B.C. Timber Sales (BCTS) said it will not honour requests from governments and community organizations on the Sunshine Coast to halt the sale of cutblock A87124.
"BCTS' mandate includes generating provincial revenue, and in doing so providing local employment opportunities. BCTS intends to proceed with the auctioning of TSL A87124. The timber sale is already advertised; the tender opening date is Feb. 29," said BCTS communications manager Vivian Thomas in response to an email exploring the possibility.
Recently, the Roberts Creek Community Association (RCCA) and Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) joined the community group Elphinstone Logging Focus (ELF) to call for a halt to the sale of A87124, which rests in the borders of ELF's proposed expansion of Elphinstone Provincial Park.
The SCRD board had expressed concerns about the proximity of cutblock A87124, amongst others, to existing clearcut sites on Mount Elphinstone in October 2011. That board's resolution also expressed worries surrounding the loss of old growth trees and the future of recreational trails in the area.
A letter to timber sales manager Don Hudson at BCTS dated Nov. 2 expressed those concerns, but received no response.
"While not possible to balance all interests within every individual timber sale, BCTS is trying to meet the broad spectrum of public interests across the 6,000 ha of forested lands managed by BCTS on Mount Elphinstone," added Thomas.
Lacking a clear sense of what impact cumulative logging operations on the forest could be, the SCRD's Feb. 2 community services committee moved to request a meeting with the Ministry of Forests district manager, in order to discuss the long-term effects of Mount Elphinstone harvesting.
The committee had also requested that sale of the fated cutblock be put on hold until such a discussion could take place.
BCTS said it currently harvests an average of 27 hectares annually within the area, an amount the organization said is half of what the area can naturally support.
The A87124 cutblock is, however, estimated by BCTS to be in the neighbourhood of 40 hectares, 10 of which they said will remain as "wildlife tree patches and riparian reserves to protect biodiversity."
At the Feb. 2 committee meeting, Roberts Creek director Donna Shugar lamented the adjacency of the proposed cutblock to the existing 160-hectare Columbia National Investments clearcut, the largest on the Coast.
"That remains, for me, one of the primary concerns," Shugar said, describing it as simply "inappropriate."
Ross Muirhead of ELF said the organization will continue to lobby local governments for support in their fight against a sale of the cutblock, taking their requests for support to Gibsons, Sechelt and Coastal chambers of commerce.
The group has expressed a multitude of concerns including threats to recreational, tourism and economic opportunities offered by the natural heritage of the area, as well as the unique biodiversity and habitat it provides to the Coast's ecosystem.
"It creates a new exposed perimeter," Muirhead said with reference to the expansion of the CNI clearcut. "It could potentially cause more additional blow-downs on that exposed perimeter, and again, whenever they log one of these intact forests, it removes a piece of bio-diversity that was in place there."
