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Letter: Tired of profit before planet

Lately I can’t sleep. The weight of the world’s problems are so heavy. I look out into the world overwhelmed by blatant racism, a worldwide pandemic and our urgent climate crisis.
Powell River letter

Lately I can’t sleep. The weight of the world’s problems are so heavy.

I look out into the world overwhelmed by blatant racism, a worldwide pandemic and our urgent climate crisis. Our government should be scrambling to make changes in sustainability and green initiatives right now, instead they are allowing and condoning use of carcinogenic pesticides in our forests [“qathet Regional District reacts to herbicide/pesticide application,” June 4].

I am beyond upset and angry that the use of glyphosate is being proposed to be sprayed in the Theodosia area. I often visit this area. Although the logging is vast there, it is a bounty of life, trying it’s best to regrow and recover from an industry that always takes and leaves nothing behind.

It is an estuary; it is home to a bountiful salmon-bearing river; it is a food source to not only the local Tla’amin peoples but to all the living, breathing creatures that feast from its bounty. Would you spray known cancer-causing poison onto your food then eat it?

Glyphosate is found to kill beneficial gut bacteria, cause neurological damage and reproductive problems; it is poison.

Our world is at a turning point. We need to open our eyes to the destruction we are doing to this planet. There is no tomorrow if we do not make the changes today.

I am sick and tired of seeing profit before the planet. I am sick and tired of seeing industry trump the environment. I am sick and tired of seeing corporate greed running this country.

I am not entirely against logging; it is an industry that supports thousands of jobs and families, but I am against the use of poison being sprayed on forests where bears, elk, deer, salmon, birds and creatures of all kinds live.

Eliminating naturally occurring broadleaf trees and leaving only coniferous monocultures should be illegal. Not only does this kill entire ecosystems that people and animals use for food sources, but the risk of forest fires increases tenfold.

My family and I are from the Tla’amin Nation and we do not consent to the use of pesticides being sprayed on our forests.

I will be using my voice to spread the word of the use of these pesticides on our forests. I will be informing everyone I can within the community. I will do whatever is required of me to stop the use of this poison. I ask that our government does the same.

Miel Creasey
Tla’amin Nation