Letter: Walker Creek logging

Dear BC Timber Sales,

Subject: BC Timber Sales Plan to auction blocks of ‘Walker Wilderness’

I’m opposed to this plan for the following reasons: The BC Provincial Government’s “new paradigm” for forest management, demands the Walker Wilderness remain unlogged. Logging the Walker Wilderness would violate a federal-agreement to protect Mountain Caribou Habitat.

The Walker Creek is critical for spawning chinook salmon and bull trout. The Ministry of Forests identified concerns in 2018 about the impact of logging on this significant fish habitat. The Walker Wilderness is a primary forest, the largest
area in the Upper Fraser still untouched by human activity, it is one of the last intact watersheds in the Robson Valley.

It has plants and lichens not found anywhere else on earth. It provides a sanctuary for chinook salmon, bull trout, grizzly bear, mountain caribou, and other vulnerable species integral to the surrounding ecosystem. The Walker Wilderness is a critical corridor for wildlife connecting the southern portions of the Robson Valley to Kakway in the north. It’s an important habitat for the endangered mountain caribou and at risk populations of fisher (pekania pennanti), grizzly, and wolverine.

Any logging – even the construction of a road – destroys the intact conditions which support primary forest-dependent wildlife and biodiversity; in slow growing, structurally rich ecosystems, this damage is functionally permanent. The BC Government needs to follow its “new paradigm” for forest management, that includes Stop BC Timber Sales auctioning any cut blocks in ‘The Walker Wilderness’.

Thank you for your consideration on this matter, A reply is greatly appreciated.

Kind regards,
Grace Kramer,
Vernon, B.C.