West Coast South Moresby
PROVINCIAL OFFICIALS SUGGEST PARK WITHOUT PROTECTION
In a series of meetings with Queen Charlotte Island organizations and the Council of Haida Nation, provincial park representatives outlined their 'compromise' solution for South Moresby. They call it option IA; a plan to allow logging and mining and yet call the area a park.
Since 1974 the number of Canadians seeking protective status for South Moresby has continuously increased. This 500 sq. mile wilderness has become world renowned for its huge trees, rugged scenery, and rich biota. At last, government officials propose to colour it green on B.C. maps like Garibaldi and Manning Parks, but the similarity is only in colour. South Moresby would be a special type of park, a "Recreation Area," with no protection from the ravages of mining and clear-cut logging.
Conservationists call this proposal a complete fraud.
"It's the equivalent of allowing highrises and apartment buildings into Vancouver's Stanley or Victoria's Beacon Hill parks and claiming they stillretain their original beauty and charm. It's totally preposterous. South Moresby is much too sensitive and small for industry and wilderness to coexist," says Paul George, a Director of Western Canada Wilderness Committee.
Gulls circling South Moresby Islet
An extensive traveller in the area, he claims that the government is ignoring overwhelming evidence of the harmful effects of logging and mining. Wilderness recreationalists won't come to see clear-cuts. Not only tourism, the fastest growing economic sector on the Charlottes, but also fisheries and wildlife will suffer under this proposed short sighted solution to the land use conflict.
Just last winter on Lyell Island, an area within the wilderness proposal, logging precipitated a r gigantic landslide. The ugly mass of mud and debris wiped out a good salmon stream. It will cost tax- 1 payers over $150,000 just to clear the log jam at the mouth of the stream. "Everyone including federal fisheries has turned a blind eye. If this happened in the U.S. it would be a crime," claims George.
Map - Parks Canada Interests
Behind the scenes the logging industry is exert- Bing pressure to begin logging Windy Bay Watershed. This 12 sq. mile virgin area, home of some of the biggest cedars and spruces on the Charlottes, is the last large completely unlogged watershed on the East Coast of the Queen Charlotte Islands. Part of 1 the wilderness proposal, it comprises about 18% of 1 Lye Island. The Forest Service promised that no logging will be allowed before the government decides the fate of South Moresby.
SOUTH MORESBY
A WILDERNESS WORTH WRITING FOR
Windy Bay became an ecological reserve candi- 1 date eight years ago. Then most of the surrounding I area on Lye Island was unlogged. Now Windy Bay is an isolated island of natural integrity surrounded by a clear-cut stumpland of ugly slash and logging debris.
Few are fooled by a park proposal which allows 1 industrial development to continue. But will Canadians be moved to counter the powerful mining and logging lobbies and save this undisputed wonder of the natural world?
