Dozens of people gathered at a town hall in Penticton on Monday night to voice concerns about logging near the popular Carmi Recreation Trails.
“The trails are used extensively in the winter for snowshoeing and cross-country skiing, and they’re used extensively in the summer for hiking, trail running and mountain biking,” Neda Joss, a spokesperson with the Carmi Recreation Trails Group, said.
Joss is concerned about the impact logging will have on the area.
“It’s not so much the patches and the clear cut that they’re going to be doing, but they’re going to be going in and using the trails to access the logging areas,” Joss said.
“The whole serenity of the area is going to be gone. What people go up there for will be lost.”
A spokesperson for BC Timber Sales (BCTS), the province’s forestry-management arm, previously told Global News that it has already conducted consultations with stakeholders and there was minimal negative feedback.
“Staff are assessing and considering the users’ input to minimize the impact to recreation resources without precluding harvesting,” the statement said.
But Joss doesn’t believe BCTS did its due diligence in informing the public.
“BCTS notified a few people, a small group, and there was really not any opposition to it, so they took it as a go-ahead,” she said.
More than 1,300 people have since signed a petition against the logging, Joss said.
“We’re going to be taking that to BCTS personally,” she added.
The group also plans to lobby politicians and the forestry ministry, Joss said.
–with files from Shelby Thom