Save Our Forests
Joe Gee
About one person out of every ten was holding either a sign or a prop to express their specific concerns. A total of seventeen guest speakers from different organizations addressed the crowd on how the new Alward Forestry Plan is a recipe for ecological and economic disaster.
The guest speakers included Charles Theriault, producer of the online documentary “Is Our Forest Really Ours”. This informative and hard hitting documentary details just how the people of NB have been robbed by corporate management of our Crown Lands.
Tracy Glynn of the Conservation Council of New Brunswick gave the following speech at the rally:
Rally for Our Forest
May 13, 2014, NB Legislature
Speech by Tracy Glynn
Our Acadian forest, that special mixed wood forest of 32 different tree species of birches, ashes, maples, beech, butternut, hemlock and evergreens, is remarkable in its beauty and its diversity of wildlife and it deserves to live. It has provided jobs and a living to New Brunswickers across the province whether they be maple syrup producers, mill workers or woodlot owners and workers like my Dad and my neighbours in the woods around Miramichi.
Now, we have a forest that is in danger. A decade ago, a WWF study found that our forest type, the Acadian forest, was one of six endangered forest types in North America. Instead of working on conserving and restoring our forest, our governments have allowed for its further degradation in the last 10 years to the point that there is no large intact areas of forest greater than 500 square kilometres and all but 2 watersheds in our forest have less than 10% forest cover.
We must stopped the latest assault on our forest, in form of the NB government-JD Irving contract.
The gift of more Crown timber from public lands to Irving means that the company will be allowed to clearcut in areas where before they had to select cut in order to maintain the integrity and diversity of the Acadian forest. Our wildlife habitat zones, old forest and buffer zones along rivers and streams are at risk. The new contract and proposed 25 year old forest management agreement must be abandoned if we are to leave a healthy forest for ourselves and future generations. No more clearcuts! No cutbacks to government monitoring of industry! No forest management agreement!
Some MLAs were around a decade ago when it became known to the public what the forest industry was demanding: a double in the rate of cut on public lands. Surely they must recall the overflowing town hall meetings when New Brunswickers one after another took the microphone to voice their dismay with a forest managed for timber objectives as the priority. Rallies, petitions, letters and a survey have shown that New Brunswickers want water and biodiversity protection prioritized in forest management. We remind the Alward government that this is their mandate for forest management.
We ask that Premier David Alward, his MLAs, the Opposition Party and all political parties aspiring to take government in New Brunswick to take a moment to recall what it’s like to stand in an old forest of evergreens, hemlock, maples, ashes, birches and beech where you may be fortunate enough to see a northern flying squirrel, hear the song of a yellow warbler or the tapping of an American Three-Toed Woodpecker or catch a brook trout in a sheltered stream. This is why we fight and will continue to fight for our forest.
Tracy Glynn is also the editor of NB Media Co-O, a terrific online alternative newspaper that features articles addressing important issues facing us today.
