What are we thinking?

Dear sir:
As the logging continues on through Halkirk Township and into Bears Passage, new logging roads materialize one cannot help but notice. As noted by Jane Elliott in “Speak up before it’s too late,” this disturbs me greatly as well. There appears to be a lack in the thought processes of those in the MNR who are masterminding these logging travesties.
While I applaud the MNR for their firm stand on the fishing issues, perhaps they need to give the same care and consideration to the entire ecosystem. Why is it some people cannot see a forest through the trees?
While unpleasant at best to have logging operations in one’s backyard, and in a township that has more than 100 full-time residents, there are other issues to this. Logging our township raises the fire hazard, lowers land value, hurts tourism, and where are the animals supposed to go? The animals are running out of room at a rapid rate. The ones who survive this try to exist on barren land?
Our children and the animals in jeopardy don’t have a voice. If we do not preserve it for them, who will?
All one has to do to see the sorry state of the forest is to fly over this area. The word harvest, so widely used by the MNR, seems a poor choice of wording for the destruction of an ecosystem. The only word that comes to my mind is rape. The land has been raped. What do we do in the mean time of 50 years or so until the trees do grow back?
Maybe that doesn’t matter to the companies making the money. It matters to me. Maybe it matters to you, too. The forests must be exhausted. If they were not, would logging be taking place in our backyards…where children play, get on buses, walk, and enjoy nature and living in general?
We have other means of making paper aside from the utter devastation of our forests! We have the technology! We have alternatives to archaic thinking. As the millennium approaches, a bit of clarity is in order. Isn’t it time to give just a little consideration to this area we call home, Sunset Country?
When the forest lives no more, the animals are gone, the tourists don’t return, we have poor air and water, perhaps we will one day ask ourselves…what were we thinking? Our children will most assuredly ask “What were they thinking?”
Sincerely concerned,
Melanie Kozik
P.S. If anyone is interested in discussing their views in a non-public form, please feel free to e-mail me at bearpass@ff.lakeheadu.ca. I would like to hear your thoughts.