Dear Editor,
Growing up both "mountain" biking and conserving wetlands and natural environments in the Lower Mainland (and appearing at council meetings around both issues), a glaring absence becomes apparent.
The biker in me loves to cycle in the forests. That bikes, their tumbles and spectators, erode forest quality and destroy forest undergrowth is indisputable. Every biking presentation to council nowadays boasts of working to "restore" the trails and streams. No amount of trail-work or replanting afterwards will remove silt from ephemeral ponds or undo destroyed animal homes and gels in streams eroded and silted from the trails and undergrowth by steep terrain biking.
The conservationist in me knows that to achieve the "sustainability" promised in our community plan, Burnaby must set aside specific areas, especially steep terrain, as no cycling. Many years of experience around North America have shown if several trails in a watershed are deemed "multiuse," no frogs or salamanders' areas will survive the silting. Without amphibians, the insects displace native plants, and non-native invasive species thrive - and on and on.
Most children now grow up in Burnaby without ever seeing a salamander or hearing a frog. We must conclude that most mountain trails need to be "walker only" if the forests and wetlands have any chance of ever resembling second-growth forests instead of just tree parks. (Dogs, too, harm amphibians and watersheds as they spread devastating amphibian viruses when owners unwittingly traipse dogs from one stream or wetlands to another. Where dog use is respectfully limited, amphibians are sighted in wetted areas!)
So, cyclists, we're good at being heard at council meetings, so let's band together and urge Burnaby to create and foster recreation cycling trails only if there are preserved, non-cycling trails through the few viably sustainable natural areas in Burnaby. I will support cycling in sustainable natural settings, once Burnaby does the hard work of protecting our precious natural heritage, not just the easy part of saying "yes" to cycling.
Thanks, too, to the wonderful Stoney Creek streamkeepers for their decades of work on this precious stream.
Jeff Anderson, Burnaby
