Protecting our Eastern Slopes isn't just about coal mining

Logging practices are encroaching at a catastrophic rate and we need your help NOW.

Photo by Peter Robbins on Unsplash

Hi all.

We’ve talked at length for years about the detrimental effects of coal mining on our water resource but that threat is not the only one we face.

West Fraser Logging currently has a plan to do about 20 years worth of logging in the Oldman watershed within the next 2 years. The idea is daunting; the resulting image tragic; and the effect on the watershed as a whole, devastating.

Clearcuts are ugly images and what they represent from a hydrological perspective is invisible if you don’t pay attention to stream flows. The ability of a watershed to store and and deliver water with continuity is altered, sometimes drastically, with clear cut logging practices.

For this reason the Alberta Wilderness Assn. (AWA) is launching an initiative to try and curtail what could be an imminent disaster. Please help if you can by way of the link contained below.

The following is by Lorne Fitch.

It seems going into the woods these days raises my blood pressure when I see how logging has occurred. I have tracked logging over the years and have observed and reported issues with insufficient buffer zones, poor road layout, massive erosion into trout streams, reduced trout spawning, and inadequate sediment control. Recent observations show nothing has changed.

The Alberta Wilderness Association has agreed to support a selected audit of current and past logging operations in the Oldman watershed to chronicle the failures in a quantitative way. This will provide essential input to the Forest Management Plan being developed for the watershed and assist in developing environmental standards that are meaningful for protection of species at risk trout and water quality.

You might ask why the Alberta government isn’t undertaking this essential review. I don’t have an answer but it is obvious there is no appetite for one. Hence, the need for concerned Albertans to support and fund such an initiative.

Funds raised will be used to hire a biological consultant with extensive experience with logging in the region.

Cheryl and I have made a substantial donation to AWA in support of this audit. It is our commitment to biodiversity, water quality protection, and ensuring landscape integrity and resilience is maintained.

If you care about the Eastern Slopes, are also concerned about logging and the impact on native trout and water quality, we hope you will join us in supporting this initiative.

Your donation is tax-deductible. Here is the link for donations: Donate: Logging Audit in the Upper Oldman - Alberta Wilderness Association

Together we can make a difference for our forests and watersheds.

Thanks again for reading.