Plan calls for more logging
News
Posted By Joni MacFarlane, Editor
Posted 1 month ago
A revised forest management plan for Crowsnest Pass area calls for an increase in logging to help reduce risks of mountain pine beetle and the threat of wildfire.
The new C5 plan aims at "managing the timber resources for sustainability while minimizing the impacts of forestry operations on non-timber resource values, land uses and human activities".
The forest industry is permitted to operate in a section of land that amounts to one-third of the eastern slopes from the northern edge of Waterton Lakes National Park up to
Pekisko Creek in southern Kananaskis. Under the plan less than one per cent of the 114,000 hectares available for commercial forestry will be logged in any given year.
The minimum age of trees for harvest has been increased and a green-up constraint of 30 years has been implemented.
The first 20-year forest management plan was approved in 1986. In 2007, the province agreed to defer any logging decisions until the Oldman Watershed Council released
completion of a report on the state of the watershed.
That report, released in April, concluded that moderate logging has "virtually no effect on the watershed given the small amount of activity on an annualized basis," said Alberta Sustainable Resource Development Minister Mel Knight
According to SRD, the age of forests in Crowsnest Pass makes them highly susceptible to infestation by the mountain pine beetle and vulnerable to the threat of catastrophic wildfire.
In addition, the new forest management plan said it addresses dwindling grizzly bear populations by ensuring "resource roads must be
decommissioned once access is no longer required".
Critics of the plan say not only does it not offer protection to the bruins, but more logging will destroy the bear's dwindling habitat and more roads in and out of logging areas will increase the animals' risk of death through human contact.
A mortality study recently conducted on the mountain pine beetle in Crowsnest Pass showed the population was slowed by cold temperatures over the winter season. However, SRD said the Pass remains a high priority for beetle control because of the risk for "in-flight" from neighbouring BC populations.
Crowsnest Pass residents along with southern Albertans have spoken out against plans to clear-cut areas near Crowsnest Mountain, Beaver Mines and Castle Falls. Despite this opposition, Spray Lake Sawmills was granted permission in 2009 to log the west side of Atlas Road and earlier this year, SRD granted approval to begin forest harvesting in the Castle area in the winter of 2011.
