The Gambier Islands Trust met with a Ministry of Forests representative last week to discuss the timber harvesting area and impact of two proposed woodlots on Gambier Island.
Planning for the small-scale forestry operations' area is in its preliminary stage, and the trust is ensuring it will be involved in the process from the beginning.
"We can't see any rational reason why something like this would be proposed for the island," said Gambier Island trustee Robert Gibson at the Nov. 3 meeting.
Ministry tenures forester Brian Kukulies said the island's official community plan (OCP) recognizes the opportunity for woodlot management. Woodlots manage recreation, water and wildlife to create a sustainable area, he added.But trustee Kim Benson said the ministry wouldn't have approved the OCP unless some forest management areas were included. "It wasn't the community's first choice," Benson said.
The island currently has one woodlot, roughly 400 hectares, dedicated to forestry.
Benson questions why the island should have two more woodlots that are twice as large. Each of the two woodlots would cover just under 800 hectares of the roughly 5,600-hectare island.
"The impacts on everything around it could be significant," Benson said.
The area was within Canfor's tenure area before Canfor surrendered its Sunshine Coast forest licences in the provincial government's takeback program. Areas taken back throughout the province are being reallocated to B.C. Timber Sales, First Nations, smaller operators through open bidding, community forests and, in Gambier's case, to woodlots.
Lois Kennedy of the Gambier Island Conservancy wants to see Gambier removed from the Sunshine Coast Forest District's timber supply area.
"I don't believe these woodlots should be within the timber supply area," Kennedy said. "These may be blobs on the map for you, but this is our home."
She urged the ministry to have a meaningful, transparent, public process if the woodlots go ahead.
Benson said the trust has asked the province in the past to remove Gambier and heard the response the province didn't know if it was possible. The challenge, she said, is that other areas within the forest district would have to take on the volume of timber. But Kukulies said the ministry can't transfer the volume out of the area.
Gibson said the government recognizes the uniqueness of the island yet keeps the island within the timber supply area. The trust is a land-use regulator, yet the provincial government is not constrained by islands trust, he added.
"The greatest fear anyone has is not being told of something until it's reached a decision," Gibson said.
So far, the Ministry of Forests has explored arbitrary boundaries for the two woodlots. "It's very preliminary," Kukulies said. "Nothing there is cast in stone."
Access across the surrounding area to get in and out of the woodlots was also at issue at the meeting. Kukulies said there are "significant access constraints."
If and when the woodlot boundaries are finalized, the ministry would then consult First Nations, Gambier Islands Trust and the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands and hold public meetings before making a decision, he said.
