The Sunshine Coast Community Forest (SCCF) has had a profitable year, has just acquired sophisticated new mapping data, and has re-affirmed a commitment to not log the Grey Creek Community Watershed for at least five years.
These were some of the they key messages presented to a crowd of just under 40 people at the SCCF's semi-annual open house Thursday, Oct. 21, at the Seaside Centre.
Sechelt Community Projects Ltd. operates the SCCF; the District of Sechelt is the corporation's sole shareholder.
John Henderson, SCCF board chair and president, told the room that the SCCF has been profitable this year not just financially, but in terms of economic impact, education, recreation and tourism.
"One of the things that gives all of us on the board great pride is to be able to hire locally and to keep about $1.4 million in the community locally this year," he said, describing the organization's economic impact. He further noted that that impact multiplies when local employees spend their money on-Coast.
This year, he said, the SCCF has harvested 26,000 m3 of timber, of which 20 per cent was sold locally, 71 per cent was sold throughout the province and nine per cent was exported - principally to Korea and Japan.
"I should emphasize, we sold first to every local customer, we supplied requests for the British Columbia industry, and only then did we look to export," he said.
Henderson also described new high-resolution topographic mapping data the SCCF has recently obtained through an airborne surveying process and technology called LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), which is accurate to within one metre.
"So we can tell almost on a tree by tree basis the height, the coverage - it's a very important tool for future planning," he said.
Besides speaking of the organization's successes, Henderson spoke about some of the challenges it faces going forward - noting that 2009 was "the worst year in history for the forest industry," and that 2010 proceeded to be worse yet.
"And it's not looking like 2011 will be any better, so we've got some real challenges to work on and really to pursue every opportunity, no matter how small," he said. "And that's where some of the local sales have been very, very helpful to us in adding to our economic success."
In another presentation, consultant Brian Smart noted that the SCCF is in the process of updating its Community Forest Operation Plan. The plan, he said, explains "what's going to be going on in the forest" in an accessible way. The update, he said, will go to the board in November, and, once finalized, be posted on the organization's website.
After presentations, SCCF representatives fielded crowd questions. Henderson responded to a question as to why the SCCF's commitment to not log the Grey Creek Community Watershed expires after five years.
"Why we are not prepared to go beyond five years is partly because we haven't even assessed what might be out there," he said, noting that "spacing" the trees will help the health of the stand. "But we can't make commitments beyond what our management are comfortable with, and in this case we're saying we've extended [our commitment] effectively because we made a five-year commitment three or four years ago."
Operations manager Kevin Davie added that the organization's contract with the province for managing local forests does include logging in the Grey Creek community watershed "at some point in time."
"We have to manage the licensed area for forestry products, which is logging, as well as non-timber forest products, but specifically timber," he said. "So if we don't do that then [the province] will take the cut away from us - and give it to somebody else."
