by Lesley Thorsell I just wanted to comment on the “Students Support Sustainability” article [Weekend Shopper, June 17]. It is heartwarming to read what the students are doing at Brooks Secondary School and that Westview Elementary School will be built to LEED gold environmental standards.
It seems that green and sustainable facilities are a priority for School District 47. The Brooks students and teachers involved are role models for our community.
As we are an intelligent, adaptable and intuitive species how can we, as residents of Powell River, assist in making our whole community green and sustainable? Locally, we have begun with promoting our transit system, looking at bike lanes and promoting organic food.
Let’s continue to grow and buy organic food and support our organic farmers. Research shows that mega corporations like Monsanto are buying up farmers’ heritage seeds to patent them so they will be the only source of purchase for farmers. Monsanto also produces the herbicides and pesticides that are spread over the non-organic and genetically-modified crops. Monsanto’s patented seeds plus herbicides results in disease of our bodies and planet.
Another way we can support sustainability is to contact our provincial government in regard to allowable cuts by logging companies. Our government gets 25 cents per cubic metre for each tree cut but why are logging companies required to cut an unsustainable amount? Logging has always happened in our backyard but now our front yard is disappearing. Tourists and locals are noticing that trails at Duck Lake, Sunshine Coast Trail and even the whimsical Trinket Trail have been cut or are being slated for cuts. Trees, besides being our source of oxygen to breathe, habitat for wildlife, and carbon filters, are part of our tourism appeal. Tourism brings money and new residents to our community. For example, the BC Bike race of 420 strong, which stopped in Powell River last week, excluded Nanaimo from its schedule due to trails being logged by Island Timberlands. The clear-cut happening at Inland Lake, an advertised tourist and local campers’ attraction, is happening without any buffer or community conscience. We also have a large and unusual increase in bears in our community. Could this be partially due to the loss of natural habitat? Unlimited logging results in tourism decline and loss of habitat for wildlife and fish-bearing streams.
My point is that there is an imbalance between industry and nature, sustainability and profit. The message we have been given is private industry trumps nature. It doesn’t have to be that way. We will have over nine billion people in the world by 2050 and we have to adapt, compromise and value the delicate ecosystem that we are infringing upon on a daily basis. We also now have 1,900 endangered species in BC.
A healthy ecosystem equals healthy bodies which equals a healthy economy. Let’s support our teachers and students and join their hope + action = sustainability in our community, country and world. As the saying goes “We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.”
Lesley Thorsell is a board member of Malaspina Land Conservancy Society and loves to explore the outdoors with hiking, biking and boating.
