The Elphinstone Logging Focus (ELF) blockade in the Chapman Creek watershed is entering its fourth week – and although nothing’s been settled, it appears all sides are still talking.
Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) chair Garry Nohr told Coast Reporter the SCRD and ELF were set to meet March 3.
Nohr also said the regional district has continued meeting with representatives from the Sechelt First Nation and AJB Investments, the company that owns the disputed cutblock.
ELF, meanwhile, made fresh proposals to SCRD officials this week. In an email, ELF suggested the regional district delay or cancel the work on the Chapman Lake outflow and water metering, and use some of the roughly $9 million budgeted for the projects to fund a land swap. The group also suggested Sunshine Coast residents would support borrowing money for a deal.
ELF’s Ross Muirhead told Coast Reporter Wednesday that a contractor got into the site to start prepping already felled trees for hauling, and the blockaders were able to convince him to leave.
Muirhead also said it gave them their first real sense of how many trees had already been cut in the two weeks before the blockade started. He added that ELF will contact AJB and offer to allow the company into the site to remove the logs, if it agrees to certain conditions that include no further logging and roadbuilding, and a halt to logging on its other holdings in the area.
