Central Peace-Notley MLA Todd Loewen is in cabinet again as the Minister of Forestry and Parks.
Speaking with the Trending 55 Newsroom, he says the Forestry sector has been impacted by the fires happening around the province.
“We’re gonna see as we calculate the losses as time goes on here exactly what those impacts are, but definitely the forest industry is reeling because of this with the loss of that timber and everything. We’re going to try to harvest as much of that burnt forest as we can and to try to utilize it to the best of our abilities. It does effect planning for the forestry companies and some of the strategies that they use to manage the forests that they have stewardship over.”
Like most Albertans, Loewen says he’s hoping for “rain and more rain”.
“Some of the weather changes that we’ve had with showers and things like that have helped quite a bit, but we know we’re in for the long haul here. With this many fires and this intense of fires and the size of these fires, we know we’re going to be fighting them all summer long. We’re a long ways from being out of the woods yet on the fire situation, hopefully we get some good weather to kinda dampen it down a bit and slow the spread.”
Once the fire situation is resolved, Loewen says his goals for the position will be on upgrades to parks and growing the forestry industry.
The full interview with Loewen can be found below.
– Kyle Moore, Trending 55 Newsroom
