h Shore News thrown, away. A perfec Good hockey game. Treeson HE RECENT destruction of trees above the Upper Levels Highway in West Vancouver provides further proof that a lot of people still have a twisted view of how urban man fits into the natural scheme of things. Trees were chopped during the night on two separate occasions in March im- mediately below a new mountainside de- velopment. Victims of the illegal logging action in- cluded a dozen large hemlock and some alder trees. The police are now investigating the ac- tion, but it doesn’t take a university grad- uate to figure out that the felled trees wil! improve the harbor views of the homes in the upland development. It is doubtful whether those who drop- ped the trees will ever be brought to justice. And in the overall scheme of things, the removal of a few more trees from another hillside won’t matter much. But to those who value the natural sur- roundings and attributes of the North Shore the illegal logging will matter a lot. Trees are a big part of what makes the North Shore a special place to live. Some of the area’s more enlightened folk, such as West Vancouver parks man- ager Erik Lees, think that a view of trees is worth just as much as a view of Burrard Inlet. Those fess enlightened might not share that view, but then they should probably not live on the North Shore. Clean up dirty Lonsdale streets Dear Editor: North Vancouver is a walking city and district. This, | expect, is partially due to the economy and to maintaining better health. For months we have walked through littered sidewalks and streets. Mid and lower Lonsdale is deplorabie. [magine paper wrap- [ Publisher Peter Speck Timothy Renshaw Noel Wright Linda Stewart Doug Foot Managing Editor Associate Editor Advertising Director . | Comptroiler pers of every description, butted cigarettes and large patches of gum adhering to cement. Do we actually need an incen- tive to clean up our streets? Surely shopkeepers could remove the refuse in front of their establishments. We are a tourist- oriented province, and we had Display Advertising 980-0511 Real Estate Advertising 985-6982 Newsroom 985-2131 North Shore News, founded in 1969 as an independent suburban newspaper and arnlitied under Schedule 111, Paragraph Itt of tte. « scise Tax Act, 1 published each Wednesday, Friday and Sunday by North Shore Free Press ttd. and distributed to every door on the North Shore. isttation Number 3885. fest Vancouver, 325 per Mailing rates available on request. Submissions are welcome bul we cannot accept responsibilty for unsolicited material including Second Class Mail Re Subscriptions North and “year. SUNDAY © WEDNESDAY « FRIDAY 1139 Lonsdale Avenue, North Vancouver, B.C. V7M 2H4 manuscripts and pictures which should be accompanied by a stamped, adaressed envelope. Disiribution Subscriptions Classified Advertising 986-6222 Fax Administration better do something quickly be- fore the SeaBus disgorges the spr- ing influx of dollar-spending visitors on our shores! As it is, they will disgusted as {. Gwen Clark North Vancouver be as 986-1337 986-1337 985-3227 985-2131 MEMBER North Shore managed es SDA DIVISION 61,552 (average circulation, Wednesday, Friday & Sunday) Entire contents ©) 1992 North Shore Free Press Ltd. All rights reserved. Who'll pay the monster tab to save the earth? MOTHER EARTH vill be in the news a lot in the late spring. The signs at the moment, however, suggest the news may not be very heartening. We're talking, dear reader, about the ballyhooed Rio de Janeiro “Earth Summit’’ in June, when world leaders (including those running the Third World) will endeavor to agree on how to save the planet. They’ve at least given the solu- tion a nice, reassuring, eat-our- cake-and-have-it name: ‘‘sus- tainable development."” The next job — figuring out how to make SD work -— is considerably more complicated. In fact, preparatory talks for the United Nations Con- ference on the Environment and Development are reportedly al- ready bogging down. Yes, you guessed right. The trouble, as always, is money. The two key documents they’re hoping to sign at Rio are Agenda 21 and the Earth Charter. The former, as its name indicates, looks to the future — an action plan for the 2ist century which would become the framework for all kinds of new international laws to protect the environment in the years ahead. It covers most of the horrid things we now do to Mom Earth, from deforestation to marine pollution. The more wide-ranging Earth Charter includes cleaning up the mess we've already mace, and there UNCED is into some mighty big bucks. Just implementing the conference's hoped-for programs in the Third World — clean-up plus future preventive measures — is estimated to cost around a cool US$125 billion annually. ‘*No way WE pay,”’ says the Third World, led by Pakistan. “*You developed guys are the big- gest polluters, so the bill’s on you.’’ The truth also, of course, being that many Third World peoples rate the environment as a pretty low priority compared to the daily survival battle for basics like adequate food and shelter. For debt-burdened industrial countries wondering how they can afford to get their own houses in order — let alone the rest of the world’s — it’s a climate treaty. Yet even the U.S., which spews forth over half the world's greenhouse gases, still refuses so far to set firm targets and dates for reducing them. . . Allin all, the UNCED Earth Summit seems to be shaping up so far as a showdown between vitally Noe! Wiight HITHER AND YON needed changes in humanity’s habits and the monster tab some- one will have to pick up for those changes. The nasty problem being that if we don’t find the cash, Mom Earth will eventually change our habits FOR us — and far more painfully. Cleanliness, we've all been taught, is next to godliness. They forgot to add that godliness is much the cheaper of the two. POSTSCRIPTS: To town next week, comes Reform Party leader Preston Manning who, amo::y other dusiness, wil! be speaking at a fundraising dinner Tuesday, April 14, hosted by local Reformers in the Hyatt Regency — with the party’s MP Deborah Grey also in attendance. Call 922-3674 for tickets . . . Learn all about the fun of competitive swinyming, meet the coaches and ask about a two-week trial at the Cruiser Swim Club's Splash Pasty Sunday, April !2, from 10 a.m. to noon — phone 983-6543 for fur- ther detaiis.. . And wish many happy returns of tomorrow, April 9, to West Van’s Mildred Hughes. WRIGHT OR WRONG: The notice in an Oregon general store window: Why go elsewhere to be cheated, when you can come here?’’ A ery: e NEWS photo Stuart Davis GIRDING FOR WAR? ... Hon. Mary Collins, MP, chats with Capilano-Howe Sound Tory members at the defegate selection meeting for the upcoming B.C. Tory convention in Kamloops - haely the last before the federal election.