Editor:
I can relate all too well to Geoff Davis’s Jan. 12 letter about his experience of going back to a special forest that he and his Chatelech students were using as an outdoor classroom and to his shock finding it gone. Since moving to the Coast just 10 years ago, I’ve seen a dozen beautiful natural forests lost to clear-cutting from Gibsons to Sechelt, mainly at low elevations. Forest are homes. They are homes to the trees themselves, to the plants, the birds, large mammals, amphibians, and a home for humans who use them. A spirit of silence and biodiversity abounds. They offer environmental services we take for granted, but depend upon. We don’t pay for these services, but they contribute to our lives so they certainly exist. If each hectare of forest were on a meter it would rack up $8,000 to $10,000 per year in services. However, because these services (carbon sequestering, habitat, water retention and release, oxygen production, biodiversity warehouses, recreational, and spiritual retreats) are produced for free, our current economic model doesn’t assign a dollar figure to them.
They’re only granted economic status as fallen timber. When a forest is removed, its original value doesn’t appear on anyone’s spreadsheet as a deficit. They’re a disappearing natural asset that, once removed, will never reappear because they’re now industrial tree farms with one purpose only – to produce fibre for human consumption. I’m very concerned that the Sunshine Coast is selling off its natural assets way too fast without considering the environmental losses. With the sheer number of tree farms growing on the Coast, the timber industry could fill its boots with logs on a sustainable yield with some patience. It’s time to protect the last of these natural forests to secure the services they provide, including as “nature-based classrooms” so our future generation truly knows what nature is in its abundance.
Ross Muirhead, Elphinstone Logging Focus
