April 23, 2009
East Kootenay Liberal candidate Bill Bennett celebrated Earth Day on Wednesday with a crew of laid-off forest employees working on grassland and open forest restoration projects.
The 12-man crew, laid off from Tembec’s finger joint mill in Cranbrook, has been employed since February by the Rocky Mountain Trench Natural Resources Society , thanks to funding provided by the province through the Job Opportunities Program.
Bennett told the crew their restoration work is of great value to wildlife.
“A lot of urban people probably think Earth Day is only about recycling and climate change, but we must not forget that the highest number of threatened species of flora and fauna in BC live in our endangered natural grasslands,” Bennett said.
Recognized as British Columbia’s most endangered ecosystem, grasslands are home to most of the province’s at-risk species. In the East Kootenay these include Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep, American badgers, long-billed curlews and Lewis’s woodpeckers. In all, about 287 species of plants, animals and insects inhabit East Kootenay grasslands and open forests.
The Rocky Mountain Trench Ecosystem Restoration Program, the first program of its kind in BC, has been restoring the region’s grasslands and open forests since 1998 and Bennett has championed the initiative throughout his tenure as MLA.
“This is a great program because restoration treatments deliver so many benefits, and each of you is making a valuable contribution to that,” Bennett told the JOP crew. “Removing forest ingrowth not only enhances wildlife habitat and biodiversity, it improves livestock grazing and makes timber stands more resistant to disease and insect attack. Plus it reduces the threat of wildfire near our communities.”
With $808,000 in Job Opportunities Program funding, the Trench Society is employing two crews, one based in Cranbrook and the other in the Columbia Valley, to hand thin sites ingrown with small conifers.
“We are grateful for the provincial government program to keep some of our employees working so they don’t leave the area and are here when the mills start up again,” said Jean-Luc Carrière, Tembec’s SPF BC Division vice president.
The Job Opportunities Program was designed by the BC government to provide short-term work for laid-off forestry workers. It was launched in 2008 and so far the three-year program has provided $16 million to 93 projects employing more than 750 forest workers throughout BC. A further $16 million is still be to awarded.
The Rocky Mountain Trench Natural Resources Society, a coalition of nine East Kootenay hunting, ranching, environmental and wildlife organizations, is a founding member of the Trench restoration program.
Contact:
Dan Murphy RPF, Coordinator
Rocky Mountain Trench Natural Resources Society
Cell: (250) 421-9320
Email: dgmurphy@telus.net
