The former leader of the BC Green Party will be one of the panellists leading a discussion about the negative impacts of clear-cut logging on the environment.
Sonia Furstenau, who stepped down as Green leader after losing her legislative seat in the last provincial election, will participate in the upcoming event co-hosted by the Interior Watershed Task Force (IWTF) and Joe Rich Forestry Trails and Watershed Committee.
Along with the panel discussion, there will be a screening of the documentary film Trouble In The Headwaters, which examines the 2018 Grand Forks flood and reveals the connection of clear-cut logging in the headwaters of the Kettle River Basin.
Filmmaker Daniel Pierce will also be on hand for the evening to discuss his documentary, which follows Dr. Younes Alila, a professor of hydrology at UBC, and two retired loggers as they travel through the Kettle River Watershed to unravel the science connecting industrial clear-cutting and the growing risk of flooding, landslides and drought across B.C.
On the panel along with Furstenau and Pierce will be Mike Morris, a former Liberal MLA who served as Solicitor General and minister of public safety in the provincial government; Dave Gill, general manager of Ntityix Resources LP, a natural resource company owned by Westbank First Nation to oversee the band's logging operations; Elliiott Tonasket, Indigenous knowledge counsel member for the Syilx Okanagan Nation; and Alila.
Taryn Skalbania, co-founder of the IWTF and a Peachland resident, says the presentation of Trouble In The Headwaters and panel discussion will reiterate that commercial logging of primary B.C. forests, sensitive habitat and community drinking watersheds must stop.
Skalbania says forestry is a declining industry in B.C. and has been for decades, but still carries a significant influence over land use in the province, particularly when it comes to the practice of clear-cut logging.
She maintains environmental biodiversity, and the quality of domestic drinking water is threatened by the short-term economic gains of harvesting timber.
The documentary presentation and panel discussion takes place Thursday, Sept. 4, 6:15-9 p.m., at the Mary Irwin Theatre in the Rotary Centre for the Arts, 421 Cawston Ave.
Tickets are free, with donations welcomed to help cover the costs of the event.
