Dear editor:
Regarding SLS’s harvest of the South B9 Quota, a settled area of both public and private lands in the MD of Bighorn, residents seem able to articulate their concerns, quite apart from stopghostclearcut.com.
The big issue is time. A harvest to occur over 20 years would happen in only two years, starting ASAP. This concerns residents for many reasons – no public consultation when the approved plan changed; public safety on roadways, potential damage to roadways, notification of adjacent landowners, blighted sightlines, impacts on local economy, soil erosion and compaction, stream sedimentation, increased flood risk, slow regrowth and impacts on sensitive wildlife habitat.
Meteorological events cause floods, but clearcut forestry increases their frequency and magnitude. Harvest planning used the ECA-AB hydrological model that overlooks flood, drought, extreme weather and rain-on-snow events, each common in this flood and drought-prone area.
Ghost Reservoir protects water quality by trapping sediment, but becomes incrementally less effective at flood mitigation. Thus, avoiding clearcuts upstream of anurban centre makes sense.
SLS’s 2014 FSC auditors were suspended from conducting forestry audits at the time, but the suspension was lifted in time to recognize SLS’s audit. Nonetheless, residents lost confidence in FSC certification.
The Alberta government, which regulates forestry, contributed to the current difficulties. ESRD approved an accelerated plan different from that presented to the community, abandoning the 20-year harvest sequence intended to ensure the future forest was multi-aged, mixed and sustainable.
But all is not lost! There is a mechanism by which our new provincial government can reconsider harvest plans approved by the previous regime: compartment assessment.
Operating Ground Rule 3.2 describes this tool for dealing with “unacceptable variance” from original harvest timelines, e.g. condensing a 20-year harvest into two. Compartment assessment will not stop logging, but pauses it for careful reconsideration.
Upstream from 1.6 million people, the Ghost River is a critical watershed. We cannot gamble with its water resources. We must get this right for ourselves and for future generations.
Gordon MacMahon, Ghost Valley, Alberta
