The first thing that attracted me was the fine detail. While Global Forest Watch’s online map is full of pertinent detail, it doesn’t look like a satellite map. This is better. Zooming in on Refuge Cove, for example, you can see individual buildings, boats tied up at the wharves, and trees coming right down to the water’s edge. Zooming out to see a larger area, Refuge Cove is set within a block of green. The surrounding area is coloured pinkish- brown, so it can be quickly identified. There are a number of orange blocks east of Refuge Cove. These are the areas that will be logged next. The Wilderness Committee’s new ArcGIS StoryMap is tracking BC Timber Sales extraction of logs from our forests.
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Helping Canada’s Energy Sector Survive
The transition to a low carbon economy started long before anyone heard of COVID 19. According to a 2019 report from Clean Energy Canada, there are already 298,000 Canadians working in the clean energy sector. Yet as a result of the global pandemic, the demand for oil has fallen to 1995 levels. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) did not hide the fact they have been been working closely with the Trudeau government to “identify important areas for urgent action to help Canada’s energy sector survive the current economic crisis.”
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The Crises In Our Forests
The story that follows contains perspectives not necessarily shared by the Cortes Radio Society, its board, staff, volunteers or membership.
On Monday, November 25, 2019, the forest management company Mosaic began shutting down its Vancouver Island harvesting operations because of “very challenging pricing and market conditions.” Approximately 2,000 people – contractors, union and non union workers, are being dismissed “ahead of the usual winter shutdown.” Mosaic plans to “resume harvesting when the market outlook improves,” but some see this as symptomatic of a much larger industry problem. Sierra Club BC and the Wilderness Committee had planned to hold an event in Campbell River’s downtown Community Centre that same day. Two hours before this was to begin, the city of Campbell River cancelled it because of “the number of people anticipated, the strong potential for highly-charged emotion, and lack of time to establish a security plan for this booking.” This morning’s program is about the crises in our forests.
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BC Is Moving Forward With Site C
By Roy L Hales
When he was the leader of the opposition, John Horgan argued that Treaty 8 Nations “ have entrenched constitutional rights to practice hunting and fishing” on the land that will be underwater if the Site C Dam is built. The BC Utilities Commission recently concluded that “increasingly viable alternative energy sources such as wind, geothermal and industrial curtailment could provide similar benefits to [BC Hydro] ratepayers as the Site C project, with an equal or lower Unit Energy Cost.” Never-the less, today Premier John Horgan announced BC is moving forward with Site C.
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What Do You Think Site C Is Really About?
By Roy L Hales
The last of the B.C. Utility Commission’s Community Input Sessions was at the Victoria, on October 11, 2017. Having already covered this story dozens of times, I was not that interested in listening to a repetition of the same old arguments. So I asked Torrance Coste of the Wilderness Committee, “What do you think Site C is really about?”