Mayor wants to log old growth

When it comes to old-growth forests, Mayor Ken McRae is looking out for jobs and industry when he promotes logging.

With around 40% of the old-growth forests of the west and north coasts of Vancouver Island in its backyard, McRae said the Alberni Valley is protecting nearly half of it, and depends on logging the rest.

City council received a letter from Joe Foy of the Wilderness Committee, stating they believe it's time for B.C. to join the global movement to protect the forests.

"I think he has to be educated on how important old-growth is, especially to the Alberni Valley with both our mills running old-growth," McRae said. "It supplies 1,200 jobs."

McRae has been dealing with forestry for 20 to 30 years. There was a program a while ago, he explained, called a working forest. The program outlined proper and responsible protocols for logging.

"We decided what the working forest was going to look like," he said. "They wanted all of the working forest to disappear."

When the Wilderness Committee tried to stop working forests, they had problems speaking about the impacts on the community, McRae said.

"They didn't give a damn about our industry," he added.

The Wilderness Committee wants to cease logging of second-growth forests altogether, McRae said.

"Just about all of the second-growth is owned by private property," he explained. "I don't know how we could ever stop them, under federal jurisdiction."

However, their main goal is to preserve the Cathedral Grove water shed, Annette Tanner, from the mid-Island Wilderness Society office, said.

"It's the main water source and main tourist source," Tanner explained.

"We [also] support preserving the Beaufort Range, that not only supplies water to the West Coast but East Coast communities as well. I think it's almost completely destroyed by now."

The Wilderness Committee wants to expand recreational areas where residents and tourists spend their time, she added.

"We don't have very much public land," Tanner explained. "Our concern is the fact that there's only 110 hectares of old-growth coastal Douglas fir protected in the entire province."