Stretching from the Idaho Panhandle to central British Columbia over several mountain ranges and meeting the headwaters of the Columbia and Fraser Rivers is one of the rarest ecosystems on our planet, the termperate rainforest of the northwest and it is disappearing along with its animal diversity.  The Selkirk Mountains' rare old-growth interior temperate rain-forest is being decimated by logging in order to make biomass pulp for "hygiene products", meaning toilet paper, sold in North America and Asia and to provide Canada with a major source of electricity. It is literally going up in smoke under the false claims of operating "Green" by companies like Mercer International; https://www mercerint.com/operations/ celgar  

According to David Moskowitz, biologist and independent reporter for High Country News (http://www.hcn.org/ Vol. 48 No. 18 October 31, 2016, in his article "Caribou recovery falters in Canada", operations like those of Mercer International's Celgar Mill, receive government subsidies to log, and the Canadian government encourages companies to log in mountain caribou habitat or lose their logging rights if quotas are unfulfilled. The 100+ year old trees being cut today are not a renewable green resource. According to British Columbia's independent Forest Practices Board (FPB), it will take 30 to 40 years before a significant second stand growth can be harvested; 30 to 40 years of virgin timber growth cut down before anything regrows. When one species is removed another will suffer and an imbalance begins to explode. No Hemlock lichen for caribou to eat means smaller herds, then predators reliant on caribou starve, which requires more human intervention and the problems intensify among lower levels of the food chain; rodents, insects and diseases. Human intervention is expensive and rarely achieves goals that make an environment sustainable; a cost that will stretch over decades.

This scenario can be reversed by migrating logging operations to a more efficient and faster growing material stand; bamboo.  Properties of bamboo sustainability, fast renewable, biodegradable, soft, skin friendly, super absorbent with anti-bacterial, anti-fungal and odor resistant, hypo allergenic properties. In addition, BPA can be found in recycled tissue, while Bamboo toilet tissue is 100% BPA free. By utilizing only a few of the areas already cleared of old growth and proper monitoring to ensure the new bamboo stands do not invade protected regions, the ongoing tragedy, the loss of important flora and fauna in one of the most unique wonders of the wild world can preserved. Expensive human management of an ecosystem will be unnecessary.

Several giant cold-hardy bamboo species that can be grown in the same climate conditions and can be harvested in 18 month cycles. The genus Phyllostachys, a timber bamboo, can produce enough stands to sustain electrical energy production and replace the need to rely on old growth forests and open companies like Mercer and the Gorman group to new markets such as the fabric manufacturing.  North America and Canada both need to invest in innovation and save our wild and precious ecosystems.

Please sign this petition to help influence Canadian and North American Timber companies, like Mercer and the Gorman Group to change their wasteful logging operations to sustainable operations using bamboo. The decision makers I will contact and present our petition to first are: Kerry Rouck, Corporate Forestry Manager for Gorman Group of Companies, James Shepard, Director and Chair of Mercer's Environmental, Health and Safety Committee and as a Member of the Audit Committee, to Chris Ritchie, Overseer British Columbia's Ministry of Forest, Lands and Natural Resources, and Michael Copperthwaite, Revelstoke Community Forest Corporation and David Moskowitz, writer for the noted information within his High Country News article.

.