Doesn’t the Babine River Corridor Park already adequately protect wilderness values?
No. The Park corridor is long and narrow (approximately one kilometer wide) and follows the Babine River for 85 kilometers and covers 14, 543 hectares in the heart of the Babine Watershed. No vulnerability assessments were used to help decision makers anticipate the risks of esclalating logging and logging road access in the initial decision to establish the park width. The Park corridor establishes some protection but additional protection is required to ensure the sustainability of the wilderness values. With the exception of tourism, all resource values are in decline, including forestry values. Trend lines are down for forestry, commercial fisheries and it is anticipated that grizzly bear populations on the Babine will decline by 30-50%. The Babine watershed is home to bull trout, fisher and grizzly bears: all blue listed and classified as vulnerable in Canada. According to the Ministry of Forests the historical rate of cut in the timber supply area and the special management zone
