Editor:
We would like to respond to Dwight Yochim's letter (Coast Reporter, Aug. 9) where he provides data on the size of the working forest in the province (at 2.5 million hectares) and goes on to say that he encourages BC Timber Sales to approve the logging of five cutblocks of old-growth timber (at 78Ha or 192 acres) on the Lower Sunshine Coast.
He suggests that the forests Elphinstone Logging Focus (ELF) iscampaigning to protect are "not the last of the old-growth" left in B.C.,a general statement that does not provide any context.
Of course, there is old-growth protected across the province in parks, wildlife habitat areas and old-growth management areas.
Since neither Yochim nor the BC Timber Sales forest planners live on the Sunshine Coast, their understanding of our forests is based on looking at timber cruise data, forest age cover maps and annual allowable cuts. They don't take their children or neighbours on walks through these forests, they don't open themselves up to the beauty of these forests, and they don't understand that the forests under question (Roberts Creek headwaters ancient forests and Dakota Bowl cedar forests) are sites where some of Canada's oldest trees grow and protect important, yet diminishing biodiversity.
Very little of this forest ecosystem is protected at the 800 to 1,000 metre level where yellow cedar forests thrive on the Sunshine Coast.
Yochim supports one of the most destructive activities of clearcut logging - punching logging roads into pristine forests.
ELF must repeat itself and state that we're in favour of timber harvesting in second-growth tree farms, and support protection of all existing intact older forests.
Yochim deliberately attempts to suggest that ELF's goal is to end all forestry on the Sunshine Coast, something we've never publicly stated.
Ross Muirhead
Elphinstone Logging Focus
