To Globe And Mail Editor in Chief, re: Great Bear Rainforest Deal
by Steve Lawson, Susanne Hare Tofino, B.C.
February 10, 2016
Mark Hume's article in the Globe and Mail was right on. The GBR deal goes on and on and probably will be renegotiated in the near future as the plan says, every 5 to 10 years or so. Talk and log. Less than half of the GBR is off limits to logging and now that has been reduced by more and chopped up even further.
The really problematic part of the situation is that globally no one wants to support the logging of old growth forests and people don't want to purchase products from these but the enviro people making the deal behind closed doors did it before in Clayoquot Sound, promised the logging companies to help market the old growth forest that they allowed to be cut and got it certified. This has happened again. In return for no objections on the part of these environmental companies, old growth is still being made acceptable on the markets.
2016 and we are still trying to protect the last few vestiges of these important forests and the life they contain. This is over 25 years after the "Clayoquot Compromise" was signed by these same people and the logging has never stopped here in spite of their great self-congratulatory media campaign to the public.
Last year's logging in Clayoquot Sound involved barge loads of massive cedar trees for profit and secondary trees as collateral near Sulphur Pass where many people were arrested to stop this. We have objected and attempted to stop the "scientific logging" here that has caused blowdowns, landslides, siltation of rivers and creeks and clear cuts while most of the public thought Clayoquot was "saved".
These groups are negotiating away other people's livelihoods, fishing, potential tourism, wildlife habitat, medicinals and other values all behind closed doors while disallowing any input that says "NO". They have been hand-picked by government and industry for this and we still question how much they are being paid and where the money comes from.
Vancouver Island and the coast has been and is still being ravaged and no-one is objecting. These are the things the public should know and question.
It is like the Emperor's New Clothes; everyone lauding the agreement while the logging of old growth forests goes on and on...a finite and irreplaceable ecosystem, we are all losing.
Sincerely, Steve and Susanne Lawson, Tofino, B.C.
The great bears aren't really saved
by MARK HUME - 9 February 2016
British Columbia
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