Forest’s health dependent on the sea
Re: Queen Victoria’s promise to First Nations takes centre stage in Bella Bella, Sept. 27
The inclusion of the Great Bear Rainforest in the Queen’s Commonwealth Canopy initiative, as announced by Prince William, suggests the region is successfully conserved.
Yet the effectiveness of these conservation measures is hindered by the lack of legal protection for the neighbouring Great Bear Sea, which sustains the rainforest’s productivity through complex land-sea connections: a well-studied example is the role that spawning salmon play in nourishing the entire ecosystem, including the trees themselves.
Successful conservation of the rainforest therefore requires protecting the adjacent marine environment as well. This must include a lasting, legally-binding ban on tanker traffic (instead of a temporary moratorium) to finalize the federal Liberals’ opposition to the Northern Gateway project.
The promising ecosystem-based management plan for the region — the Marine Planning Partnership — must be given weight through legally-binding obligations instead of voluntary suggestions, and the proposed Northern Shelf Bio-region Marine Protected Area network must not languish for years in the planning process.
The harmful impacts of open-net salmon farming along the coast must also be addressed.
If the rainforest is to be “preserved forever in the Queen’s name” like Prince William said, the health of the area’s marine environment can’t be ignored.
Kelly Fretwell, North Saanich
Salmon river needs protection
Removing the George Massey Tunnel and replacing it with a $4-billion, 10-lane bridge is short-sighted and wasteful.
Five hundred miles from the coast, past the fish ladders in the Fraser canyon, there is a provincial highway sign near the Alberta border in the Rocky Mountains that reads: “Fraser River, World’s Greatest Salmon River, Please Protect our Heritage.” What does it really mean?
The Port of Vancouver is a self-serving, self-appointed gatekeeper at the mouth of this great river. They sit behind Christy Clark’s massive Trojan Horse Bridge proposal, and they are in fact the greatest threat to salmon and the future of the Fraser River by industrializing, dredging and bringing tanker traffic into the estuary.
At this year’s annual ‘Our Ocean Conference’ hosted by John Kerry in Washington, DC, our Canadian government announced: “We stand firm with our international partners … to ensure that marine environments … are preserved not only for now, but for the generations who follow.”
Where is the debate? Where is the evidence-based decision making? Why has the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and especially the Pacific Salmon Commission, meeting this week in Vancouver, disappeared on this proposal? We need better alternatives, better collaborative decision making, and we need to stop breaking promises to our children. It is our heritage but it is their future that is at stake.
Lyn ter Borg, former federal fisheries biologist, Richmond
Referendum isn’t needed
Re: Put vote reform to referendum, Guest editorial, Oct. 1
Why do we need a referendum on changing the voting system? When voting was expanded to all men, rather than just landowners, there was no referendum. When women got the right to vote, there was no referendum. When first past the post voting was implemented, there was no referendum.
Referendums are just mob rule without the flaming torches and pitch-forks. Shouldn’t election reform be implemented by an informed parliament, not based on a referendum campaign that is often ripe with fear and falsehoods? The Brexit campaign is a good example referendums at their worst.
S.I. Petersen, Nanaimo