The Roberts Creek Community Association (RCCA) agreed to write letters in support of the expansion of Mount Elphinstone Park at its Jan. 25 meeting.
In attendance were delegates from Elphinstone Logging Focus (ELF) who have been proposing the park's expansion in an effort to protect the area from further logging while ensuring an old growth ecosystem remains in the area for future generations.
"The whole biodiversity is still there," said ELF member Hans Penner to an attentive group at the Roberts Creek Community Hall. "Imagine the economic foundation that park means Imagine that another 100 years from now."
After successfully deferring the harvest of a Community Forest cut-block in Wilson Creek last spring, the group has now set its sights on B.C. Timber Sales' cut-block number A87124, an area in the northern region of the proposed park area.
If the expansion were to become a reality, both the Wilson Creek cut-block and A87124 would be protected for the long term, ELF hopes.
In the meantime, "the critical thing is to stop the cutting down of the last blocks," Penner stressed.
Block A87124 was used for selective hand logging in the 1800s, the group has said, but still possesses many characteristics of a Coastal old-growth forest.
An expansion of Mount Elphinstone Park would set aside the area and allow for more regeneration, something that is not presently assured at lower elevations on the Coast.
The proposed boundaries would stretch from Wilson Creek to Robinson Creek, stretching from elevations of 200m to 600m.
As such, Penner requested that the RCCA and members of the community write letters to the Ministry of Environment and B.C. Timber Sales to press for a moratorium on logging in the proposed park area, especially block A87124.
ELF's hope is that a moratorium or deferment would protect the area's valuable resources while work is done to expand the park.
The group has also been distributing postcards addressed to premier Christy Clark requesting she and her staff take a look at the proposal.
"A 1,500 to 2,000ha addition will provide real protection for the environment, for you and future generations. Our new park will reconnect the three isolated Elphinstone Parks of 139ha back into one integrated, functioning ecosystem," the postcard argues.
For more information on the campaign and ELF's activities, visit www.loggingfocus.org.
