Audio recordings on the forestry issue
Ralph Cartar interview - March 29
Windows Media format
Quicktime
Ted Morton interview - March 30
Windows Media
Quicktime
Feedback - April 2
Three callers commented on the interviews. I mangled the recording of the first two men, but the gist of the comment is there. The woman at the end left a well-informed and detailed message.
Windows Media
Quicktime
This is my comment that wasn't aired on the radio
During the interview on logging, Dr. Morton asked what Albertans want. If he read the 700 hundred letters he received last June in response to the plan to log Kananaskis, he would know we don't want logging in Kananaskis.
In response to his question he didn't offer an option, but said we will get logging and short-term aesthetic disruption along with a healthy watershed. He says the beetle is a greater threat to the watershed than logging is. The Forest Practices Board in B.C. says beetle killed forests leave standing dead trees and a living understory that provide more water retention than do clearcuts. With logging, there is increased contamination of the water and water flows are disrupted due to erosion. Calgary's water supply is at risk. We need a study of the environmental impact of development on the Bow and Elbow Rivers watersheds.
Dr. Morton is not talking to constituents. We asked for consultation last June. Now in March he says he'll hold an Open House next June. Not consultation, but a presentation of their current plans.
The devastation caused by the pine beetle is a direct effect of global warming. Normally the beetles would be killed by the cold. It's a tragedy, but logging the forest is not going to protect it.
At the public meeting in Bragg Creek last week, a young eco-tourism student said he represented the future of Alberta and logging is a relic of the past. Dr. Morton and SRD need to reconsider the multi-use policy in Kananaskis. It's not working.
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