A group of Coast residents worried about Mount Elphinstone logging practices stopped 30 vehicles travelling up the B&K logging road Friday, Nov. 12, and presented their concerns.
Roberts Creek resident Ross Muirhead, who founded the Elphinstone Logging Focus and spearheaded the protest, said the approach was an "information gate," not a blockade.
"We had this big banner across the B&K," he said. "All traffic that came up that day, we stopped them. I approached the car with some information and I told them about some of the current logging and future logging plans for Mount Elphinstone."
The flyer highlights a recent David Suzuki Foundation publication which attributes a $5,900 to $7,400 value to intact forests -citing, for example, their roles of supplying clean air and water, sequestering carbon dioxide and providing recreation.
The flyer questions the approach of B.C. Timber Sales (BCTS), which designs cut blocks and sells logging licences, regarding forestry on Mount Elphinstone.
"It seems to many residents that BCTS places a big fat $0 beside intact forests and that only by clear-cutting the forests does any value come of the trees," the flyer contends.
Muirhead said the group received a range of responses to their "information gate," including a truck driver who threatened to drive right through the banner.
"When I approached him and handed him our statement, he just crumpled it up and threw it into the back of his car and revved his engine," Muirhead said.
Other people, he said, were very sympathetic to trying to slow down logging on Mount Elphinstone.
Responding to the flyer's statements, BCTS acting timber sales manager Don Hudson said he had "a hard time" with the contention that BCTS doesn't value intact forests.
"We manage the forests sustainably," he said. "We're following all the provincial legislation and doing what we're legally entitled to do in terms of conducting responsible forest activities in the forests that we have to develop. We're mandated to cut trees down. That's what we do. But we do try and do it as responsibly as we can. And balancing resource values has always been and always will be a challenging part of the business for us."
Hudson added that in response to public concerns, BCTS recently reworked plans for a Mount Elphinstone cut block north of Crow Road, replacing two planned culverts with bridging structures to address fears about sedimentation damaging water quality.
