Dear Editor,

We are beginning to understand the forces of nature even though we can do little in its more violent phases, if at all. The beauty and presumable endless delights that nature affords visitors and residents alike, in the East and West Kootenays, are so often taken for granted, but there is growing awareness that human activities cause damage that starts a chain of events that are, or can be, irrevocable. Not always visible to the naked eye but nevertheless altering the landscape and whatever lives in it that nature, over eons, has produced. Nature cannot compete with machines that are taken for granted for recreation purposes. As a senior, with a wheeled walking aid, I have become aware of how grasses and wild plants are flattened, not to spring back for days, if at all, by my wheels. And how birds and wild animals take fright by my appearance by not sticking to established trails. How much more damage is done by motorized vehicles in backcountry areas, I hate to think. The Columbia Valley Recreation Advisory Council is a smart move.

Margaret O’Sullivan

Invermere