Professor says video provides debate context

As debate heats up around a potential town boundary expansion for the Town of Ladysmith, a mapping expert hopes a video he created will lend some context.

The video shows a timelapse of areas of forest in Ladysmith that have been cleared to make way for development and logging over the last three decades.

The Couverdon proposal is to extend town boundaries to include approximately 700 acres of TimberWest land, where the company wants to build a housing development.

It would have a large impact on land in the area.

University of Victoria professor Brian Thom, who lives in Ladysmith, made the timelapse video last fall during a Geo For Good User Summit put on by Google, where he was learning to use the new Google Earth engine.

People there were using the tool to show deforestation and development in countries around the world, so he decided to localize it to his hometown. "We're at kind of a tipping point in the Town of Ladysmith," he said.

"(This video) is relevant to this debate that's going on around Couverdon, and this deal to basically trade private forest land for real estate development in the town. That will really change the face of Ladysmith, it will expand the town significantly.

"There are people in the community who are supportive of that and who are critical, so seeing that in context will help people understand."

Thom added that, in his video, seeing the pace of logging in and around the territories of the Stz'uminus First Nation is striking.

"It is shown vividly in a picture like this," he said.

"But the other side of this, I guess, is just economic development. People could look at that timelapse and say, 'wow, we're in a great tree-growing region that has made some huge economic progress.' "People come at it from their own personal experiences."

Thom said being invited to participate in the annual summit - which showcases Google Earth-related tools for environmental or social justice causes - was an honour. He has been passing some of the knowledge onto his students and hopes to do more, larger mapping projects in the future.

"I feel very honoured to participate in these meetings from Vancouver Island," he said.

"I really want to contribute to the community and things like this are a wonderful way to learn during public debates."

Thom also pointed out another analysis tool that can be used to analyze forest loss and gain in Nanaimo, or anywhere else in the world.

The Ladysmith video can be found at goo.gl/msKRDi.

Credit: Cara McKenna; Daily News