If the Western Canada Wilderness Committee wants to halt old growth logging and log exports, then Port Alberni Mayor Ken McRae has got something to say about it first.

McRae made the announcement at Monday night’s city council meeting in response to a letter from the WCW.

Councillors voted to receive but not support the WCW’s letter.

“We (WCW) are calling for a ban on the logging of all remaining old-growth forests in B.C.,” spokesperson Joe Foy noted in a blanket letter to mayor and council.

The solution to employment in the forest industry is not to log the last of the wild ancient forests, Foy noted.

“(It’s) to ban log exports from the second growth tree plantations and to mill the logs into lumber right here in British Columbia.”

The initiative could be trouble if it gathers steam, McRae said.

Port Alberni has a unique set of circumstances that the request can just be transposed over, he added.

“People have to realize how important old growth is to our community,” he said.

“Without old growth logging there’d be no Port Alberni.”

Close to half of the old-growth forests on Vancouver Island are located in north and west coasts, McRae said.

The Valley protects half of the wood while the other half is logged.

But Island Timberlands and TimberWest log on private land and add an extra layer of circumstances out of the city’s purview.

“We don’t have much to say about that,” McRae said.

The wood is the life’s blood of the city’s mills, said Coun. Hira Chopra, who works at APD.

“If this group is successful then we’d have a hard time at Somass Mill,” said Chopra, who works at APD.

“That’s a lot of jobs.”