A crowd protesting that gathered out from MLA Shelia Malcomson’s office, in Nanaimo, says they are fed up with the lack of response around protecting old growth across the province and action needs to be taken.
According to the BC government’s website, old-growth trees have several characteristic values ranging from ecological, social, and cultural, as well as economic value. The protesting group says the government has not fulfilled promises, made three years ago, to protect the ecological factor.
CR Club BC member David Quigg says conversations around protecting all aspects of the forest need to be had with the government, but the past could dictate the future.
“We do have an opportunity with this government to make some really amazing changes,” he says. “The past three years have not been good.
“Promises have been made, but none have been implemented, so we are here to support the government to get these done.”
Quigg says protecting old growth and forests will have a positive impact on climate change and supporting the environment, especially after the dry weather this summer and the number of fires that have sparked up.
“Five per cent of the province burned this summer,” he says. “This number is equal to the amount of forest the government has proposed in the old growth strategy to be set aside and safe from logging.”
However, protestor June Ross says if the government continues down this path, it could be a lot more devastating.
“It is not just old growth, it is all of the trees,” she says. “Our forests are our watershed. They are our drinking water, without that, there is no life.”
Ross says the message this group wants to send to the government is to stop clear-cutting and start honoring promises made three years ago.
“It has to stop, they go in and clear cut, they leave all the slash behind. No wonder we have wildfires,” she says.
According to the government’s website, a total of 9.4 million hectares of the province’s forest have been logged over time.
