Re: “Biodiversity and logging can be partners,” letter, Feb. 27.
Merve Wilkinson is a hero and an inspiration, a Vancouver Island logger who conclusively demonstrated that man and the forest can live mutually beneficial lives together by earning a living through sustainable logging on the 55-hectare piece of property he called Wildwood, which he purchased in 1938.
In a 2010 interview, he said a couple of things that every forestry minister should read aloud to his staff every morning he or she is in office: “The forester has a legitimate role when he’s working with nature. He’s an illegitimate bum when he’s trying to kill nature.” And: “A forest which is utilized economically cannot be sustained without being selective. The two are interdependent.”
Through selective logging, Wilkinson not only maintained wood volume, but when he died in August 2011, his Wildwood woodlot had more standing timber than it did in 1938.
Richard Mackenzie
Saanich
