Editor:
The claim that 6,500 people are supporting a new, additional highway on the Sunshine Coast is a misleading one.
I remember being approached by a member of the SC101 Highway Society with the question if I would support “more safety on our highway.” After inquiring if this petition would also be for another highway, she reluctantly admitted it, but did not say so upfront. I wonder how many people signed under this false pretense?
The construction of another highway would be ecologically devastating.
It would bring more traffic, cut our last remaining wildlife corridors in half, lead to more wildlife mortality through habitat loss and collisions, and fragment populations into small patchworks that are vulnerable to local extinction.
We already took most of the lower elevation habitat for human use – such as infrastructure and developments. In addition, we are clearcutting the few remaining natural forest patches above – when is enough enough? When do we finally realize that infinite growth is not possible without losing our natural assets?
Infinite human growth is not a “given” – it is a choice, and it is a bad one. Basing an economy on using more than the Earth can provide is bad householding at best – or suicide to be blunt.
We created an extinction crisis and have lost nearly 70 per cent of wild animal populations already. We cannot afford to lose any more.
The Sunshine Coast is one of the areas in B.C. with the highest growth rates – it is time to come up with limits.
We neither need nor can afford another highway or other large-scale developments.
We need to create a stable, steady-state economy instead.
Annette Clarke, Roberts Creek
