Sechelt Community Projects Inc. (SCPI) is responding to concerns that logs from the Sunshine Coast Community Forest near Trout Lake have been exported for sale.
Community Forest watchdog John Bebbington filed a freedom of information (FOI) request with the SCPI board in the beginning of August asking for data on a cutblock tagged WS065.
Bebbington argued that if the logs are being exported, so too are the reduced stumpage fees and milling and processing jobs that community forests are meant to encourage.
"If we're shipping these things out of the country, worst case scenario, we're actually moving our subsidy out of the community because it was given to us to help the community," he said.
Newly elected SCPI board chair John Henderson said he would respond to Bebbington's questions but stressed, with some time to gather information, all reasonable questions to the board will be answered - no need for an FOI.
Information requested in Bebbington's FOI request includes the volume of wood cut in WS065, how much it represents from SCPI's annual allowable cut and what volume of logs was sent off-Coast.
SCPI's contract with the province states the company must log 100,000 cu. m over five years.
According to Henderson, WS065 represents about 45 per cent of their planned cuts for 2009, which is projected to be "just less than 20,000 cubic metres."
"We're a little bit below what we should have cut by now in terms of the whole five years," he said. "A little more than 25 per cent of our production this year has gone to local buyers. About 66 per cent has gone to buyers elsewhere in British Columbia. That's 91 per cent. The other nine per cent may be exported."
But, Henderson said, there is a public process that must be gone through before any logs can be sold in foreign markets
"We give absolute priority and preference to local buyers. If nobody on the Coast wants to buy them, we give second priority to sell them domestically. Only if at that point there are no buyers, locally or domestically, do we even consider export," he said.
Henderson said since SCPI started up in 2006, less than 490 cu. m have crossed the Canadian border. In the context of SCPI's three years in operation, "we're below one per cent," Henderson said.
Henderson said, at most, another 1,600 cu. m could be exported, but SCPI would begin advertising again locally and domestically before a foreign buyer was sought.
Bebbington, who attends Com-munity Forest Advisory Committee (CFAC) meetings, also alleges that not enough consultation was done with the community for WS065, but Kevin Davie, SCPI's operations manager said that simply isn't the case.
Before every cut, the public is given chances for input on walkabouts in the proposed cutblock, at public meetings, through CFAC meetings, during environmental and First Nations consultations and again right after clearing is done. Davie said all of that was the case with WS065.
Henderson said openness and accountability are important to him as SCPI chair and he welcomes questions from a concerned public.
"People shouldn't need to go through FOI to find out what we're up to," he said. "If people have questions, just ask us."
