A recently discovered landslide in the Wilson Creek watershed has been offered by Elphinstone Logging Focus (ELF) as evidence that the area is "hydrologically compromised."
The group came across the landslide on a walk beside one of the Sunshine Coast Community Forests' cutblock proposals in Wilson Creek.
Heavy rains that hit the Coast over the last week may have played a role.
"The exposed slope is 30 to 45 metres across at top of the bank, fanning outwards down slope in a classic bowl shape," a statement from the group reads. "It's located only 25 metres west of the flagged EW002 falling boundary."
The group has begun calling upon the Sunshine Coast Community Forest (SCCF) to reconsider their proposal for operations in EW002, alleging the area requires "full protection."
"This particular landslide was not identified in the Dobson Report -the first hydrological study undertaken in the Wilson Creek Watershed in March 2010," alleged ELF president Ross Muirhead. "Wilson Creek has high fisheries values which must be protected at all costs."
The SCCF, which delayed roughly three-quarters of its 2011 harvest to complete a watershed assessment in Wilson Creek, did not want to comment at this time.
Its chair, Glen Bonderud said he and operations manager Dave Lasser investigated the matter and found "some interesting things we like," but declined to comment specifically.
"We're in the middle of a water and a fisheries assessment so we'll just leave it at that," said Bonderud. "We'll just let the study come through and we'll wait and see what else ELF has to say about it."
On the morning of May 2, Coast Reporter received a message from ELF member Hans Penner who said that a group of 13 protestors had assembled near branch five of the Roberts Flume forest service road.
"We're having a day of protest here, there's a number of citizens, about 13 in the morning," he said. "We're protesting the logging of the TrailFest Wagon Forest."
Sunshine Coast RCMP were on hand to monitor the situation. The protest was taken down just after 3 p.m. Wednesday afternoon.
