To the Editor:
(Open letter to Premier Christy Clark)
The Creston Valley branch of Wildsight is disappointed with your decision to approve the Jumbo Glacier alpine mega-resort. Had you announced your decision in the Kootenays, you may have noticed we are a world away from the financial district of Vancouver. For many of us, wild places are more precious than material goods. It is why we live here.
We oppose your decision for the following reasons:
1) Size does matter. An all-season luxury ski resort with 23 lifts and a 5,000-plus bed hotel is an old-fashioned European design with too high a carbon footprint for 2012. It is not Kootenay-style locally-based tourism, which would embrace the environment, not crush it.
2) Grizzly bears. If you were to discuss habitat needs with any biologist, you would learn that a large predator requires a large area. We have a responsibility to the world to maintain grizzly bear populations and not contribute to the decline of another great species.
3) Native issues. The Ktunaxa Nation spoke of its spiritual traditions in the Qat’muk Declaration. Your decision does not show any understanding of this document.
4) Your decision is a top-down decision forced upon the people who live here. We are like the people of the Mayan Riviera, who once lived in a place coveted by developers and now work as waiters and do the laundry. Why should the one per cent live in the world’s most beautiful places? You have stolen something precious from the people and given it to the wealthy from afar.
5) Will taxpayers pay for costly road and avalanche maintenance to this high elevation private resort once it is built?
Please reconsider your decision.
Tanna Patterson
Wildsight (Creston Valley)