You can be certain when the government makes a decision on the Peel they will invoke “balance” as a justification for opening a larger section to mining than is recommended in the land use plan.
Something for conservation, something for development, they’ll say.
Each new government, pressured by the resource-extraction corporations who are its financial benefactors, gives away another slice of the wilderness pie in the name of balance.
Eventually there’s not enough left to matter.
A prime wilderness area is non-renewable. There’s only so much of it. You can’t create it or restore it; you can only destroy it.
The “balance” rationale ensures the eventual elimination of wilderness. It isn’t something that is fair to all parties; it is incremental destruction of a national treasure.
The Peel Watershed Land Use Plan already yields 20 per cent of the irreplaceable Peel wilderness to mining.
Enough with the “balance” argument.
Stop it there.
Wayne Merry
Atlin