Editor:
Tony Greenfield's letter to the editor (Coast Reporter, June 15) rehashes his position that disturbed landscapes have higher biodiversity than intact landscapes, such as ancient forests that have evolved since the last Ice Age. He attempts to discredit Elphinstone Logging Focus (ELF) for protecting older forests by suggesting we're not using "fact-based knowledge."
If Mr. Greenfield wants to enter this ring of debate, we are fine with that.
First off: why does the Ministry of Environment designate their wildlife habitat areas (WHA) in old-growth forests and not in recently logged or large fire scarred landscapes? Because older forests provide the complexity of relationships (biodiversity) that species require. WHAs have been designated for the marbled murrelet, red-legged and coastal tailed frogs, Pacific water shrew, Lewis's woodpecker, badger, grizzly bear and spotted owl, to name a few.
Mr. Greenfield refers to "pollen and nectar that supply sustenance to bears" in man-made openings, such as clear cuts. Last I heard, bears prefer to feast on wild salmon from clear running rivers, rather than licking pollen out of the air.
It should be clear to anyone who reads Mr. Greenfield's take on biodiversity that he's an apologist for deforestation. We use deforestation because it perfectly describes what happens when an old-growth forest is clear-cut logged -it turns a forest (in the classic sense) into a tree-farm that is then harvested on a rotational cycle of 50 to 70 years.
Sure, there are many tweety birds and butterflies landing in everyone's manicured gardens, but that isn't what it's going to take to save nature's complex web that endangered and big species require.
Ross Muirhead
Elphinstone Logging Focus
