Beetle Fund For Sports? One Man's Opinion

Monday, October 02, 2006 03:45 AM

I wonder if Prince George Mayor Colin Kinsley or former UNBC president Charles Jago read the terms of reference for the $40 million dollar beetle initiative before trying to get Ottawa to pony up some money for the sports center at UNBC.

For your information I’ve included the program's description about the initiative.

Now when you have read the program description, would you be so kind as to tell me

Where in the world you can qualify for a grant for a sports center from this fund and
Why in the world you now complain that you were turned away from getting that grant?

The whole exercise last week smacked of politics plain and simple. In the old days you went to Ottawa shmoozed the Liberal Cabinet Minister and if you were lucky,youjustmight come away with a cheque. Maybe if you were prepared to help the Liberals hang onto power. Now if Colin and Chuck bought into that notion I do not know, that question is properly put to them. I do know that when you examine the $40 million dollar Beetle initiative, you will quickly discover that all the chirping about the sport center was just that. As for the $100 million tied to it, if the Mayor followed that money it was given to the province which was in charge of dispersing it, plain and simple.

I’m Meisner and that is one man’s opinion.

The Private Forestlands Rehabilitation Program is part of the Government of Canada’s Mountain Pine Beetle Initiative. The initiative is a six-year $40 million investment to respond to the mountain pine beetle epidemic in western Canada.

The purpose of the program is to assist landowners in early mountain pine beetle control efforts and rehabilitation of mountain pine beetle infested areas on private forestlands.

Landowners may be eligible if:

they own non-industrial forestlands

they hold a minimum of 10 contiguous hectares of productive forestland, and

their property is located within the mountain pine beetle impacted area.

The mountain pine beetle infested area ranges from Smithers east to the Rocky Mountains.

Through the program, private landowners are also able to enhance their understanding and knowledge of sustainable forest management.

Forestry Liaison Officers from Natural Resources Canada are available to discuss possible treatments, eligible activities, requirements and how to apply for funding through the program.

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Posted on Monday, October 02, 2006 03:45 AM in Views by Ben Meisner

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Comments

Posted by: Gofaster on October 2 2006 7:31 AM

How in the world would money set up for the beetle kill ever get interpreted as money for a sports center.

Once again I will say about the sports center, build it if you feel you must "BUT" if you can not afford to pay for it and run it on your own....
FORGET IT.....
I, and maybe it is only me, have no desire to help you pay for something I have no need or use for.

Posted by: diplomat on October 3 2006 3:31 PM

According to forestry experts the only thing that will stop the mountain pine beetles is that they run out of pine trees as hosts.

It will take another ten years or so and all the pine forests in B.C. will have been killed off.

That will either stop the beetles in their track or they will adapt to other species, so the experts say.

Large areas are now being re-forested with 21 different species of trees, including pine.

The goal is to plant 28 million seedlings per annum.

Research in how to prevent future infestations must be properly funded, but putting the extra money offered into sports centres rather than re-forestation would make no sense at all.

Who had that rather dim idea in the first place?

Posted by: owl on October 5 2006 1:12 AM

I am unsure why it is such a difficult thing to undertstand that the AAC has been increased considerably to cut the Beetle killed wood wiht the hope that one can put it on the market without drawing down the price too much.

One of the uses for the money is to find viable alternate markets and build the infrastructure required to service that "new" market.

One of the other uses is to plant more trees, although in reality that should be done by the licensees who are removing the timber.

There is an appropriate use of the fund to research bettter stand tending methods which would increase the yield and/or the speed with which the timber will grow and provide new raw material.

The estimate is that there will be about a 50 year period of siginificant reduction in AAC.

That is the hump to get over. That is a legitimate use of Beetle money, to find diversified work to be done while our forest industry has a loss of inventory. Of course, that will eventually come to be compared with the current increased inventory which has been made available.

We are in the midst of taking a roller coaster ride, still going up in inventory being cut, soon reaching a peak, and then a nosedive to a plateau considerably less than we have been used to for several decades.

We have to add further value to the wood products we have been producing, or we have to develop other industries to tide us over for 5 or so decades. Quite simple really. The sooner we get started, the less we will feel the pain.