Editor:
Warren Hanson's comments regarding the proposed 1,500Ha expansion of the Mount Elphinstone provincial park (Coast Reporter letters, March 30) attempts to split the mountain biking community from conservation-minded folks by suggesting that in a new, expanded park, mountain biking will be heavily compromised.
Hanson fails to understand that with each provincial park, there is a park management plan that addresses all prior activities, other than destructive activities, before the area became a park. A new management plan for Elphinstone would work towards integrating the existing mountain bike, hiking, horseback riding trails, while respecting the use of the forest by wild-crafters and First Nations traditional users.
What Hanson doesn't share with readers is that he's a registered professional forester (RPF) -thus he's in the business of seeing logging continue in the last intact Elphinstone forests. He suggests that bikers need more logging roads for mountain biking to expand. This is a position that Elphinstone Logging Focus (ELF) strongly disagrees with. Mountain bikers are just one of the several user groups on Elphinstone and would have to accept the fact that the over-arching goal of a park is protecting nature's biodiversity. However, recreation also is an important component. Thus, in a new management plan, biking trails would have their place, along with myriad other uses.
A new park management plan will finally address the many users of the Elphinstone slopes who are being forced out by the gradual loss of the forests by logging. Logging out the last intact forests must come to an end. Otherwise, all users who cherish these special places will wake up one day and ask: where has the living, rich Elphinstone forest disappeared to?
Ross Muirhead
Elphinstone Logging Focus
