Letter to the Editor, Grand Forks Gazette
Submitted April 15, 2024
To those involved in the delay of the Boundary TSA reassessment and new determination of timber supply in 2024 and to local politicians of the Boundary.
This delay is bad news for the residents and ecology of the Boundary area. The over harvest clear cutting of this landscape has left the TSA and TFL 8 in very bad shape ecologically. Huge clear cuts, landslides, blown out side drainages, mainstream channel migration and infill, and failing roads are but a few of the more obvious visual impacts. Add to these climate change impacts like heat domes, floods, droughts, fish die offs, reforestation failures and you have “a perfect storm” as they say in our watershed .
The excuse of FN consultation is a feeble one if not an insult to the FN. No Band interested in conservation of their territory is going to object to reducing the immediate harvest rate to protect the ecology of their land into the future. Offering short term employment and economics through sharing in the over harvest is a moral failure if not a crime.
Our recommendations:
- Declare a temporary 25% reduction in the Boundary TSA for 2025 and 2026 or until a new determination is made.
- Remove the ESSF dcw & dkp subvariants from the THLB in the new calculation to manage snow retention, water storage and Clark’s Nutcracker habitat.
- Mandate an increasing annual percentage transition of silviculture systems to single tree selection from clearcut.
Respectably submitted,
Ray Hanson for
Boundary Forest Watershed Stewardship Society