Canada’s province of British Columbia has announced plans to protect a huge swathe of Pacific Coast rainforest, known as the Amazon of the North.
The forest is home to a rare white bear species and is the ancestral land of several indigenous Canadian tribes. The deal will save a vast area of forest for wildlife, while allowing sustainable logging in other parts.
Provincial Premier Gordon Campbell, announcing the agreement alongside native Indian drummers, said: “The result is a strong marriage that balances the needs of the environment with the need for sustainable jobs and a strong economic future for coastal communities.”
The BBC’s Ian Gunn in Vancouver says this is all a far cry from just a few years ago, when environmental groups and the logging industry clashed in the same forests with blockades and frequent arrests.
Now both sides say they have an agreement that should settle the matter for good.
Bravo!
I think this is excellent! What does everyone think of the Kyoto Accord? Just curious as to what your opinions are on the subject.
Try to find a good map of the area covered. Not all (by any means) is completely protected.
I live near Vancouver, on the coast, and the local community has been trying for years to get the mountain above our town protected, in vain. Great press for Canada, but NOT the pristine wilderness (now, and in the future) that the spin doctors would have you believe.
The environmentalists will just start clashing over the area with logging. As can be seen in the US, they don’t settle for some logging in national forests, they want none, no roads, and you better be able to put out those fires quickly even if you can now only use helicopters.
AB CD, is that a cordless crystal ball or the usual 2-wire Drudge model?
Ironically, one of the things that hasn’t been a problem with the proposed park area is forest fires. The coast of BC gets a horrendous amount of rain; several of the puff statements about the new park make this point.
However, the weather on the coast is changing; summers are hotter, drier and longer now than when I first moved here nearly 30 years ago.
AB CD
In Canada most of the land is called Crown Land and is owned by the Government, nominally the Queen. The Canadian Provinces own the majority of this land in the South while the Federal Government controls the more Northernly areas.
In British Columbia much of the forest area has been clear cut. This resulted in extreme ecological damage. It was that damage that the “environmentalists” fought through the 1970 to the present. More then one tree had long spikes hammered into them. A nail could not only ruin a chainsaw, but the injure the operator as well. It would also ruin any other saws at the mill. It might have been extreme but it saved a lot of old growth forest from devastation. It also created some high tensions between those who work in lumber and those who want to live in it. This deal will save a portion of the forest while allowing other areas to be harvested.
Now before you go flying off the handle about how the timber companies need the timber and the jobs involved, you better think again. Canada produces much more timber then it needs. Its exports to the US are mostly curtailed because of tariffs imposed on the lumber. The WTO and NAFTA have ruled that this tariff is illegal and should be returned to Canada, several times. The US has continued to refuse to repay the illegal tariffs or remove them. This has been an issue since 1985. Did you know that about $2000 to $3000 of every new house is because of this tariff?
It’s great that an agreement was reached to save what is undoubtedly some very wonderful places. Did you know that trees convert Carbon Dioxide into Carbon for themselves and Oxygen for people?
As for the Kyoto Accord, I’m against it. It’s unfair to the U.S., in my opinion. I have read that very large areas of Asia are under a pall of smoke and air pollution. Scientists may someday theorize that emerging people could have something to do with global warming.