Editorial: Crossroad

June-July 1999

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web

by Alan Wilson

Cover Photo: by Joel Rogers

This planet is at a crossroad. The future of humanity and life on earth is at risk. The choices you and I make in the next few years will determine if it's a live world or a dead one we leave our children. What we do now matters.

Nowhere is this truer than in British Columbia, one of the last great stands of nature left in the world.

BC's intricate coastline is characterized by old growth temperate rainforest, one of the most biologically diverse ecosystems on the planet, home to the bears, eagles, whales, and First Nations cultures some 10,000 years old.

But what remains of this wilderness is under threat from unsustainable logging practices, fish farming, and other industries which could turn the coast into a wasteland if allowed to continue, unchanged.

What was once thought to be an inexhaustible source of natural riches to be 'harvested', is now seen to be fragile and limited. The forest industry which has led the way in BC for most of this century, is in decline. Fishing has collapsed. Coastal communities are in crisis.

The government is under pressure to open up the province to industry, to sell off forest land to private control, to lift the moratorium on fish farming and oil and gas exploration - to get business 'booming' again

There are government plans and 'stakeholder' processes underway which will decide the fate of vast stretches of the coast. The decisions to be made will determine whether we begin to move towards a sustainable future... or not.

The good news is that in a world of shrinking wilderness, the value of our coast is rising all the time - not as raw material for an increasingly urbanized world, but for wilderness and adventure

Wilderness is no longer to be feared and tamed, but sought as a source of respite and recreation. It has become an escape from our modern highways, machines and buildings, and the last refuge for wildlife on a plundered planet.

No wonder the BC wilderness is prized around the world as a premier international ecotourism destination. No wonder tourism is in the process of taking over from resource extraction as the prime economic generator in the province - it already provides more jobs than any other sector in BC.

Now the ecotourism industry is taking action to protect its future and the future of this province. The Ecotourism Association of Vancouver Island (ETAV - a coalition of 32 ecotourism companies) is lobbying government, getting media exposure, and spreading the word that highly visible logging in wilderness areas, even on private land, is wrong.

Recently, TimberWest - the largest private forest landowner in the province-announced it would phase out clear-cut logging after ETAV arranged a helicopter and camera crew to survey the damage being done near Strathcona Park on Vancouver Island. Acknowledging the impact on ecotourism, TimberWest suspended logging there and on Hanson Island in Johnstone Strait.

The next action will be a gathering of ecotourism operators, recreational kayakers, yachters and others to protest logging in scenic corridors. Watch for it!

Wilderness destruction is not the way to prosperity. It's not just the 'ugliness' of the landscape scar that upsets visitors when they see a clear-cut, but the realization that our fragile planet can't afford the loss.

Ultimately we know that none of us, whether individuals, business or government - has the right to consign nature to oblivion. No one has the right to engage in business that leads to the extinction of species. Government in particular has no right to trade off whole ecosystems, for political benefit.

Provincial stakeholder processes are laudable, but our ecological crisis is global in dimensions. None of the many stakeholders at the table in BC's resource management processes represent the billions of citizens in other countries who will be affected by sea level rise as we tear down yet more of our forests-the world's carbon dioxide storehouses. Who will speak for them?

In global terms, BC is a prosperous society, with one of the best educated, healthiest, and most peaceful populations-and one of the most democratic traditions anywhere. If we don't find a way to protect wilderness, who will? Certainly not those in countries suffering political repression, poverty or war.

We must lead the way in speaking up for nature and for those who have no voice at the table, to ensure decisions are in the long-term interests of this planet as a whole.

We must make choices for the local and global good, and be a model of environmental responsibility. The results will be prosperity based on real sustainability, and a precedent for others to emulate. - Alan Wilson