Elphinstone Logging Focus (ELF) is trying to put pressure on BC Timber Sales (BCTS) to further delay auctioning the cutblock A87126 in the Dakota Valley on Mount Elphinstone.
According to the BCTS operating plan released last spring, and referred to the Sunshine Coast Regional District in May 2018, the block was slated for logging in 2020. However, ELF said it believes the cutblock could be posted for auction as early as this April.
In a Jan. 27 press release, ELF said the area deserves protection because it’s home to bear denning areas and red and yellow cedars that the group claims could be among the oldest living trees in Canada, including a yellow cedar it believes is over 1,000 years old and another that’s 675 years old.
“We’re very alarmed that some of the oldest trees in Canada could be lost to logging,” ELF’s Hans Penner said. “This forest is a ‘time capsule’ of natural and cultural features. There are at least 33 Culturally Modified Trees (CMT) and a dense concentration of bear dens in the area.”
ELF said it wants to see the area set it aside as an Old Growth Management Area, as it meets the monumental trees classification, as shown in recent field studies by biologists and archeologists commissioned by the group.
ELF has taken direct action to stop logging on A87126 in the past, including a blockade to stop road building crews in 2015.
