Like many of you, I have lived and worked in other parts of the world. One of the places I lived in was Lesotho, in southern Africa. It was a friendly place, and in many ways beautiful, but the landscape was far starker than it should have been.
Population pressures had led to a denuded landscape and severe erosion. This was a country with an ecosystem in crisis. The people of Lesotho dealt with that reality, but of course, fixing the problem was much more difficult than it would have been to avoid the damage in the first place.
We can learn a lesson from countries like Lesotho. We must take seriously the need for ecosystem protection.
Here in Columbia River-Revelstoke, we are blessed with an amazing environment. We are surrounded by ecosystems that we work in. We have access to wilderness that we recreate in. And we have clean water and unpolluted land that sustains us.
Protection of these ecosystems must be a priority, not just for us as individuals, but for our government.
British Columbia is largely made up of Crown Land, publicly owned and entirely within the responsibility of government. As a result, British Columbia is uniquely suited to ensuring the highest standards of ecosystem protection with relatively few barriers to best practices on the land, if we have a government that will make this issue a priority.
Government must put resources on the ground in our communities to protect lakes and streams, and to protect plant and animal diversity.
Our decisions on these matters will have serious long-term implications. What we do today will be passed on to future generations. Will we leave our children and grandchildren with a mess to clean up?
I know, based on how many of my constituents have raised this very important issue with me over the last 11 years, just how deeply we all care about protecting the landscape that surrounds us. We must make sure that we have a government in this province that feels the same way.
Norm Macdonald MLA Columbia River Revelstoke | 1-866-870-4188 | norm.macdonald.mla@leg.bc.ca
