4 - Sunday, February 17, 1991 - North Shore News

All is not
quiet on the

Western front

MEANWHILE, ON the Western Front, the other war
continues. I refer to the war over British Columbia’s rap-
idly-vanishing natural heritage.

With the beginning of public
hearings on the government pro-
posal to study sites for 62
wilderness areas anid 115 new
parks, the usual forces are mass-
ing their troops for yet another
round of battle.

One the one side, Jack Patter-
son, managing director of the
B.C. and Yukon Chamber of
Mines, urges Victoria to abandon
the plan entirely, since it would
prohibit petroleum, coal and min-
eral exploration and development
in the proposed parks and
wilderness sites.

His ally, Brian McCoy of the
Council of Forest Industries,
complains that the B.C. Parks
department doesn’t know enough
about the areas it wants to
preserve, and hasn’t looked at the
impact on jobs or annual harvest.

For its part, the Western
Canada Wilderness Committee
expressed some pleasure — maybe
surprise is the proper word — that
Victoria is taking steps to preserve
wildemess, although spokesman
Joseph Foy was obliged to wonder
aloud at the current administra-
tion’s actual degree of commit-
ment, given Bill Vander Zalm’s
track record of overruling en-
vironmental measures, even those
recommended by his ministers.

In the context of the forestry
wars, with these critical hearings
under way, this would be a good
time for anybody who is concern-
ed about the rate at which our
wilderness is being gouged,
uprooted and bulldozed away to
go out and buy a copy of Adrian
Dorst and Cameron Young’s fab-
uloiss book, Clayoquot: On The
Wild Side.

Published by the Western
Canada Wilderness Committee,
the book contains some of the
best photographs of the West
Coast of Vancouver Island ever —
and that’s saying quite a bit, since
virtually every B.C. photographer
worth his salt has taken a crack at
trying to capture the awesomeness
of the area, without doubt one of
the most magnificent natural
tegions left on Earth. ;

Yet it is far from being merely a
coffee table book. It contains
some of the toughest, most well-
researched text I have been able to
find on the subject of our
vanishing old-growth forests.

Sadly, Iam advised that the
book got a terrible review in The
Sun, aid that sales were hurt as a
result, leaving the WCWC in debt
at a time when the organization’s

_ muscle is needed more than ever.

So this is more than just a mat-
ter of going out.to pick upa
beautiful book to simultaneously
grace your coffee table and
educate yourself and ycur friends,
there is also the political dimen-
sion of helping the Wilderness
Committee keep its coffers full
enough to carry on the good fight.

Here’s an excerpt from
Cameron Young’s excellent, no-
Nonsense text:

**By the late 1980s, all three
(Tree Farm Licence-holders, B.C.
Forest Products, Fletcher
Challenge and Tahsis Lumber
Co.) on the west coast of Van-
couver Island had more than
doubled their original allowable
annual cuts.

“*Government and industry con-
tinue to justify this rapid rate of
logging on the unproven expecta-
tion that new forest plantations

Bob

will grow back to replace the
1,000-year-old forests, reaching a
minimum logging size in 40 to 89
years. At that time they will be
clearcut again.

“The coastal rainforest
ecosystem, which is anchored in
its big old trees, can never recover
from this relentless cycle of logg-
ing. As extended clearcuts pro-
liferate acrass the landscape, the
very idea of rainforest wilderness
vanishes from the land.

“The promise that a forest
tenure system based on monopoly
control by the forest industry
would sustain a stable work force
and stable regional economies was
never kept.

“On southern Vancouver
Island, the industry has already
packed up and left Victoria,
Sooke and Port Renfrew.

“The forest sector of the
Cowichan Valley economy has
been in a long, slow decline, and
today the valley communities are
turning more to tourism as the
industry of the future.

“Over the past decade the once
prosperous Nanaimo has struggled
to diversify its economy, and Port
Alberni has suffered a severe drop
in its forest industry work force.

“‘One reason for the decline of
these forest-based economies is
simply chat the companies have
logged off most of the locally
available timber. The second
reason is rooted in B.C.’s forest
industrial strategy, which em-
phasizes the high-volume,
automated production of lumber
and pulp at the expense of more
labor intensive secondary wood
manufacturing.

“Today, B.C. processes larger
volumes of lumber with fewer
workers than just about any other
country in the world.

‘«, the rate of logging in B.C.
has nearly tripled in the past 30
years while the rate of employ-
ment per volume logged has
declined by half.’’

This is about as succinct and
accurate a description of the state
of the forestry industry in B.C. as
I have been able to find anywhere.
linvite anybody from the forestry
faculties or the industry itself to
dispute the truth of it.

But in the final analysis, it is
Adrian Dorst’s powerful, haunting
pictures that speak most loudly
and clearly. They are designed to
make your heart ache from the
sheer splendor of Clayoquot
Sound. And they,succeed fully.

It is a book that everyone in
B.C. should have.
eee

STRICTLY PERSONAL

Thank you
North Shore

for being involved in the

Challenge

and
congratulations to the Challenge winners:

The City of

North Vancouver .

District of
West Vancouver

District of City of
North Vancouver North Vancouver

School District #45
West Vancouver

School Districe #44
North Vancouver

SUOPPSVG CENTRE

Somuch. So

Park Royal Mall

Lynn Valley Cencre

To all these participants, thank you for accepting the Power Smart Challenge.
You have contributed greatly to increased awareness of energy efficiency and re-
affirmed the North Shore's overall! commitment to the environment.

By virtue of its adoption of the B.C. Hydro Municipal Energy Efficiency Policy
and its participation in Power Smart Night, the City of North Vancouver is declared
the winner of The North Shore Power Smart Challenge”

“The results of the North Shore's involvement shows what we as individuals can
accomplish when we work together to protect our environment and preserve our
energy resources.”

- John Sheehan
Vice President Customer Services

B.C. Hydro

hydro &