What you said...

Here is what some members of the SFMAC shared

regarding their views on road management.

"What I am seeing...and I totally disagreed with it, is that we go there, we work 2 years or three years, we [close the road], we go back in again...It’s an expense to reopen it and [it is hard on the wildlife because the wildlife become accustomed to roads and are easier to hunt] ... I disagree with what is being done; if it’s got to stay open for two years, [harvest] in a running succession, then close the road, don’t break it up." 

- Alvin Yosyk

"In the development of roads for forestry extraction, every effort should be made to eliminate impacts on other stakeholders. Trappers and outfitters should not be cash out of pocket or inconvenienced especially in the case where the stakeholder had viable access trails prior to forestry operations."

-Stuart Jansson

"Public access [for] hunting fishing trappers, sightseers, hikers...roads can be so useful for so many people because these areas, especially if they are not driven areas just walking areas or [for] ATV. But it does not work out that way. [Why?] Poaching and total slaughter of a resource. ....Decommissioning is the best solution; even if they are not going back in there for a year or two, maybe take out a few km of road."

-Earl Boyer

"One of the responsibilities I guess of whoever is building a road or whoever is planning a road is to sort of shove the economic considerations a little bit aside and look at how we are going to do the least damage recognizing that the road is required. The reason why I say throw the economic considerations aside is because in the past I would suspect that most roads have been built based on the cheapest way possible and take the easiest route which is usually along high ground. The narrowest crossings are along the creeks, those kinds of things. And from an environmental standpoint those might not necessarily be the best.

So there are ways of mitigating a lot of the negative sides of road construction by spending a little bit more money, putting a little thought into it. One of the things that I think is very critical and I like the idea of this committee thing with Tembec because provided the company is willing to take suggestions and be willing to take what is told, there is a great brain trust in that committee, there are a lot of people there will a lot of experience and a lot of knowledge. Maybe not necessarily in timber harvest issues, but definitely in a variety of aspects in environmental stuff."

-Jim Ticknor