise, that depend on healthy forests are destroyed. Don’t think we can’t end up living on barren rock and sand here. After all, Iraq, to take one extreme example, used to be home to great stands of cedar.
Some links for those who are interested:
http://www.conservationvoters.ca
A recent article by Malcom Gladwell about the end of the Vikings
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/123004G.shtml
A series of essays: A Short History of Progress by Ronald Wright
http://www.amazon.ca