This week:

timber |
L

ast weck we took a Look
at the preliminary recom-

commission has called for an inte-
grated resource inventory common
- to all provincial ministries involved
in any aspect of our forested lands,
a-resolution to land claims so the
‘forest industry can move ahead
with some security and confidence,
a review of the inner workings of
timber supply area steering com-
mittees, and better public educa-

’ tion, particularly in our Public.

schools.
. Not everything about our. forest
industry is negative. True, past

performance has often not been

admirable. But to a great extent

mendations of the B.C,
Forest Resources Commission. The

_ They’re mgr 7
than just”

that was due to almost total a ignor-
ance of the complexity of our
forests. ‘Today, however, there is

change in the wind and it can only
be for the. better. The Forest
Resources Commission has pointed
us towards better management and
education. And in Terrace last
week Minister of Forests- Claude

‘Richmond. recognized: another

major difficulty: "The problem is,
there are foo-many mills chasing
too little timber,” he said during a
Town Hall meeting. ."There’s. not
enough timber to go around.” ©
But just how serious is this "pro-
blem"? Professor William E. Rees
offered some insight through his

testimony before the Standing.

Committee on Environment in

| by Tod Strachan, in consultation with Rod Arnold and Doug Davies .

Ottawa last spring; and what he

Said can’t be ignored. Professor.
_ Rees is the associate professor of

Planning and Resource Ecology in
the School of Community and

Regional Planning at the Univer-

sity of B.C.

ees was asked to define

the term "sustained-yield"

by Skeena MP Jim Ful-
ton. According to Fulton, a group
of 42 nations has suggested we
accelerate the world-wide harvest
of trees to 30 million acres per
year by the year 2000. Canada

— Letters to the Editor —

Zero tolerance for dioxins in food

An Open Leiter to;
Perrin Beatty
Minister of Health
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A6

_ The government’s plan to
quietly weaken regulations pro-
hibiting dioxins in -Canada’s
food supply is outrageous. I.
strongly oppose any plan to
legalize any amount of dioxin in

Canada’s food supply,

-_ Dioxins are the most danger-
ous substances ever known.
They cause cancer, reproductive
failure and other serious dis-
eases. Scientists agree that there
is no safe level of dioxins in
food.

Instead of weakening the reg-
ulations that protect us, Health
and Welfare Canada should be
working to eliminate the produc-

Goose Bay

tion of dioxins by- wood pulp
bleaching, dangerous manufac-
turing practices and incineration

of toxic waste and garbage.

‘I agree with Greenpeace and
am supporting their efforts to
‘make sure this issue is brought
out into the open, not buried
behind closed doors and in ob-
scure publications. Canadians
must be made aware of the dan-
ger that faces them, And Health
and Welfare Canada should be
working to help educate people
on the dangers of dioxins, not
bowing to industry pressure and
increasing those dangers.

Making dioxin legal will not
make it safe. Changing the rules

is not the answer, The change.

has to be in the way government

treats those who would pollute

our environment and food with
this deadly poison.

plans to

reunite in 1991

To the Editor;

Since 1941, hundreds of
thousands of military and civil-
jan personnel have lived for a
time in Goose Bay, Labrador.
1991 will be the golden anniver-
sary of ‘‘the Goose’? and we’re

- extending a special invitation to

all former Goose-ites to come -

_ back for a visit. We're sure your:

-" ewspaper has former Goose-

ties among its. readership and

we'd like to tell them about our .

~ party through your medium.

- The Town of Happy. Valley-
' Goose. Bay. will be hosting Reu-
-nion 91 from July 19 to August
- §, 1991. Two weeks of activities

. will include the North West

River Beach Festival, the Cana-

dian Armed Forces Airshow, the
. Labrador Canoe Regatta and

lots of ‘opportunities to remi-

nisce with old friends and re-
explore the area.

Former Goose-ites are encour-
aged to let us know if they’re
thinking of coming. We're
building our. mailing list’ and
have information. to send about
events, how to get here, where to
Stay, registration, and more.

We'd like to hear from them -

soon to give us an idea of how

‘many visitors to expect at Reu-

nion ’91.
. Please write:
Reunion "91
Station A .
Happy Valley-Goose Bay
Labrador
AOP 1580
or call: .
Carolyn Maybee .
Tourism Coordinator
(709) 896-5431
Carolyn Maybee
- Tourism, Coordinator,
Reunion 91

The only safe amount of diox-
in ‘is. zero. I demand that the
federal standard for dioxin in
food remain at zero. Safe food
regulations need to be strength-
ened, not weakened, .

| Susan Mehs

- Terrace

Don't lose
HandiDART

To the Editor;

While I applaud the Handi-
DART and paratransit additions
to the Terrace and district transit
system, I deplore the use of the
HandiDART van for regular
transit service even though
HandiDART use by the disabled
has reached full capacity and ex-
ceeded it.

The technological advances in
our transit system should not be
curtailed by unrealistically
limiting available buses. Accord-
ingly, Bus 6203 should not be
transferred to another jurisdic-
tion, but left in Terrace to
replace the HandiDART van on
regular transit routes. This will
allow the HandiDART van to be
exclusively used for the purposes
for it was designed.

- R.W, Childs
Terrace

Thanks
To the Editor;

I would like to thank everyone
who helped make Terrace’s first
child car seat safety check on

. Sept. 22 a success and a learning

experience.
To be thanked are the numer-
ous volunteers, individuals, and
organizations in this community
that have been instrumental to
the success of this event.
:«. Lynn Lalonde
. Skeena Health Unit

disagreed, however: our represen-
tatives have suggested the world-

- wide harvest should be 47 million

acres per year. In Canada, we
harvest 166 million cubic metres
of wood annually and the B.C.
forest industry is lobbying for an
annual cut of 160 million cubic
metres in B.C. alone. But at: the
same time, the Canadian Forest
Service has said that globally we
need to replant 472 million acres
of forests by the end of this
decade,

Rees answer to Fulton’s question
was simple. If we grow as much

wood as we harvest we have a-

sustainable resource. But he then
suggested an equally simple com-
plication. We first have to decide
what we are attempting to sustain.
Do we simply want to sustain trees
on a tree-by-tree basis, or do we
want to sustain Mother Earth?
One thing trees do — and they
do it very weil —- is control the
amount oF carbdn dioxide~ih ‘our
atmosphere. "I think it is very
important in this connection of this
world approach to reforestation
that we recognize that it is only an
interim step, that we can only use
reforestation in an attempt to con-
trol carbon dioxide increase during
a brief period while we phase out
the use of carbon fuels altogether,"

. Rees explained to the committee.

This raises the question: If we
are to sustain the Earth itself, can
we really afford to harvest any of
those 472 million acres we are told
we need to replant? Or do we need
to plant and grow that quantity of
trees simply to sustain our atmo-
sphere? According to Rees: "In
order simply to compensate for the

current levels of carbon dioxide
emissions from carbon fuels, you
would have to plant every year,
and not harvest it, an area equiva-
lent in size to the continent of
Australia.”

As Rees points out, however, the
Earth doesn’t possess the real
estate required to do this, and
therefore planting what little we
can and not harvesting any of it
will only buy us another few years
or decades to replace carbon fuels
with as yet undeveloped. methods
of mass energy generation like
hydrogen fuel cells or solar energy.
Rees, incidentally, doesn’t include

. Huclear energy 43 an option.

Having absorbed this informa-
tion, the committee chairman told
Rees he had recently visited B.C,
and was told that we are currently
replanting 800 million trees a year.
An impressive number. "Is that a
correct figure, or within reason —
is it not nearly enough?" Darling

Again, Reca’ answer was simple:

"No. B. C. is chronically insuffi-
-- He 7
‘qualified this by ‘saying, "The "Th

ciently: restocked."

number of trees that are planted: is
a measure of nothing, because we.

do not even monitor the survival | -

rate of new replantings. Many

people who actually do the

replanting can tell you of areas that
they have replanted three and four
times in which the new plantings
have never taken because of the
severe soil erosion and other prob-

lems that have resulted from clear

cut logging.

"The reality is that we are a long, .

way from having a sustained yield
from the forests of B.C. I gather
the situation is similar elsewhere in
Canada, because, we have never
managed them as ecosystems. We

have managed them simply .as:
stocks of a valuable resource called
wood fibre. There has been: ‘m0.

concept of the soil as a part of that. |

system."
"Who's minding the dirt? Nobody”

Aug. J, 1990 Terrace Review.) :.-

This is an important point. Here, -
Rees raises his bow and fires the
atrow into the very heart of the —

issue. An act that may make him
unpopular in some circles, but his

facts are difficult to dispute. Can- .

tion, therefore, would dictate that

we listen. Basically, he suggests
we have allowed large corporations

to convert our resource into cash
and now we're left sitting with the
bill. From federal Hansard, we

offer the complete text of Rees’

response:

"In economics, traditional neo-—

classical economics has treated
forests, fisheries, agricultural soils

ag so-called ‘natural capital’. Our

philosophy has been that it is per-
fectly all right to liquidate that
natural capital provided that you
invest funds gained in that liquida-
tion in at least an equivalent
amount of man-made capital. This
is the notion of substitutability of
capital.

"If you look at the pattern of
investment by the B.C. forest
sector, they see the old-growth
forest as capital, which they draw
down, and rather than re-investing
in the rehabilitation of the eco-
system there, they use much of the
proceeds to purchase additional
Capital outside the country, every-
where from Tasmania to the
Philippines.

"They draw down the capital,
and when it is gone they re-invest
in some other enterprise that has
nothing to do with forestry at all.
What I am arguing is that if you
take ‘the ecological perspective,

you have to re-inveat in the apna .

(See Forestry Insights

rat