Annamie Paul

One of Canada’s greatest riches is our wealth of natural resources. …Yet current resource extraction continues at unsustainable levels, and we must act quickly to protect our land and waters and to mitigate climate change. First and foremost, that means keeping as much oil in the ground as possible. …The Canadian forestry industry is not sustainable either. This is obvious in British Columbia where more than 97 per cent of original high-productivity old-growth forests have been logged to oblivion, and 75 per cent of the little that remains is currently slated to be logged as well. …Timber can be a more sustainable building material than concrete or steel, but we must be careful about what forests we use for timber and what practices we employ to do so. …Canada … can continue to invest in and subsidize extractive industries … or we can embrace a new vision for responsible natural resource stewardship… [We respect the copyrights of the source publication – full access may require a subscription]