Lawyers for Elphinstone Logging Focus (ELF) have succeeded in getting a temporary injunction against harvesting and road work in the Sunshine Coast Community Forest’s (SCCF) EW28 cutblock.
EW28, often called the Chanterelle Forest, is one of the three cutblocks the Community Forest put out for tender last month.
The injunction, issued by BC Supreme Court Justice Lisa Warren on Dec. 22, runs until Jan. 2 when another hearing is to be held in Vancouver. It was unclear how much work logging contractors were planning to undertake between Christmas and New Year’s Day.
ELF has long opposed harvesting in that area, and argued in court that the cutting permit was issued “unreasonably and without procedural fairness.”
The group’s petition to the court said, “SCCF has not consulted with community members or resource users (including mushroom pickers) in regards to the cutblock and the development of the site plan.”
It also claims that SCCF failed to assess the need for management of species such as Roosevelt elk and “site-level biodiversity.”
In a written response submitted Dec. 22, SCCF lawyers outlined the process for getting the harvesting permits on the blocks, as well as their public engagement efforts. They also note the shíshálh Nation “continues to express its support for the work” and that the successful contractor, Hayden Bay Forest Services, has been instructed to “leave all old growth timber and white pine alone.”
Several points in the response focus on the activities of ELF members.
The SCCF claims ELF has “a history of disruptive and abusive behaviour against SCCF” and that the Community Forest Advisory Committee was disbanded because ELF members were “regularly disruptive, argumentative, and abusive” at meetings.
The SCCF response also alleges ELF members have been entering EW28 and engaging in activities that forced the contractors to stop working. RCMP were involved in at least two of those incidents.
