Pina Belperio
The Whistler Question reports on opposition to the logging of 40 hectares of old-growth forest in the Cheakamus Community Forest (CCF) management area. The logging may begin in October or November, pending approval by the British Columbia Ministry of Forests.
Whistler-based Council of Canadians Board member and chapter activist Pina Belperio says, “What we’d like to see is, ‘Don’t cut the old growth; leave the forest alone until the second growth is ready to be cut.'”
The Pique news magazine adds that, “Pina Belperio, a Whistler activist and board member of the Council of Canadians, says ‘We’re asking for zero cut of old growth, and we also want a halt on this whole thing to stop the permits from going in. Given the economics, the low price of wood, it doesn’t make sense to go in there, and realistically, we know they’re going to go in there and take the old trees.”
Photo Credit: David Buzzard
PROTEST
The Question reports, “A group of perhaps 15 or 20 demonstrators (including Pina who helped organize the demonstration), some of them in costumes that one described as ‘forest fairies’, danced, pounded on drums and voiced their opposition to the logging of old-growth forest in the 30,000-hectare CCF management area last Thursday (Sept. 9) in Mountain Square. The group, carrying placards with slogans such as ‘Whistler: world’s No. 1 logging resort’, and shouting ‘zero cut, old growth’, then marched down the Village Stroll, eventually winding up at the Whistler Public Library, where CCF officials were conducting a public open house dealing with the initiative.”
The group’s petition states, “We the undersigned are calling on the B.C. government, Whistler’s mayor and the CCF board to: Undertake a provincial old-growth strategy that will inventory and protect the remaining old-growth forests in regions like Whistler and the Southern Mainland Coast; ensure the sustainable logging of second-growth forests… (and) undertake new land-use planning processes to protect endangered old-growth forests for future generations.”
The full article is at http://www.whistlerquestion.com/article/20100915/WHISTLER01/309159970/1030/WHISTLER/logging-protesters-demands-reasonable-zeidler.
Pina’s rabble.ca blog on this issue can be read at http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/word-rings/2010/09/olympic-host-town-whistler-logging-old-growth-trees.
