Community members and environmental organizations recently gathered to discuss their discontent with the state of forest protection in BC at a town hall meeting. Attendees at the April 13 meeting expressed frustration with the government’s recent change in pricing and procedures for forest salvaging in the wake of wildfires. “The government is telling us that to help communities, they’re going to make the access into all burned areas of BC easier, they’re going to give the industry, and loggers, and forest corporations, easier access, less red tape and no environmental protection agencies to access all the burned lands. “You know why? Not for community health, not for forest health… but just to get more money for the sawmills,” Taryn Skalbania, with the Peachland Watershed Protection Alliance. “We need our forests standing behind us for wildlife, for habitat, for water.”