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Logging in the Crowsnest Pass

Normally, oil and gas exploration and development is the hot-button issue in Alberta. We share that concern. Husky Oil is about to apply for a licence to double the size of one of its well sites on Moose Mountain (one of those you see when you hike up to the lookout). But logging will have a greater impact on social, economic and environmental issues. These same issues are of great concern to people in the Crowsnest Pass.

Read about logging in the Crowsnest Pass

 

Logging in Kananaskis

logging in SibbaldSibbald logging map

Alberta Sustainable Resource Development approved the Spray Lakes Sawmills "Detailed Forest Mananagement Plan" on July 30, 2007. See it on the SRD web site. The plan was modified from the original, proposed in June 2006, to reflect an SRD "Mountain Pine Beetle State of Emergency" declared in April 2007. It is hard to imagine how the cutblocks, shown in the map at right, will stop the spread of the beetle. No human intervention has ever stopped them before.

The revised plan shifted the logging operation from the West Bragg Creek area, where the clear-cuts would supposedly reduce the risk of forest fire. The M.D. of Rockyview is now developing a Fire Smart program that should facilitate commercial logging in West Bragg Creek.

Logging was scheduled to begin in September, 2007. See photos of the area to be logged.

This part of Kananaskis is included in the area we hope to have designated as a park.

 

kananaskis loggingSibbald, Elbow, Sheep logging map

The Detailed Forest Management Plan calls for extensive logging throughout the Sibbald, Elbow and Sheep districts in north-eastern Kananaskis. The map, at right, shows our proposed park area. The black areas are the cutblocks proposed for the next 25 years. The Sibbald logging map (above) is a very small part in the upper left corner of this overall map.