Elphinstone Logging Focus (ELF) said it’s taking legal action against the province and the Sunshine Coast Community Forest in an effort to stop the logging of the Wilson Creek area cutblock EW28, also known as the Chanterelle Forest.
The group has long opposed harvesting in that area, and plans to argue in court that the cutting permit was issued “unreasonably and without procedural fairness.”
Community Forest officials appeared recently at a Sechelt council committee meeting to outline the various approval steps needed for the EW28 permit as well as permits for two other blocks they recently put out to tender. Those steps included approval from the shíshálh Nation.
At that same committee meeting, Mayor Bruce Milne said there were talks with the ministers of environment and forests, lands and natural resources to explain “the continuing social problems on the Coast vis-à-vis the cut and the need for instituting some higher level of planning.”
ELF contends the Community Forest “has increasingly made decisions regarding the planning and management of specific cutblocks ‘in the dark,’ without public consultation.”
Sechelt council and the forests ministry have consistently said they have a high degree of confidence in how the Community Forest manages its operations.
ELF filed its petition in BC Supreme Court in Vancouver on Dec. 18 and hoped to get a court date as early as Dec. 22, after Coast Reporter’s deadline.
