As the forest fire season gets underway, climate change and humans’ effects on our planet are becoming increasingly apparent.
The rise in global warming, the result of the dumping of greenhouse gases (GHG), has had a devastating effect on our forests. The four horsemen of heat, drought, fire and pests – and deforestation – have set our ecosystem on an unsustainable path.
In 1990, B.C. forests acted as a forest by cleaning the air and sequestering more than 84 million tons of GHG annually. By 2020, our forest became net emitters of 39 tons of GHG annually, primarily through fires.
Now with only three per cent of old-growth forests remaining in B.C. and young plants on precise cuts unable to survive the harsh climate extremes, our forests, once a friend of the environment, have become a source of destruction.
It will take hundreds of years, if ever, for the young forests to achieve the sequestering powers of the ancient forests. Stop all old-growth logging, curtail clearcut forest practices and help give the planet time to heal the wounds we have inflicted on it.
William Wallace
Sooke
editor@sookenewsmirror.com
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