Skip to content

Logging delayed one year

DL 1313
DL 1313
A stand of trees on the eastern edge of District Lot 1313 in Elphinstone.

Elphinstone residents will have at least one more year to enjoy a forest lot that community members have been lobbying to preserve as a park.

BC Timber Sales’ auction of cutblock A91376, located on District Lot 1313, has been deferred until next year “to allow for more discussions with the Sunshine Coast Regional District and other members of the community.”

The 118-acre forest is located on Crown land in Skwxwu7mesh (Squamish) territory at the end of Reed Road and managed by the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations & Rural Development (FLNRO).

Lorne Lewis, director for Elphinstone, said he had recently received unofficial word that the delay would take place.

“We still have a lot of work to do to get it conserved,” he said.

Lewis said BCTS is aware the cutblock is not ideally located because of its proximity to the residential population. “It does have wonderful timber value and it’s easier to recover the logs. But they would rather that stand of trees is out in the bush somewhere.”

This is not the first time the sale of the cutblock has been deferred. DL 1313 is located in an area with the land use designation of park in the Elphinstone Official Community Plan. In 2014, the SCRD board made a resolution that it does not support logging on DL 1313, but so far the SCRD has not sought to purchase the land from the Crown. “We can’t afford to give them a cheque for it,” Lewis said.

Community members have been organizing hikes through the property and initiating letter-writing campaigns to the FLNRO minister.

“It’s well loved as a park, and so we want to come up with a plan to conserve it in perpetuity so it can be used for those things… The trees in that spot are worth far more standing than they are worth to cut them down,” said Lewis, who expects to have discussions with the ministry in the coming months.

“We’ve been given an opportunity. We’d be silly to not to follow it up.”