Time to Expand Golden Ears Park
Include BLUE MOUNTAIN says Wilderness Committee
Blue Mountain, on the east shore of Alouette Lake (right side of lake in photo), needs protection from logging now! Adding it to Golden Ears Park (left side of photo) would conserve these threatened forests. Photo credit: Shel Neufeld
Blue Mountain, within Katzie First Nation territory, is the spectacular backyard wilderness of Maple Ridge, BC.
For generations people have treated the area like a park and taken for granted that it won't be logged. Now citizens are coming together to fight logging plans for Blue Mountain. Blue Mountain's 7,500-hectare forest-covered ridge rises up from the eastern shore of Alouette Lake. It is the scenic viewscape for visitors to Golden Ears Provincial Park's beaches and campgrounds. The west shore of Alouette Lake is protected within Golden Ears Park but the east shore, including Blue Mountain, is not.
Boaters in Golden Ears Provincial Park look across Alouette lake at Blue Mountain's unprotected forests and beaches. Photo credit: WCWC
Boaters from the park often camp in the secluded bays and forests at the foot of Blue Mountain along Alouette Lake's unprotected east shore. Hikers and mountain bikers enjoy the trails and overgrown roads that criss-cross its 80-year-old second growth forests. Now the BC Forest Service has begun a planning process for logging this forest. The Wilderness Committee, Canada's largest membership-based conservation organization, says that the time has come to make Blue Mountain a protected area co-managed by the Katzie First Nation and BC Parks by adding it to Golden Ears Provincial Park and halting Forest Service logging plans - before it's too late. Read on to learn how you can join the fight to save Blue Mountain!
