Logging and watersheds topic of talk

Logging and its effect on watersheds will be the topic when the Lethbridge and District Horticultural Society holds its next public meeting on Monday.

Professional biologist Lorne Fitch will discuss “Stumps, Sawdust and Sediment: A legacy of logging in the headwaters.”

The meeting starts at 7 p.m. in the Theatre Gallery at the Lethbridge Public Library (Main Branch).

“Our ability to extract wealth from our forests, especially along the Eastern Slopes, moves faster than our understanding of the vital connections within them, and certainly our ability and will to effectively restore watershed function after logging,” says a news release.

Connecting the dots between logging and other forest values is what we should do, Fitch suggests. The problem is many cannot, will not, see the dots, let alone connect them in any meaningful sense. We do not sustain the forest, the forest sustains us. And, a forest is more than the trees; it is a watershed.

Native fish, are the gold seal of water quality and are a metric of the health of watersheds. So it follows that, as the watershed goes, so do the fish; if the fish are vanishing, something must be wrong with our forest management, Fitch argues. A perspective on fish, native fish, might help answer the question — what’s all the fuss about land uses, especially logging?