It seems a group rattling the chains to preserve the Municipal Forest in North Cowichan is getting some attention.
Councillor Christopher Justice will serve notice at the North Cowichan Council meeting tomorrow (Wed) that he intends to introduce a resolution at the December 19th meeting to direct staff to put a pause on logging the Municipal Forest in Stoney Hill until the effects of it are better understood.
However, a spokesperson for the group trying to pause all the logging operations of the forest, which covers 25 per cent of the land in North Cowichan and includes five mountains, says pausing the activity only at Stoney Hill isn’t good enough.
Icel Dobell said cutting down our Municipal Forest poses a fire danger and if we don’t stop, we may see wildfires much like the California fires.
“When you cut down a forest, you create dry conditions, you bring in brush, like broom, that is the most volatile brush there is, it’s full of volatile oils, like lighter fluid. So, you get small trees, you get brush, and that’s how the fires start. They don’t start in the middle of the forest.”
Dobell believes it was scotch broom that provided much of the fodder for the frightening Maple Bay fire last summer that had some residents on evacuation alert.
That fire, she said cost residents 150,000 dollars and the province triple that amount.
She added another concern is the watersheds and how those clear cuts affect our water supplies.
“The irony is, when we cut our forests, we drastically affect the quantity and quality of our water supply. So, we’re talking with different watershed groups and it’s the same issue, it’s ridiculous for us to be protecting our water and cutting down our forests.”
