Opinion

Dear Editor:

   The heart and soul of Alberta’s oldest, rarest, most diverse and most threatened forest is on the chopping block. It’s scheduled to be logged! Alberta Sustainable Resource Development (AB SRD) has determined the fate of this forest, and the job of logging it has been turned over to Spray Lake Sawmills (SLS).

   There may be only days to turn the tide. This rare forest lives in the headwaters of the Crowsnest River valley and the eastern slopes of the Livingstone Range.

   The Crowsnest Pass (the lowest Rocky Mountain pass between New Mexico and Jasper National Park) forms the botanically rich core of this unique-to- Alberta forest community. Here, cast against the imposing backdrop of the Flathead Range (to the southwest) and the High Rock Range (to the northwest), lives Alberta’s oldest and most diverse forest.

   Some limber pines and whitebark pines living within this dramatic thrust- faulted landscape exceed one thousand years of age. The province’s largest and oldest Douglas-firs also live here. Some of these aging giants have trunks in excess of two metres in diameter.

   The Crowsnest Pass forest contains many unknowns. Its true wealth of forest diversity has never been determined. What is known? Many hundreds of western redcedars—the easternmost in Canada—live within this targeted landscape.

   So do a smaller number of western white pines and ponderosa pines, tree species unknown elsewhere in the province. The same landscape also harbours western and subalpine larches, paper and river birches, narrowleaf and black cottonwoods, white and Englemann spruces, subalpine firs and the largest concentration of Rocky Mountain junipers (many tree-size) in Alberta.

   The full spectrum of floral and faunal diversity present on this unstudied landscape remains unknown to society.

   Regardless, logging operations are currently planned. They are scheduled to commence as soon as the ground is frozen. One of the areas slated for logging is also one of the province’s most alluring, spectacular and functional cross- country ski venues (known as Allison/Chinook). Two decades ago the province removed modest maintenance funding from this internationally recognized area and, overnight, turned it into a local attraction. The current vision: the logging of this priceless recreational feature.

   Allison/Chinook is home to many of the named tree species, and it constitutes the core of Alberta’s western redcedar range. It is also the heart of Alberta’s largest known population of mountain lady’s slipper (Cypripedium montanum), the province’s largest and rarest orchid. Other rare and endangered plants are almost certain to be found on this same landscape if society takes the time to look.

   The Crowsnest Pass forest deserves an honest forest inventory and landscape assessment before its fate is further compromised via lurching, knee-jerk solutions to ill-defined problems. There are many more issues at stake on this same landscape. They include: 1. The status of grizzlies, wolves, cougars, elk and moose living within this same area. 2. Aesthetic considerations revolving around the just-realized worth of this multi-billion dollar landscape to the economy and to self-sustaining ecotourism. 3. The impact on the watershed - the headwaters of the Crowsnest River. 4. The impact on existing businesses relying on ecological and landscape integrity. 5. Health and safety. Logging trucks have already been involved in multiple highway accidents as they have attempted to haul logs from the Crowsnest Pass to the SLS sawmill in Cochrane, a staggering round-trip haul distance of 700km/truck-trip. 6. Forest economy. The logging of Alberta’s southwestern forests has never been proved to be economically viable. Hauling logs from this matchstick lodgepole forest to a mill in Cochrane would appear to be nothing more than a makework project. (If it benefits one company, it certainly doesn’t benefit society; it’s forest welfare on a grand scale when all of the real costs are considered.) AB SRD and/or SLS are likely to claim that logging in the Crowsnest Pass is the fulfillment of a prescription for forest health and fire safety.

   While these goals are laudable, they have become the lurching, full speed- ahead rationalization for disaster. Here, in a threatened forest, on a threatened landscape, the prescription has been chosen before the patient - the forest in this case - has been exposed to the doctor. Interestingly, and backing up a bit, it could be argued that society has already invested countless millions in order to achieve the twin liabilities (insect infestations and fire threat) that AB SRD is now trying to negate via wholesale, under-the-table logging.