Elphinstone Logging Focus (ELF) and its supporters converged on Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) headquarters March 10 with the message, “It’s time to bite the bullet and buy it.”
“It” is a block of private managed forest land in the Chapman Creek watershed, owned by AJB Investments. The company started logging and road building on its property in early February and ELF has been blocking the main road in since Feb. 12.
The 50-plus people who turned out were hoping to see the SCRD endorse an emergency motion crafted by ELF. It read:
“The SCRD will establish or resume negotiations with AJB Investments in order to stop the current logging and road building in our watershed, and reach a resolution to the private property issue once and for all.”
“We are meeting with AJB … that’s as much as I can tell you, because it’s in camera,” SCRD chair Garry Nohr said. “We are communicating and meeting with SIB (Sechelt Indian Band) on the same process.”
Nohr said he and other SCRD officials are trying to arrange a meeting with the minister of forests, lands and natural resource operations in the last week of March. “We’ll be proposing, one more time, us having more control over the watershed,” Nohr said.
“We’re on the same side,” Nohr told the full boardroom. “You might not think so, but we have to do everything exactly legal to make it work. It might not happen overnight, but we are working for the people of the Sunshine Coast to get control of the watershed. That’s been our goal from day one I’ve been on this board, but we have had a lot of setbacks. You’ve [ELF] had a lot of setbacks. So, rather than be challenging each other, we’ve got to be working together.”
ELF’s Hans Penner said, “We don’t disagree with that approach.”
In response to a question at the end of the board meeting, some directors offered advice on what the public could be doing to help the efforts.
“Public citizens could write letters to the forests minister, point out that you’re concerned, and what the community is concerned about. You could also support us when we go to the ministry or talk to the Sechelt Nation,” Nohr said. “You can be like the rest of them and block the road if that’s what you want to do, but I think it’s the actual getting ink on paper that’s going to finally do it.”
Elphinstone director Lorne Lewis added: “Another thing that you can do is write the minister of health and ask him to reinstate the Local Board of Health as an option for local governments to pursue these things. We did that in 2007, and as soon as our hearings were over, the provincial government acted to cancel out that option. That was by far our strongest tool.”
At the rally staged by ELF ahead of the meeting, shishalh Nation member Willard Joe told the crowd he’d managed to get signatures from 28 band members on a petition, urging the SIB chief and council to try to enforce a moratorium on logging activity in the watershed, but it didn’t get the response he was looking for.
“They said we’re looking into it,” Joe remarked, “Famous last words … we’re looking into it.”
