Reading in the Jan. 27 edition Brian Kieran’s alarming delusions of the current partisan raw log export war just makes me weep. The battle will soon be obsolete because all the trees and jobs these silly politicians are joisting about will be no more. As in Long Gone for a Long Time. Has Pat Bell been informed yet that the second growth forests his sawmill fantasy will utilize have already been cut and sold in the round? Does Dave Lewis of the TLA realize that his “uneconomic to harvest for domestic buyers” rant means unswerving support for the big landowners who are now pre-emptively logging juvenile saplings to sell to an offshore dunnage market that cares less if we turn BC into a bald rock? Has Cristy Clarke even a clue when she’s talking about community economics?
Wake up folks, the current “falldown-then-overcut” timber industry is just another facet of what appears to be a consensus kleptocracy – brazenly stealing your grandchildrens’ future forests and local value-added jobs to make a fast buck today. And the money is more mobile than trees, so that will quickly vanish into offshore tax-free accounts as well, while the laggard politicians are still fighting over who killed the appurtenancy clause in what’s left of BC’s flimsy forest laws.
This region used to be the proud home of the Tall Timber Jamboree. Do we really have to settle for stunted and malnourished 3rd growth plantations so soon?
David Shipway
Campbell River