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Letters: Our local forest: a simple person’s view

So it has been shut down and now people are stealing the wood
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Our local forest: a simple person’s view

I am not a forester but I do have an opinion and this my two cents.

When I moved to Cowichan Valley, what I saw was a very well run municipal forest with a very professional forester who believed in his community and forest renewal with an approach that ensured we would have continued the forest. Using selective harvesting and best of all the money from the harvest was used to pay for the department (a novel concept: a department that paid its way).

This allowed employees and families to earn a decent wage and the money also provided for our trails. This seemed like a win-win to me. Then something happened and a bunch of “experts” said this is not right, so they convinced the municipality to shut down the forest and cut off the revenue. Apparently despite the selective harvesting and use of the money for the community trails and well being it was wrong.

So it has been shut down and now people are stealing the wood and this group of “experts” want the government to hire people to monitor the forests. Funny, when it was being properly harvested and money flowing to the community the crews were in the forest and there was no wood theft but due to the “experts” now want the local government to spend more money monitor in the forests.

Glenn White

Shawnigan Lake