I am concerned about old-growth logging in the Walbran Valley. The government of British Columbia is allowing a logging company to cut down some of the oldest and largest trees on Vancouver Island. I find it terrible of these companies and the government to do such a thing.
If we log all the old trees then they can’t produce oxygen and can’t capture the carbon that we produce with our cars and factories. The trees will let go of the carbon that they have captured for all these centuries. That will be unhealthy for us and the climate.
Logging old growth also endangers lots of animals; for example, the marbled murrelet, a seabird that nests in the big trees that are disappearing on our Island. There are lots of other animals that make their homes in the mossy giants’ branches. If these trees are gone, then you can imagine what happens to the inhabitants.
On Vancouver Island, about 90 per cent of the original old-growth forests have already been logged. If we continue like this, there will be none left. It would take more than a thousand years to grow back to what it was before.
The Walbran Valley has trees that are four metres in diameter. I think that what they are planning on doing is incredibly cruel to nature.
Hopefully, the government will rethink its decision and make a natural park out of it. Then we could all go there.
Leonie Eisenhauer, 11
Oak Bay
