Protesters lifted their blockade Thursday after the company logging on private lands within the Chapman Creek watershed announced it would suspend operations for the rest of the year.
Hans Penner of Elphinstone Logging Focus agreed to end the three-day blockade during a Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) committee meeting Thursday afternoon.
The commitment came after SCRD chief administrative officer John France read an email at the meeting from Mark Rogers of AJB Investmemts, part of the Surespan group based in North Vancouver, which owns large blocks of land on both sides of Chapman Creek. In the email, Rogers said company officials met internally to consider their options after talks the previous day between Rogers, France and SCRD chair Garry Nohr.
“We will abide by the chair’s request to wrap up our operations if the illegal blockade of our property is removed,” Rogers wrote.
If the blockade was lifted, Rogers said, the company would return Friday to clear the site, situated beyond the Sechelt landfill on the west side of Chapman Creek, and ensure all environmental measures were in place.
France said a company official, in a subsequent phone conversation, said the promise to suspend operations also included the east side of Chapman Creek, where roads are reportedly in place but no logging has begun.
The company also made a verbal commitment to notify the SCRD before any logging or road-building activity starts in the spring.
Nohr called the company’s decision “a win-win situation at this point,” and said the SCRD should reach a protocol agreement with AJB “so we don’t run into this problem again.”
SCRD staff, meanwhile, reported on a plan to monitor the creek for turbidity above and below the cutblock, and directors passed a motion to discuss the issue with Sechelt First Nation council at next month’s joint watershed management advisory committee meeting.
While agreeing to end the blockade, Penner said the larger issue of logging on private lands within the community watershed had to be addressed.
“That’s the issue that needs to be dealt with before spring,” he said.
Penner said he discovered logging was taking place in the watershed on Monday, Oct. 6, and informed SCRD officials, who were not aware of the activity. The next morning he returned to the site with a small number of protesters, including three members of Sechelt Nation, and stopped the logging by erecting a blockade.
Nohr said Rogers was “very candid” about why he did not inform either the SCRD or Sechelt Nation of the company’s logging plans.
“It was because under legislation they don’t have to,” Nohr said.
The company operates under the Private Managed Forest Land program.
